I was digging through my box of old PC parts, and ran across an old Diamon MM Stealth 3D 3000. Not a special card, you can find them VERY easily. But I did notice the Feature Connector, curious I looked up the pin-out. (It's called a VESA Feature Connector) I found the pin-out here: Pin-out Well what the connector is really, is a PRE-DAC interface. Meaning the image data is still in it's digital state. So it sould be able to connect to an LCD, with little conversion. Well, I have two Sharp 10in TFT LCD's, VERY NICE, but no controllor card. I got them for $1 and im sure as *&#$ not going to pay $200 to run them!. (Model Sharp LQ10D131) So I am trying to figure out how to connect the pre-DAC interface to an LCD, which needs digital in anyways. I have the pin-out and schematic of the LCD here: Pin-Out Schematic So the question is how to make these two interface. I have search all over, and found this page, which mentions BOTH the LCD I have and the Feature connector. But I need translation, (Bable fish dont work well enough) Need translation If this works you can have a TFT LCD controllor for less than $20!!!
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This translator worked a bit better, (No offense) Translation It looks like they have a LCD ripped off a Toshiba laptop (Like me) The second paragraph says there is a loop of wire and then another PCB. From that PCB there are two loops, with 20 conductors (So far this is exactly what I have) He names the pins... He then says he connects them to the "Feature connector" on his S3Virge DX (26pins) It looks like he has two wires tied to each data bit. The only thing is, I don't know if it worked for him. There is supposed to be a image but it's not there. I will try later, if it works, you can put a 10 inch LCD in a PC for less than $20!
Do you know if the panel is 3.3V or 5V? I don't see a +V pin on the card's connector list. oh, btw. You know it's only a 12bit screen, yea?
It's 5volts, the full specification is linked up there. I got these LCD's for $1.00 Can't complain! I bought them to rip out the inverters and the cold cathodes. (8 Inch white CCFT, should work good) I only found out later that they are TFT, and good enough res and color for DVD's. Perfect for my media computer. 640x480x12 4096 colors Either way there are only 8 bits on the "Feature connector" so I will only end up with 256 colors. BUT if it works, it sould be better than those people who put 6 inch Composite Car LCD's in their PC. I will have to work on it after christmas.
cool zap, never thought of this b4...anyhow i think all cards have an equivalent of this just the the manufacturers stopped sordering headers onto them after a while...my 9500 pro has an area where a header would be sordered on to...i may sorder one on soon if I can get the pinouts...someone got the spec sheets for a 9500 pro?
Sorry to disappoint you Zap, but a 12bit panel isn't enough for video playback. Anyhow, good luck m8! Unfortunately, i just dug out the link to the page of the guy who's done it before (IRC) and the page looks dead.
Doesn't mean you can't do it. The res is plenty enough to run monitoring software and various other visual apps that have to display text. But the colour depth just isn't there for any decent quality
Let me get this right I olso have a toshiba TFT screen (of a toshiba satellite 2060) and I've been searching to connect it to my graphics card but I dont have such a fancy one ... with the .....port is there any way to make a controller from VGA to the TFT screen ?? (very very cheap) cuz u can buy that , but it costs like 200$ ... or is that what u were doing ?? I didnt got the thing about the other port on your graphics card ...
The Vesa feature connector is a 26 pin connector u may find on old vid cards, like the Diamond MM 3d 3000, or a 3dfx Voodoo (for example, I have a Jazz Voodoo rush that has the same connector) If u have an old vid card it may be possible that it has the connector onto it.
Zap, this has already been done in this forum. Check the LCD sticky at the top, as they have instructions there. Yeah, the biggest problem with this mod is that is only allows for 256 colors. This is because the VESA standard never really took anything further into account, it was more or less abandoned after that. What I would *love* to see, is a home-brew version of the Chips & Technologies CT65000 series chip that all these TFT controller mfgs use for the expensive LCD controllers. I know that the CT chips are pretty cheap, but these mfgs have to pay their designers and such, so it justifies their price. A homebrew version wouldn't have all these added expenses, and could probably be made fairly cheap.
Whoops... my bad. Can't figure out how it managed to get bumped to the top of the 'new posts' listing though....
Thanks Hazer. Yup, I confirmed, I have all posts older than 30 days cut off, and somehow this one still made it in the list. Hmmm.. methinks more buggy forum software....
this thread was linked to recently in a similar topiced thread - maybe its something to do with that? Anyhow, I got my TFT and VESA-connector GC and tried it, but to no joy. Not sure i soldered onto the connector on the TFT the right way round though (I had absolutely no idea which end pin 1 was on!)
