UV Lightbox 18. - Display build - Success? Failure?

I designed...

etched...

and built a new display panel:

I wanted to do this, because I really didn't liked the original one. Too thin PCB lines what barely survived the etching (even my masking technique advanced since), the buttons are to close to each other, the display is not fitted tightly enough, the connector was in the wrong place.

I tested it. Works...

...but I can't call it a complete success. As you can('t) see the display is so dim, that it is almost invisible.

I know the reason why. It dated back in a few years. Let say five years ago, I wanted to build something. I bought a LED display and some drivers to it. The build didn't happened. To be honest I don't even remember, what was it. The LED display left in my drawer.

When I started to build this lightbox, I was thinking, that is a good idea to use the display from the drawer. It is a HDSP-B09G display from Avago (formely Agilent (formely HP)). As I figured out this is a real old design, with low intensity LEDs.

When I realized, this is a crap, I started to search something with the same pin configuration. The result is NULL - except Avago's minimally newer HDSP-B03E. I'm not confident, that this one is really brighter.

So I've two choices:

1. Try to buy and use the "brighter" Avago
2. Redesign the display once more, and create a new board (Nooooooooooooo!!!!!)

So I order the Avago display, and we will see.