Ok fam,
I was a little bored and was looking to do some dope changes in my 505, I was like what I can do with this machine?? maybe some paint? nah... a custom skin??... couldn't find any... so then I thought about hey! could be cool if I can do something with the display... since the original display it is so boring (the color scheme it is not that great...) so I was doing my research and I found this shit called polarizing film used to invert the LCD displays... so I said yeah!!... I bought a polarizing film sheet from American Science & Surplus I paid like $2.5 for a 12" x 7 1/8" sheet + S&H.

So...
to the tutorial...


***WARNING!! DISCONNECT THE POWER SOURCE BEFORE YOU PROCEED!!***

First thing to do is remove the knobs and data wheel, please see pic below:



Turn down your SP and remove the screws and SM cover, see pic:



Be careful pulling apart the top and bottom part of your SP since both are connected through some ribbon cables and you could damage the cables if you are not careful enough.
Then you need to take out your screen removing the 4 screws that hold the screen to the case



When you have your screen removed you are going to find that it has a polarizing film in it so you need to remove the old one using a sharp knife and being very careful, TIP: you can start with one of the corners as you can see in the pic below, then you can pull the corner and take out the film, be patient and do this very carefully... applying to much force can ruin your display!!





Take your time to remove the film, anyways it is a very small piece and its going to take not that long, but take your time!!

Then after remove the film, clean the display using some LCD cleaner, be very careful doing this too and make sure to remove all the residues of the previous film in there, it going to give you better results if you clean it very well!
Then place you new polarizing film on top of your display (I turned on my SP just to show you guys how this shit looks but with the SP turned off you also going to notice that the display turns completely black!)



Play with your film until you get to the point were your screen it is the darkest.



Then cut your film in the angle that you find that it invert your display... using some tape (take your time to do a clean job!) make sure you put the film the right way and then you can start the reverse process to close your SP, first installing your screen back, then the top and bottom part of your SP, plug it in and turn it on!!

This is very easy! you just need to have some patient and some tools (Phillips screw driver, a sharp knife, LCD cleaner, tape and your polarizing film) so if you are willing to try, then give it a try! this are some screen shots so you can have an idea!!










Good luck and enjoy your new MOD SP-505!!

Right on man, its good to stay productive. I know so many people who say "im bored" and they just go to a friends and sit around doing nothing.
I know its off topic but how do you like your Kaossilator. Ive had my eye on it for a while but ive been fighting the urge. Is it good at just sending music through it and rocking the effects? 1 effect at a time? I was considering grabbing one of those akai synthstations and using a few synth apps with some "not so good" synth sounds but making use of them with an effects processor. The i apps are reasonably good and it would be nice to use them since i usually get bored easily with those tiny ass keys and midget-sized dials.
Let me know!!!

Oh and i have a question for you abotu those polarized sheets. Where are you purchasing it from and is it expensive.

looks hot! think its alot easier to see the information as well

Oh no... I don't have time for friends, If I could have some spare time then def I'm going to find something to do, like custom my equipment or make some beats lol...

About the Kaossilator this is the KO-1, this one do not have efx, this is a synth only... what I can say is that it's amazing for the price because it is a real dynamic phase synth it has 100 present sounds (some of them has their own efx but you can't modify) definitively it was a great addition to my setup, I sampled a lot of this sounds for my Jazzilator project (303 + vinyl and Kaossilator) and I can't complaint at all... a good source for samples... actually almost all of my bass lines for that project came from this little machine... I love it!



The one that it is a efx processor it is the Kaoss MINIPK PAD



The KO-1 only have output, so you just can play shit from there, but the MINIPK has input and output, actually you can't do anything on your PK if you don't have anything coming from your input... you can even process your favorite radio station and record that shit... it is cool but I don't have that one... could be a great addition for a gig were you can play in real time!

About the sheets I google it and yeah they are cheap if you find the right place, I found some stores selling it for like $40 (but it is a package) so I was looking just to buy a single sheet since I don't need to much!... but I found this store selling it for $2.5 a sheet, shipping was more expensive than the sheet it self tho :-/

I'm just waiting for this and then I would update the pics, so stay tuned!

Cool, thanks alot man, i was wondering. I guess the kp2 and up are efx processors and the red one you showed me.

It looks cool, so does the MPC. I like the black buttons. I can't wait until I see the thread where you show us how it turned out. Or will you do that on the other forum? I really hope you can figure something out with the template. Did you get started on erasing the background?

Thanks! yeah I think it looks much better this way... all black with green letters it is easy on my eyes too...

About the MPC I can't wait either, I just need to do small things in it tho... give it another polish, apply clear paint and the lettering (which you already know it is the hardest part!) I sent like million emails and nobody or this screen printing sites answered me yet! I think I'm going to need to start making calls!

I'm doing my search about MPC LED's so I'm going to replace the green LED's for some white! since the screen it is white too its going to looks much better! I'm also going to replace some tact switches because due the age some buttons are not working smooth... I need to apply a little force in some of the most used buttons like shift, F6, cursor arrow, etc...


About the template I can erase that in a snap! I just need to find the person who can make the screen for me

nvm this post

yo this thing looks badass, props MJR

That's pretty sick right there

best display ever seen !!! thinking about inverting mine too

That looks great. I might have to do this too.

damn... I wanna do this...but im confused... how are you taping it?

Hi,

I used tape to hold the film, it is very simple process

Hi - just thinking, when i was at school the geeks among us used to do this to our little pocket calculators with lcd screens, just by turning the polarising sheet over (or was it turning it around?) anyway, we certainly didn't get extra sheets.. maybe the existing polarising sheet is all that's needed?
I'll have a try when i open up my sp505 to sort the rear jacks out... thanks for all the tutorials folks!