all right guys... thanks for the responses. I salvaged these from security keypads and by mistake, I pried opened the black metal casing of the LCD display, so it loosened the thing which affected the display.
However, after setting the pressure of the metal casing right back and resoldering it on the original board, it actually still works. I'll just have to program the thing and see where I'll go.
MrRB: I read the manual from EPE, and they said that connecting Vee to GND suffices for functionality testing, no? Also, I used 160k pot to set the Vee, that should be fine, shouldn't it?
upand_at_them: Yeah that's right, I noticed that the backlighting flips.
Ian rogers: Yeah, part of it broke off, leaving a small part connected but it's still working though.
Thanks guys!
Vizier87