Monitor Kill-Switch... Possible?

[Vue802]

Looking for anyone who can give me some insight on the feasibility of this mod. I have a BENQ XL2430T monitor and for the last couple years it has had this issue where all of the back-lights are left ON when I turn the monitor OFF. It's apparently a rare issue but my warranty is up and it's terrible to sleep with so I am trying to find a way to fix it myself. I could unplug the monitor which will cut the power and solve the issue but that's a bit tedious. Is there a way I can solder a power switch to the power connectors inside the monitor to toggle the power manually? I have the equipment but I'm not sure if there are any precautions I should know about, or if this would even work. Any help would be awesome. Thanks!

[Snipergod87]

You could get something for a wireless controlled outlet and have it plugged into that, and depending on the product it also be scheduled to turn off at certain times.

 

There are also options for some Power Strips to cut power to other devices when the master device is shut down like this https://www.amazon.com/APC-Controlled-SurgeArrest-Performance-P11GTV/dp/B002XDQAC4

[Tabs]

A really cheap solution to this would be to use an inline switch on the power lead.

 

Like this one, for example.

 

I don't know what country you're from or if your monitor uses a different connector, but there should be something similar to fit the connector your monitor has available locally.

[Glenwing]

How about just using something like this?

 

https://www.amazon.com/BindMaster-Grounded-Single-Adapter-Indicator/dp/B01M7V6U2Q/

[MrRemnant]

24 minutes ago, Vue802 said:

Looking for anyone who can give me some insight on the feasibility of this mod. I have a BENQ XL2430T monitor and for the last couple years it has had this issue where all of the back-lights are left ON when I turn the monitor OFF. It's apparently a rare issue but my warranty is up and it's terrible to sleep with so I am trying to find a way to fix it myself. I could unplug the monitor which will cut the power and solve the issue but that's a bit tedious. Is there a way I can solder a power switch to the power connectors inside the monitor to toggle the power manually? I have the equipment but I'm not sure if there are any precautions I should know about, or if this would even work. Any help would be awesome. Thanks!

A really really cheap solution would be to cover the lights In blue tack. 

[Ninja_Commander]

29 minutes ago, Vue802 said:

Looking for anyone who can give me some insight on the feasibility of this mod. I have a BENQ XL2430T monitor and for the last couple years it has had this issue where all of the back-lights are left ON when I turn the monitor OFF. It's apparently a rare issue but my warranty is up and it's terrible to sleep with so I am trying to find a way to fix it myself. I could unplug the monitor which will cut the power and solve the issue but that's a bit tedious. Is there a way I can solder a power switch to the power connectors inside the monitor to toggle the power manually? I have the equipment but I'm not sure if there are any precautions I should know about, or if this would even work. Any help would be awesome. Thanks!

I have this exact monitor as my secondary monitor with the same problem  as well. When I need to sleep, the best solution I had before was just using a towel to cover it up. But seeing these other solutions these people are showing, this might be something I will be following as well. I really want to end this backlight bleed hell that my monitor has, too.

[unknownmiscreant]

2 hours ago, Ninja_Commander said:

I have this exact monitor as my secondary monitor with the same problem  as well. When I need to sleep, the best solution I had before was just using a towel to cover it up. But seeing these other solutions these people are showing, this might be something I will be following as well. I really want to end this backlight bleed hell that my monitor has, too.

How much electronics experience do you two have? Have you worked with mains in the past?

[mariushm]

It's possible to make what you say but it would be difficult without any experience.

 

The easiest would be to use a mechanical relay to send power to a mains socket when there's 12v coming from your power supply. When your PC is off, there's no 12v, only 5v stand-by. As soon as you turn on the PC, there's 12v from the power supply so you can connect a mechanical relay to energize and connect the live wires in  mains socket and give the monitor power:

 

C14 connector (mains input) : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/qualtek/701W-X2-04/Q209-ND/245550

C13 connector (mains output) : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/qualtek/716W-X2-03/Q226-ND/245567

Regular computer cable (to connect box to mains socket) :    https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/assmann-wsw-components/AK500-OE-7-0.5/AE10695-ND/2504537

Power cable C14 - C13 (to connect monitor to the output of your box) : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/assmann-wsw-components/AK500-OE-11-1/AE9911-ND/821665

12v Mechanical relay with 2 poles (single throw or double throw) : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/omron-electronics-inc-emc-div/G2RL2ADC12BYOMB/Z4267-ND/1789829

 

and some project box  (plastic or wood) and some cable (you can buy at home depot or any store, AWG20 or AWG18 or AWG16 will do just fine.

 

This box would probably work but double check the height of the connectors and the dimensions of the relay (you want to cut rectangular holes to put the C13 and C14 connectors on the side walls so the box must be tall enough to allow that)

Project box : 5.308" L x 2.942" W (134.82mm x 74.73mm) X 1.959" (49.76mm) : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/bud-industries/CU-1874-B/377-1165-ND/387084

 

Everything would look kinda like this:

 

 

So in the example above, when there's 12v between 1 and 8 of the relay (the relay doesn't care about polarity), it turns on and creates connections between 5 and 6 and between 3 and 4 , so the live and neutral contacts are connected between the connectors and your monitor will receive power. The Earth wire is always connected, no need to disconnect it.

There's a slim possibility that the monitor will stay turned off until you press the power button but most likely it will just turn on and detect signal from video card and just work.

 

When the power supply turns off, it will no longer send 12v to the relay so the relay will disconnect the live and neutral wires so the monitor will no longer receive power.

 

You'll have to be careful about how you lay the cables inside the box, the low voltage wires (12v and ground) that you're supposed to connect to the power supply should be at least 1cm (around half an inch) away from the mains wires. Shouldn't be a problem if the project box is big enough.

 

If you want to save money you can buy a regular PC power cable and cut the connector and just solder the wires directly to the relay and that way you don't need to buy the connector on the left anymore. But you also won't be able to disconnect or reuse that power cable for other projects.

 

notes:

1. the layout of the pins is valid for the relay I linked to. Relays from other brands may have the 3-4 and 5-6 pins arranged in a different way. The datasheet tells you how everything should be connected.

2. The Live and Neutral are not black and blue. In US, I think they're black or red for Live and white for Neutral but I made the neutral blue because I couldn't draw white lines in picture without changing the background of the image.  In Europe, we're using brown for live (easy to remember, you sh*t your pants if you touch it) and blue for neutral.

Anyway, the colors don't really matter. You just have to connect Live to Live and Neutral to Neutral in the connectors. Just mentioning the colors in case you cut a power cable and see no blue wire inside.

 

 

 

 

 

[straight_stewie]

A really, really, cheap, easy, and safe (holy comma batman) way to do it would be to put a normal lightswitch in the middle of your power cable. They cost like $5 and are built to switch wallpower.

[Mihle]

One question, is that how the backlight look irl too when the monitor is on but showing a black image too?

Because if so, that's just terrible....