A Glow-in-the Dark

Ohailoo

I'm obnoxious and lost my sense of humor somewhere long time ago,
so will just describe this small idea I got a week ago and just managed to finish (don't ask me how).

Idea is simple:



Okay, here it goes, you silly:

I'm the proud owner of the only Alienware M11X R3 in the entire world (haha, not you!) and one day (actually, one week ago) decided to light up the alien face on the lid of the laptop with some glow-in-the-dark sticker. I went on eBay, bought the last glow-in-the-dark sticker for about $5 (I have some money left after doing so, it's not like it was all my money, no), and here it arrived, right to my door! Magic!

Part II: the real deal.

Took apart my baby, removed all stuff I had on the back of my laptop's LCD and glued that thing on the white surface (back of the LCD).

Final battle:

now, each time I shut down my laptop in the dark room, the AlienWare logo glows in the dark. LCD's backlight charges the sticker up, so it won't need to be on the light to get charged. It comes in handy because I now won't sit on my baby again. (I'm sorry baby, daddy didn't mean to hurt you).

Part Deux:

I thought about it before applying the sticker, but yes, it really does provide a passive backlight to the LCD if we turn the backlight off.
The highly-skilled team of computer engineers (me) used this command in GNU/Linux to test it:

Code:

echo 0 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness; sleep 20; echo 111 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

(had to be run as root)

The spots which have the reflective foil on the lid light up the screen the most. But the whole area is still being charged from the LCD's active LED backlight.

If you intend to apply this mod to any of your LCD's, here's my tip for you:
apply the sticker glowing surface facing you, so that it will get charged better and produce much more glow.
The brand logo doesn't need as much glow as the screen, so you could still get 2 mods in 1.
Use reflective foil between the LCD and the sticker as much as you can. That will improve the charging of the glowing element and reflect the glow back to your eyes off that sticker.
I should've tested which side glows better, but my main goal was to make the alien face glow, not to use that sticker as an alternative source of backlight. I may still flip the sticker one day, just for that extra ego boost.

Not putting any photos up because I'm tired as hell and want to sleep.
Can only tell that It's not powerful enough to distinguish what's going on on your screen;
and I would really recommend you to use glue and apply the sticker glowing side to the white surface of the back of the LCD.
(I may be wrong and I'm not responsible for any damage this mod could cause to your hardware).

P.S.
Yes, AlienWare face still lights up white if the backlight is on.
P.P.S.
And no, I don't see any "green" shade on either side of the lid while backlight's on.
It only works when there's no light source


Summary:
I want to sleep, and don't want to write anything else besides that I just wanted to share the information and you're welcome to try it yourself if you don't have anything better to do (it may really be an energy-saver for laptops, esp. if you guys and girls improve the technology, e.g. put the sticker instead of one of the layers inside the LCD assembly or just find a better way to implement my idea.

Thank you
- lowz, kissez, boobz and beer. yourz troolu, flatr0ze

 

Cool mod! Thanks for sharing!

 

I agree, cool mod. Is this similar to the sticker you purchased? 8 5" x 11" Premium Luminous Glow in The Dark Tape Sheet Sticker | eBay

 

Yes, Sir, that is exactly the one I got.
It is extremely sticky, so just you know.
If you don't care about trying to accomplish the passive screen backlight
with it but rather just to light up the brand logo on the top side of the lid,
just stick a small piece of it to the other side of the screen.

You don't have disassemble the laptop to do this with AlienWare m11x, but
keep in mind the plastic locks on the bottom of the lid (you have to close it to pop them open from behind).

I used scotch tape to remove dust off the LCD glass before closing it up (don't apply pressure,
just touch the screen with it to "pick up" the dust.

You could also cut off a small triangle off that sticker's corner and experiment with it.
Don't forget to apply the reflective metal tape to the black spots behind the screen to help it charge better.

I bought Yellow-Green, it seems like it's more "natural" color for glow-in-the-dark things than Blue-Green, but you could get two and let`s know Ü

You take care Steelfatboy, okay?
...and watch out to keep them oily fingers off the screen's internal surfaces!

P.S.
Also, besides my idea of "stripping down" the last few layer(s) off the LCD to let the sticker light up the screen better, think about stacking a few stickers in layers. I've also been thinking about applying glow-in-the-dark paint instead of a sticker but somebody's too lazy to do that, besides I only got one laptop.

Thank you for your interest, glad to see more crazy people!

 

Thanks for the advice. At this time, I plan on only making the brand logo glow. Yep, I got the Yellow-Green, too.