Building a monitor from scratch

[ravenite]

Hi guys, I'm looking for any information pertaining to the hardware portion of the construction project i'm undertaking.

This i where I am at so far, I have dismantled a 17 inch screen from a gaming laptop i've been given which was broken (Motherboard fused itself tot eh graphics card). After having looked up the screens model/serial number and informing myself on what monitors need to function (to a fairly limited degree), I then purchased a control card that is compatible with the monitor. At this time the screen is sitting naked on a desk witht eh control card next to it, yet tot be connected. I am missing a power cable with which to power the card and screen, I will be informing myself of the required voltage soon.

I'm here today to express that I wonder if i am missing some vital piece of information.. do monitor control cards (which contain all teh interface ports such as power cable in, hdmi in/out etc..) require specific drivers to function, or will it all be 'plug and play' when i get the powercable! that's jsut 1 concern i could dream up.. please do say so if you have anything in mind that could help the construction of this custom monitor.

 

[Joe C]

You'll also need to connect the inverter in order to light up the screen. Here a link to inverters to give you an idea of what's involved and there are more links about laptop screens on the bottom of that web page
How to test screen inverter | Laptop Repair 101
If your not using this on another laptop, your going to have a very difficult time using it on something else. What do you mean by "control card"?

 

[ravenite]

Thanks for the interest Joe,

I found a video after i posted that explains the process in a pretty detailed manner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SOXMDb4cjI

Turns out I should've called it a controller board!

only takes 6V to power the screen and board the guy uses in the video too, might make the monitor mobile with a serious battery.

I'll be getting on with it now and will bump this thread with any more questions that might need to be asked down the road.

 

[carnageX]

Interesting...keep us updated on how this goes. I'd be interested to see the final result (don't forget to take pics while building it ).

 

[Joe C]

Very Cool.....i'd like to see your finished project also.
I didn't see on the video how they lit up the screen's backlight LED/ CFL lamps

 

[ravenite]

http://s22.postimg.org/kvvi2uoep/monitor_1.jpg here's my makeshift workstation in the yet unfinished coworking office i talked about in my new members introduction area thread.

my sister and fellow architect hard at work xD

here is the 17" monitor with teh control card attached and powered, the power cable is one of those laptop charger replacement cables which has a voltage regulator on the cable itself, it is set to 12V and is functioning properly! (of course the no signal message is due to not having bothered to attach a computer of any kind via the vga /in slot or the hdmi /input... so far so good... now onwards to the difficult part.. a case to hold this all in.. i imagine it'll take at least a month to get it done since I'm going to have to work it all out with a carpenter because my chosen material for the composition of the screens case is wood.

joe apparently the controller card vie its' 24 pin plug into teh back of the screen manages to handle the job of dealing with the backlighting.. it was all very plug and play ish. thank you again for the interest you guys have shown so far .

 

[carnageX]

Where did you end up getting the controller card from, if I may ask? Did you get it from the eBay store the guy mentioned in the video you previously posted? How much was it?

 

[ravenite]

hey carnage,

the core variable for getting the right card for the monitor you're looking to restore/repurpose is the model number which is clearly visible on the back of any dismantled LCD's back lighting panel. I typed the model number into ebay and I found a hong kong manufacturer and distributor of these cards who listed the one that is compatible with my LCD screen. It turns out that they promise to provide you with the correct card for any LCD provided you have the LCDs' model number. Typing 'controller card' into ebay didn't show what i'd expect in teh results oddly.... maybe there's another way of referring to this piece of hardware that is alittle more widely diffused because clearly 'controller card' isn't. Also, there were many who didn't prvide modern input slots on the cards they held for my LCD screen model... which i think is something to be wary of. My card cost me around £30, so about $45 for an american if I had to guess. You can also buy the LCD screen I recovered from the laptop I had for around £60 to £80, that's not counting purchases in bulk which can be requested... perfect for a little side hobby that you want to make abit of money out of, if you manage to sell the final product that is. the power cable came to 30 euros which makes the total running cost of this recovery project so far around £60.

 

[carnageX]

Ah alright. Was thinking about looking into doing it, since I have a couple spare panels sitting in my closet.

 

[ravenite]

hey guys, I jsut read a thread on here by gallen which started out like this:

Hi fellow techists I need some help. I basically want a to build/buy a giant portable video player that can read movies off a usb or internal drive. I'd like the display to be preferably 1080p resolution but 720 will do just fine. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm looking to inform myself for my own interest on how something like the portable monitor I'm making could be made to run .avis, .mpeg etc.. from a usb.

gallen gave me the idea.. thank you gallen if you're reading this, you're a closet product innovation genius xD.

The only way i can think of is to have the usb stick be large enough to hold a very basic Os maybe? and have that be the platform that the monitor uses to run the media files?... but a usb stick holds no processing power all by itself right.. and hte interface that my controller card provides is very basic and is only useful for adjusting basic screen settings (brightness, positioning etc.)...

this has left me really curious, i hope there are some clever guys out there with a thought or two to throw my way, I have no viable idea of how to make the above mentioned work.