backlight and wall power supply mod for my weather station

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

i have one of those flimsy plastic weather station things, and 2 things about it annoy me. 1 is that the display is impossible to read unless i have a light directly facing it and 2 is that it says low battery. it's been saying low battery for a year. not joking. 

 

so, i wanna tackle both of those issues and build a backlight into it in some way and also have the ability to run it from wall power so that the low battery warning goes away. is there an easy way to do these things? 

 

i assume that the wall power thing is jsut finding a 3v power supply and soldering it to the battery contacts but the display will be more tricky.. 

[W-L]

51 minutes ago, Ashley said:

i have one of those flimsy plastic weather station things, and 2 things about it annoy me. 1 is that the display is impossible to read unless i have a light directly facing it and 2 is that it says low battery. it's been saying low battery for a year. not joking. 

 

so, i wanna tackle both of those issues and build a backlight into it in some way and also have the ability to run it from wall power so that the low battery warning goes away. is there an easy way to do these things? 

 

i assume that the wall power thing is jsut finding a 3v power supply and soldering it to the battery contacts but the display will be more tricky.. 

It may be easier to find a 5V power supply and to then use a buck converter to drop it down to 3.0-3.3V for continuous operation. For back lighting that would depend on the display for the unit, most likely it just a segmented LCD like on a calculator so it may not be possible to backlight the best would be in those situations is to edge light the display. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

19 hours ago, W-L said:

It may be easier to find a 5V power supply and to then use a buck converter to drop it down to 3.0-3.3V for continuous operation. 

nope i have some 3v power supplies

 

19 hours ago, W-L said:

For back lighting that would depend on the display for the unit, most likely it just a segmented LCD like on a calculator so it may not be possible to backlight the best would be in those situations is to edge light the display. 

what is the easiest way to edge light the screen? 

[W-L]

6 minutes ago, Ashley said:

nope i have some 3v power supplies

 

what is the easiest way to edge light the screen? 

It depends how many are needed but as long as it's the regular segmented LCD with a relatively thick plastic front it can be edge lit. Some side firing LED strips may be easiest or you can dot around a half dozen or so single color LED's and powering them using the 3V supply. Also make sure your 3V supply is a regulated supply meaning it outputs exactly a nominal 3.0 to 3.3V.

 

https://ledlightsworld.com/products/12v-dc-smd335-300-side-view-flexible-led-strips-60-leds-per-meter