grumpybastard
6th October 2007, 12:16 AM
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/10/446.jpg
All the Pics here (http://www.weaselsnout.net/web/pics.nsf/albums/MARR-77PHCN)
This is one of those projects that i have had on the cards for so long i cant remember when i started it....
The Idea
Some years ago i read on the Internet some one who had turned a laptop into a Digital Picture Frame (DPF) of course now you can buy small versions at your Kmart, BigW etc.
The Laptop
I had an old laptop which i scored as a spoil of war in 2002 when the company i was working for went belly up. Since then it has slowly disintegrated, the screen hinge broke, the chassis eventually has cracked form the weight of the screen, i spilt coffee on the keyboard so this gave up the ghost along with the usb port and the CD Rom died years ago.
So simply it was stuffed and has been sitting around in my parts box unused for a year or more now
This laptops main feature is the 15" screen with a resolution of 1400x1050 ideal for a DPF and it has a P3 500mhz cpu with 256Mb of Ram which is enough grunt to run Windows making life simpler.
Disassembly
The original plan was to just remove the screen and extend the cable from the LCD to the main board keeping the bulk of the laptop intact. Scratch that idea there was no way of lengthening the thin foil cable running to the screen onto plan B.
Can i just say pulling this Laptop out of its case was fun...NOT!... there was a million screws, hidden screws, clips you name it, i feel for the poor Dell techs who used to work on these things! Lucky for me i didn't have to put it back together again :)
Now with everything apart with just the mainboard and the screen connected it was time to test if it still worked and yep it still boots up.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/10/447.jpg
The Frame
I was hoping to make the frame as thin as possible but no matter how i moved things about the best layout was one on top of the other.
Now i could have made the frame myself, but i thought i would stick my head into a little picture framers just down the rd, support the local community and all that.
What an ordeal that turned out to be! After explaining for 30 mins what i was after (nothing but a normal picture frame) and drawing a picture giving all the measurements etc i was still not hopeful that she understood.
I was also surprised that it would take at least a week to make! It wasn't like the customers were queuing up behind me?!?! Anyway i was to exhausted to go else where just in case i needed to explain all over again :)
1 week later no phone call, 2 weeks later no phone, approaching week 3 i rang to find out what was going on. i was informed that it was nearly ready and that i could come in that afternoon. That afternoon i went in and guess what? Yep! It was wrong! The frame was made to fit the screen exactly no 2 inch dark blue border border like i had asked for. I politely informed her i would be in for the final time at 10am the following morning to pick up the frame i had ordered 3 weeks prior.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/10/448.jpg
PART 2 - The Assembly to come
All the Pics here (http://www.weaselsnout.net/web/pics.nsf/albums/MARR-77PHCN)
This is one of those projects that i have had on the cards for so long i cant remember when i started it....
The Idea
Some years ago i read on the Internet some one who had turned a laptop into a Digital Picture Frame (DPF) of course now you can buy small versions at your Kmart, BigW etc.
The Laptop
I had an old laptop which i scored as a spoil of war in 2002 when the company i was working for went belly up. Since then it has slowly disintegrated, the screen hinge broke, the chassis eventually has cracked form the weight of the screen, i spilt coffee on the keyboard so this gave up the ghost along with the usb port and the CD Rom died years ago.
So simply it was stuffed and has been sitting around in my parts box unused for a year or more now
This laptops main feature is the 15" screen with a resolution of 1400x1050 ideal for a DPF and it has a P3 500mhz cpu with 256Mb of Ram which is enough grunt to run Windows making life simpler.
Disassembly
The original plan was to just remove the screen and extend the cable from the LCD to the main board keeping the bulk of the laptop intact. Scratch that idea there was no way of lengthening the thin foil cable running to the screen onto plan B.
Can i just say pulling this Laptop out of its case was fun...NOT!... there was a million screws, hidden screws, clips you name it, i feel for the poor Dell techs who used to work on these things! Lucky for me i didn't have to put it back together again :)
Now with everything apart with just the mainboard and the screen connected it was time to test if it still worked and yep it still boots up.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/10/447.jpg
The Frame
I was hoping to make the frame as thin as possible but no matter how i moved things about the best layout was one on top of the other.
Now i could have made the frame myself, but i thought i would stick my head into a little picture framers just down the rd, support the local community and all that.
What an ordeal that turned out to be! After explaining for 30 mins what i was after (nothing but a normal picture frame) and drawing a picture giving all the measurements etc i was still not hopeful that she understood.
I was also surprised that it would take at least a week to make! It wasn't like the customers were queuing up behind me?!?! Anyway i was to exhausted to go else where just in case i needed to explain all over again :)
1 week later no phone call, 2 weeks later no phone, approaching week 3 i rang to find out what was going on. i was informed that it was nearly ready and that i could come in that afternoon. That afternoon i went in and guess what? Yep! It was wrong! The frame was made to fit the screen exactly no 2 inch dark blue border border like i had asked for. I politely informed her i would be in for the final time at 10am the following morning to pick up the frame i had ordered 3 weeks prior.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/10/448.jpg
PART 2 - The Assembly to come