Getting the treadmill put together required a trip to the local Lowe's store in search of very small screws and some non-conducting standoffs. I discovered this when I pulled out the screws I planned on using to secure the board and discovered they were self-tapping plastic screws that were too short to be re-used. After searching at Lowe's we managed to find some #2 brass wood screws and washers and used some #4 nylon nuts under the board as standoffs. Not the most perfect solution but it should have no problem holding the very small adapter board in place.
I completely removed the original inverter circuitry and tapped into nearby +5V and GND lines to power my inverter. After some tinkering to get the display to start, which required using a power supply to drive the voltage down to -8.5V before it turned on, it ran just fine and the -7.5V sets the contrast level to a nice mid-range setting.
I'm not quite ready to declare victory yet as the original consoles with the less than stellar design lasted a month or two before crapping out. So far it's been almost 2 weeks and I don't think I'm going to have any problems with the display contrast anymore.
On the embedded side I've put together the bare minimum board to start checking out the MSP430. 0603 is right on the edge of what I can solder without having some magnification to work with. Since my vision is no longer 20/20 I've done a cursory search for a nice long focal length boom microscope. If anyone knows where I can find one at a good price let me know.
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