Touchscreen Calibration

Unless I've missed this symptom in my reading, I haven't found much of an explanation for loss of calibration. I have a CF-18 MK5 and the touchscreen works on it, and it works extremely well for a little while. If I come to it about an hour later, it's close to correct in the upper right corner, but almost two inches away when in the lower left corner. Some of the things I've seen have said it's a defective touchscreen, while others say updating drivers fixes loss of calibration. Anyone have any ideas on that?

 

If the calibration goes out after an hour or more of running, I would say you have a bad connection, caused by heat, on the TSPCB where the touchscreen connects to it. On 1 CF-18 I had, I had to shim up the end of the TS FCC so the clamp on the PCB connection held it tightly. I used a strip of mylar for the shim. When done, secure the connection with some kapton tape.

 

Have you run the calibration software, if so did it run ok or did you get an error at the end of it ? This is not a driver problem.

 

The rule of the day seems to be to throw drivers at any problem. That's the last thing I do..........What's happening>>...it's easier to muck aboot on the internet then it is to break out the screwdrivers.

CF-18,29,30MK1,19MK1 have screen separation issues. Heat caused.

In other words.(Listen)..

Sorry mate but you caught me at a bad time....That being said, the above quotes are usually true. My credentials may be found elsewhere regarding touchscreens.

Save yourself time and grief and install a new touch panel. All else is a waste of time "in the long run".

That is not to say that I don't agree with statements made by several folks above. Hi guys.:hi2:

 

Yeah, I didn't feel like it was a driver related issue either. I don't really know how things like that update or how updating drivers ever really fixes problems. I'm not sure how well it worked before, or how long it's been doing this. It's one we've been using at work for ages, but I know two years ago it worked fine...so well, in fact, none of us knew how to calibrate it. Sometime in the past year it has started losing that calibration and we've always blamed it on this guy on our team who is just "that guy" who always messes things up. I'm seeing now that it was never him at all haha. As for the calibration software, I think it works okay, but I'm not sure. As I go through the nine points, it moves on to the next one as it should. When I touch the last one, it just starts over at the beginning. This is the only one I have with a working touchscreen, so I don't know if that's normal or if it should say something worked as it should. I think the one I have with the digitizer said something at the end of the nine points. Anyway, when I hit the last one, I have to hit enter and it just closes and the calibration works perfectly and there aren't any error messages. I just figured I'd see some more instances of this kind of symptom occurring for people if it was a known symptom of screen failure.

mklym: One of my CF-19s had a working touchscreen until I opened the lid and didn't close it back up properly. Since then I've noticed that the touchscreen will either only work within one axis or will not work at all. I opened the lid back up and messed with that connection and found that wiggling it would cause the screen to work in that one axis sometimes intermittently. I'm guessing that's the connection you're talking about, the thin cable wrapping from the top of the touchscreen over the top of the screen then folding back on itself and sliding into the connector. I haven't opened this 18 yet because I'm scared of messing up this one since I don't even know what went wrong with the 19, but that connection on my 19 is very loose even when clamped and I've been wondering if that's how loose it was supposed to be as crazy as that would be. I've seen crazier things called "normal" in my line of work.

 

sterben, yes that is the connection I am talking about. If you don't have any mylar you can probably some thin plastic from a water bottle, or such. Make sure it is not too thick, or the clamping latch will break. Try it on the CF-19 as you have nothing to loose. If the FCC was caught between the lid halves, then you might have broke a trace in one of the circuits and getting a better clamp on the FCC will not fix it.

Hi Sadlmkr. :hi2:

 

Hmmmm... A bad touchscreen on a black Toughbook? Who would have thought...

 

Do ya know what toughbook meant? Black casing = heat...heat leads to stuff moving around....expansion contraction and that bit. We spend a lot of time being facetious and assume everyone knows what we are talking aboot.... PLEASE if it is not clear either PM the facetious bloke or ask him ootriight and benefit all.
Yah, I know aboot and oot are not "proper English"....just trying to gain your attention

 

Well! who could have thought that the ts panel on CF-19MK3 will never fail. We are all wrong! I've purchased a bunch of CF-19Mk3 dual ts model and two out of four failed the ts panel. The problem is not the usual one that you may think of. Its another page of repairing the TS panel if you could have luck only. The problem is within the circuit line on the four side of the panel. I troubleshoot one but the other, no joy. What I do is, pull out completely the panel on the bezel and look with a magnifying glass thru each individual line. There you will notice a bit some thinning line like separation and from there I have applied a bit of heat and then press gently until it cool. tested again till its ok! As mentioned by our co forum member "Mklym" its due to heat overtime. And my addition guess is also the pressure on the rubber dumper. When the unit is on operation it create heat + the pressure then the result will be the separation of those thin layer lines. The other unit is nowhere I can repair. So, it will be junk. It will be junk coz there no way to access those thin layer circuit line. It was built and sandwich by two separate glass tack( is it the right words, lol..) together and when you try it will break the glass. Don't assume I break the glass. No! I leave like that and will offer the unit as digitizer only not dual ts, lol... Digitizer will never fail on regular use. It is a separate panel at the back of the LCD. It will only fail when it has a loose connection or a broken cable from the panel to the mobo..

ohlip

 

Yeah, I imagine the black can make it difficult to reflect heat-causing light and the extra layer of material can make it difficult to radiate internal heat. The CF-18 with the working touchscreen is still factory silver, and the CF-19 was silver when I broke it. The only thing I think went wrong when I put the 19 back together that day is one of the black foam near the top was tweaked out of position a little bit. It didn't take much effort to close the lid, but I did notice there was a little resistance. When that screen no longer worked correctly, I opened it back up and noticed that pad turned out of position and corrected it. After that, the lid closed fine but the screen only worked in one axis after that pad repositioning. I opened it again and found the loose connector but was never able to even hold it in a position that would allow it to work fully. That's when someone on here said activity in one axis is a symptom of ts failure so I just gave up on trying to save it. I might open it back up and see if I can spot anything else interesting with it, but if not, I've come to grips with the loss of that ts. To the best of my knowledge, this 18 with the working ts has never been opened or violated in any way short of having its battery replaced a time or two. If someone recognizes rapid calibration loss as a sign that the ts is on the way out, then I won't worry about it and just consider replacing it at some point.

 

Well said and good advice in my opinion. I have created greater problems by trying to avoid the obvious. (in life in general)

"Putting out fire with gasoline".............................

 

The CF-29 has a "spring loaded" latch on the TSPCB...actually tension only holds the FPC. Some clown...decided the sliding latch was better so used it on the CF-19. The TSPCB is a replaceable part BTW. Meanwhile what folks like Morgan and I do is use what is "to hand". In this case baling wire would probably not work. (my favorite)
*The point>>>>always firmly tape the FPC in place once certain of a connection.*