Case Mod - In Progress Project: Old laptop to Tablet PC

Mine has totalled about $250AUS - thats probably a bit of an over estimate but includes buying tools and materials

My screen arrived this morning!!! (Thurs March 10)

yours might just have beaten mine i think haha, i had a payment delay so was thrown out that day

mines all together now!! will take some pictures when i get home, but I tucked all the cabling behind my screen. as my screen just sits over where the keyboard used to be. works really well!

I like your cabling, it's very cool. Mine are sheilded but not by anything other then the stock insulation, mainly because they arent displayed. I still have a lot of work to do with the case but its 90% done.

Id like to shorten the usb cable but i'll see how i go - im not to confident to solder it without a "helping hand"

To fix your screen, perhaps some double sided tape? If you put it down the entire sides it would hold really well

not for the 56k users
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l2/ibelievein42/Photo0167.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l2/ibelievein42/Photo0168.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l2/ibelievein42/Photo0171.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l2/ibelievein42/Photo0178.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l2/ibelievein42/Photo0179.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l2/ibelievein42/Photo0180.jpg

 

Can't wait to see this in action. Good job so far guys.

 

Bloody hell!
That's fantastic dude. I like how you managed to keep the case intact - I went for the "throw it away and start again" approach

From your photos it looks like we both got the same screen - have you had any problems with yours or is it all hunky dory?

I've been banging my head of my desk trying to figure out how to calibrate the damn thing under Mint 9, and it seems to have a weird bug where every now and then the cursor gets stuck on the top left and hovers around dragging things and clicking. This might be my resoldering job on the cable though

I might try to put XP on this and see if I get better results from the screen. If touchscreen calibration wasn't such a woefully under documented minefield I wouldn't even consider it but Linux, you have failed me

 

Is that for airflow? Looks cool though!

 

yeah looks like the same screen, makes me question how genuine the company i bought mine from was... im sure they made plenty of profit. oh well money in my country is no bad thing. My case options were because i didnt have the time or tools to make one like yours, mine isnt very sleek to look at in person.

i have had no troubles with mine, except that if the screws holding the cover in place are too tight the cursor wont move from the corner. easily fixed though.

I've been trying to find a program i can write with it but have had no luck!

Mine calibrates with a program called eGalaxytouch (or something like that)

http://cyclotouch.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&Itemid=30

says it works with linux, but dunno what version you are running.
Im thinking of trying to get Win XP Touch on it to get a windows tablet pc sorta thing but dont want to lose my 7 Ultimate haha

 

Doesn't W7 have built in touch screen support?

 

My case or eddys?

Cheers for the link, that's what I need
Also it looks like the corner thing is the same problem I had, just taped down too tight.
Although I need to redo the cable, one bit came loose

Yeah, so does linux - *calibrating* is another thing however.
generally you plug these in and they just work, until you realise they aren't accurate and need to calibrate - then you need the manufacturers tools. it annoys me there isn't a generic built-in one for linux (that works)

i will update soon once I have this touchscreen behaving itself

 

any updates yet AC???

 

nothing atm, various real life issues getting in the way of modding

i'll post when i get some time to redo that cable.
did manage to get the right drivers for the touchscreen though

 

awesome! which drivers? im interested in getting my laptop up and running with Ubuntu and drivers and all that jazz

 

I stumbled across this thread while doing a bit of research for my own project--I'm insanely impressed! I'll be getting my old laptop tomorrow and starting in on it...it'll be slow going, but I'm looking forward to it. Just wanted to let y'all know that you have another follower!

 

My apologies for ditching this thread lately, my life continues to get in the way of spending time playing with hardware but I should finally get some time to work on this soon.

You normally don't need to worry about drivers at all for ubuntu, i just needed specific ones for the touchscreen - you can download it for free (legally too i should add) and run it directly from a CD without installing anything, this way you can play with it and see if you like it

link: http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download
You probably want the desktop 32 bit edition, not many laptops are 64 bit. just download, burn to cd and boot from it - enjoy

Thanks man, I'm taken aback by how many views this thread got, I never expected all this
Take some pics of your efforts and start a mod thread, i'd look forward to reading

I promise I'll update this soon, until then have a funny XKCD:
http://xkcd.com/875/

 

umm i already have the ubuntu cds and i already torrented both 32 and 64 bit ones just in case

 

I haven't been using mine much lately, been hectic with uni and stuff.

ac22297: have you found a program that could allow me to write with he stylus?
Whats Ubuntu like? I've been trying to decide if i want it, is it better then Win 7 ultimate?



@ howshocking: Go for it! its a great and fairly easy project to do!
i want to change my case at some point in the future... just have no time.
got to build a robot for uni

 

Umm i was wondering on something AC.. what if i dont want to use a laptop power brick at all? im not going to use laptop batteries as well... will any of these will work?? The Computer's power specs are
• Input : AC 100-240V - 1.3A 50/60 Hz –
• Output : DC 19V, 3.42A, 65W

http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/power_supplies/ac_adapters

Oh never mind... just checked the laptop's power port.. it looks good.. just torn out of the case... the wiring looks fine to me.. now i need to find something to mount my laptop lol

Heres my project Log

My Work Log

 

@eddy - Thanks! I'm trying to find some time too. I'm not quite to the cool stuff yet, but I eagerly await the day when my project is a robot instead of a binary tree :/

Does anyone have any suggestions about touch panels? Brand, model, etc.? I'm guessing my best place to purchase is on eBay....thoughts? (when you have a moment)

 

@AC2297... I have you in my Sig... Hope you did the same for your Sig!

 

Ubuntu is just awesome. Great fun to play with, free and doesn't rot the way windows does.
However, because it is a different OS, stuff that runs on windows won't run on Ubuntu without some tweaking or fooling around. There are tonnes of free alternatives but you won't be running Crysis2 on it any time soon.
The good news is you can have both installed side by side and pick which one you want to use on startup, it's very easy to set up. just grab the ISO from ubuntu.com and run it from a cd, it will guide you through installing. You only need about 10 gb or so set aside.
I haven't found any decent touchscreen apps because I didn't get mine working fully, but i'm sure there will be something in the repos.

I've had a fairly negative experience with mine so far, it is an eGalax model. I've been trying to get it to work to the extent that I'm about ready to give up on the touchscreen part and mod my case to be a bit more of a static desktop installation. If / when I get time for that I'll continue this mod thread.
My advice is unless you get a good price, don't bother with the ebay variants - but if you don't have another choice then fair enough.

done and done

 

updates

So after a long time I've not made very much progress at all, and I'm about ready to call it quits with this mod. I think I've taken this particular laptop about as far as is possible right now, and learned alot in the process.

The touchscreen I got from eBay (made by eGalax) turned out to just not be very good. Occasionally it would get the cursor stuck in the top left of the screen for no reason, I could never get it calibrated properly and generally speaking I had a fairly negative experience with it.
So at the moment, I've given up on the touchscreen idea and currently the tablet is just a laptop. I use it as a minecraft server

I think I'll lay this thread to rest now, and start thinking about my next project.
Real life issues have been getting in my way for the past few months, but now Summer's coming along I feel like doing some work so if I come up with something cool I'll start a new log.


To all who were inspired by this and have started your own, I offer congratulations and good wishes, and urge you to start your own build log on here so I can see what others come up with

 

AC what are you going to do with the touchscreen? taking it off the mod??