ANSWERED! The answer is "it's impossible".
Has anyone done a mod to change the LCD background color of the stock head unit? IOW change the big sea of blue to a red/orange background by changing the LEDs or something in the backlight? I didn't find any posts here but on a Mazda forum someone had carefully disassembled the LCD and done this (they went red to blue). I really like red/orange gauges a lot more than blue. (Years of living with Pontiacs heh )

How to: Change the Color of your Radio LCD (Pictures) - Mazda3 Forums : The #1 Mazda 3 Forum

6-8-2013
I got a used/broken radio on the cheap and took it apart to see how it could be changed to another color.

Stock radio from the back



I got some power to it to test the LCD would work without putting it in my own car


The outer pins on the wiring plug are for power and dash illumination, but you also need the accessory power (+) to light it all up.


Chassis comes apart easily


You can see the display is a separate piece from the main radio board, held in with simple screws. There are no weirdo plastic tabs to break


The CD player comes apart from the front button board. Notice the black connector in the center, it just mates with the opposite part without any hard to undo connector, it's just held on with the screws for the main unit


Here's the main board and LCD display. There are 4 screws and also some plastic clips. Notice the ribbon cable


In order to remove the LCD from the rest of the board, you must pull upward on the darker brown connector tabs. This releases the ribbon cable from the connector, then you can slide it out


If you want to take the main board out, take off the knob


The main board is out

This is all custom. The blue things are the button pressers, the yellow are the LEDs to light the buttons. They are front-soldered and impossible to replace by human hand (in my opinion). They light the buttons not individually, but by a series of clear plastic light paths that have reflectors and fresnels. Ingenious, but also impossible to change the color by LED. Maybe you could paint the end of the light path, but it would decrease the output significantly.






Back to the LCD. Held together with a friction dot on the case and some bent tangs



Taking off the metal cover



Removing the plastic films from the LCD. There are about 4 films behind the LCD to reflect the light: white, fresnel dotted plastic, silver diffuser, white diffuser, and then the LCD itself in the front.


And, finding that the LCD itself is dyed blue on the inside. There is no way to change the color.


This is how the guage pod info display is also built so that can't be changed either I am sure.

 

I posted a disassembly of the dash gauges too, check this link:
https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...ml#post1186845

 

Ugh sucks that the display is blue like that. Thanks for recording all that dis-assembly for future reference.

Those LEDs could be replaced fairly easily if you wanted to do the buttons. Just use one of these:


I wouldn't mind changing the button color to blue (it's white normally right? I don't remember lol)

 

the LED's can be changed. Though given that they produce a pretty high lumen output, you could easily just dip the plastic mold into some lacquer to give it a color tint of your choice. keep in mind it will be permanent should you choose to tint it.

btw if all you wanted to do was to replace the stock radio blue to a warm orange glow or even the dash given your other posting with minimal DIY work, i believe the UK version Jazz's comes in a warm orange-ish color for both the display console and radio.

my mistake it is the India version Jazz that has everything in a nice Orange glow.

 

I did this exact thing some years ago and posted my write up:

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/fit-...io-colour.html

It works really well and the glass paint is very cheap. I have since then changed out for a new Alpine HU, but remember it being a fairly easy mod to do.

The obvious "correct" way to do it is to change the SMDs by soldering on new ones instead but was afraid I would break something so opted for the quicker method .

 

Oh very nice! I had not seen your writeup! Thanks! You also have the benefit of the black and white LCD display, where I was firstly interested in changing that. And of course, the UK Version has the LCD ribbon cable reversed on the PCB as well, so I can't even buy a UK one and swap it out without making some kind of ribbon extender thing.

 

I'm re-looking at the LCD board and it appears that it has BOTH LH and RH ribbon cable attach points on the board, it would just need a connector moved to the other side for the opposite drive version. Hmmm that makes me think maybe the LCD is swappable with the right connectors. How do I get my hands on just a UK LCD part?

 

I haven't seen a part number for the LCD alone - only a part number for the whole radio which is 39100-TF3-E200-XA for the UK.

Re: the blue colour, is that the LCD itself, or is it the clear film in front of it?

 

The LCD itself is definitely blue. It's like they were made with some blue dye injected in between the glass and the LCD element. That last pic of me holding it up can't be disassembled any more.
Thanks for the part #. A friend here that works at Honda also said they can only get a whole unit.
I'd have to consider buying a UK radio, shipping itself will probably be expensive.