I’m something of an anti-backlight guy, and I intentionally designed Floppy Emu with the LCD screen’s backlight disabled. Without the backlight, the text is crisp and the contrast is excellent. With the backlight, the text looks more washed out, and imperfections in the LCD glass become visible. Nevertheless, some people really want a backlight, so this post will show you how to hack your Floppy Emu to turn the backlight on.

The LCD already has four backlight LEDs built-in to the edges of the display, and all you need to do to enable them is solder a resistor or a piece of wire to the right pins. The procedure is slightly different, depending on which version of the LCD you have.

For Floppy Emus with serial numbers 51 and higher, connect the holes labeled LIGHT and GND at the top-right of the LCD with a low-value resistor, or a plain piece of wire. If you use a resistor, I recommend something in the range of 10 to 50 Ohms (lower values will give a brighter light). Because the LIGHT and GND pins are so close together, you’ll probably need to orient the resistor vertically, as shown in the photo. For the brightest backlight, use a plain piece of wire instead of a resistor. This won’t damage the LCD, because it already has a small backlight resistor built-in.

For Floppy Emus with serial numbers 1-50, the LCD design is slightly different. Connect a resistor between the pins labeled LED and VCC at the top of the board. You’ll probably find that there’s already a cut-off pin at those two spots, so you can solder your resistor to those pins. I recommend a resistor in the range of 47 to 100 Ohms. Don’t use plain wire here – these LCDs do not have any built-in resistors, and using them without any resistance may damage the LCD.

Some of the LCDs have a white backlight, and some have blue. It’s a surprise!