My OLED Commander was a Christmas present in 2013. The car is a basically a weekend warrior.
About two months ago I noticed that the brightness was decreasing.
Now you can barely read it inside the car during the day. Today I tested it inside another FD to rule out bad signals/power from the PFC.
The OLEDS are almost dead. That is a very short life of less than 5 years.

Has anyone else had a similar problem? I will have to contact Apexi about this!

 

Haven't had it happen with the OLED version, but that's discouraging for sure. I switched to the OLED because my old standard commander was doing the same thing and basically not visible in daylight anymore.

Please let us know if you find out more. I think Dale Clark was going to try to replace his screen on an OLED unit he said was dimming.

 

I drive the car about 2 hours a week. Thus for 4.5 year it is less than 500 hours. Even at double that 1000 hours is nothing for modern OLED screens.

"When we first started manufacturing OLED TVs in 2013, their lifespan was some 36,000 hours," said Lee Byung-chul, Vice president for LG Electronics to Korea Times and continued; "technological development has extended it to 100,000 hours now. This is equal to 30 years, if a user watches our OLED TV for 10 hours a day."

On the web I found three other posts about the OLED commander going bad quickly. I am awaiting an answer from Apexi on my inquiry.

 

Had the same problem I had to switch to the older lcd ones. Not as nice looking, but it gets the job done

 

Myself and one of the guys in Pensacola have had problems. I think his was showing pixel garbage, my screen is totally dead. I have one of the VERY first EL commanders that came out, not sure about my buddy's.

I got 2 replacement screens off Ebay, he installed one and that fixed his problem completely. I haven't had time to mess with mine, it's way down on the priority list for me unfortunately.

He did say it's a CHORE to replace the screen. They use a ribbon cable that normally should go into a socket, instead they soldered each point to the circuit board. You have to be super careful soldering it so you don't melt the ribbon cable. There is a "wide" soldering iron designed for this type of work, it's not too pricey on Amazon and may make the job easier.

But, big problem is the guy selling those screens on Ebay hasn't had any listed up in a bit. I don't know of another source for them. MAYBE if you re-solder the screen it will come back to life.

Dale

 

I re-contacted Apexi America to day and this time they responded.

"It would be better to buy a new one at this point. Attempting to repair one would require bench testing and sending it to Japan for repair can be anywhere from 1-2 months."

 

Wow. Thanks for posting this.

Like Smokey, I have the old version and it's getting harder and harder to read during the day. I had my eye on an OLED one but now I'm having 2nd thoughts.

 

One thing you can do with the original commanders, is to polish the top of the screen cover with something like Nu Finish Scratch Doctor.
The plastic does tend to get a little hazy being in hot cars.
It worked on my original.

 

crap response from Apexi. Did they offer you a discount on a new unit at least? Perhaps the screen replacement Dale suggested is worth it.

I ended up caving and buying an OLED unit to replace my old one as the LCD unit itself would just dim after about 10 minutes of use.

 

Here's this if anyone's feeling brave.

https://www.rx7club.com/power-fc-for...tweak-1054297/

 

As my OLED Commander is 4.5 years old, any warranty is expired. Even so the hour-age use is between 500 and 1000 hours which is small, does not matter when it comes
to warranties.

I have tried searching for a direct replacement screen, but the two numbers on the board label do not show up anywhere I look.
Going to ween myself from using the commander since my tune is great and can be easily changed with my Datalogic.

 

they still have them on ebay ,

this is the heading

Apexi Power FC PFC Commander Oled Screen only Brand New

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Apexi-Power...sid=m570.l1313

If this is it: then the actual screen has to first be de-soldered from that extra circuit it it attached to.
But the actual screen in this picture is part of the complete board.
It is wrong.

 

Not really. That is exactly what I used to repair mine. Remove hot glue on commander board, desolder existing screen connector, and solder what you see in that auction onto the existing commander board.

 

I found the pics of when I replaced the screen on mine. My screen started having dead pixels and it got very dim.

The screen and its attached green flexible portion get desoldered as a pair from the board where you see that line of 30+ silver, soldered connections. Then, you solder the new board/green portion seen in the auction as a pair onto the existing board. It took me multiple attempts, I ended up using a 150w soldering iron, the pistol style, and got it to flow out and work. Admittedly, I am not that great at detailed circuit board soldering. The pads are very close together and there's 30+ of them. It's no fun. I would personally bring the commander and new screen into a reputable cell phone repair shop and ask them to do it for $20-30. I'd pay it in a second.

 

my oled screen went out sitting for a year. replaced with the one on ebay, works like new now

 

If we know what lcd controller apexi use then it wil lbe easy to find lcd units in the market
I search ebay to buy one for my pfc but is not available

 

Based on the images on the ebay listing above (which is no longer available for purchase, I messaged the seller to see if they had any more) I believe the OLED display is a RiTdisplay P19701. I still haven't managed to find one for sale yet though.... Apex'i wants $120 and a month and a half to fix it... NOPE