I recently had an idea, think of this, if you have ever been to the dentist you know they have those lights on a spring tension system, similar to a lot of professional desk lamps, the kind with 2 lights in them. Basically the idea is to mount it to my ceiling and have about 5 or 6 joints, all spring tensioned so they stay where I move them. It would float around anywhere in my room, and on the other end would be my monitor, flat panel, roughly 15 pounds. My question is, yes I've already run a search, do monitor extension cables exist? And if so how far can they go without losing signal quality? I'm thinking I'll need at least a 6 foot extension, onto the already existing length of the monitor cable. Thanks for any help, I appriciate it.
of course the signal quality will decrease after 3 to 4 feet. I thought about the same idea but then realized that they use gas shocks (the ones you see on a stationwagon, or trunk of a car), except able to hold a lot more weight. I searched into this and found out that each shock is 70$, and you would need 4 of them.
I know you can buy LCD mounting plates with those swively things on them... locally they went for $100 (or $50 for a stationary one) although I'm sure you can get them cheaper online. 15 pound flat panel? That thing must be huge! My 15" is like 7-8lbs...
Well, the system I was thinking of would just involve a few peaces of metal, and springs in the right spot to keep the joints stable, thats what my desk lamp uses. If that failed I was thinking strong wire, like flexywire thats used in some products. But none of this will happen if I can't extend the cable. So you say that only 3 feet after what is already provided with the monitor it will lose quality? Is there some way to get around this, some sort of booster thats available?
the cable can be alot longer than 3-4 feet, if you look at the cables running to a projector mounted on the ceiling the cables are at least 10-15 feet and they are normal vga cables
The one thing I'd do is build a large bracket that went around the outside walls of your room, this way if you have any weakness in the wall then the monitor arm would not add to that weakness. You could also take it to another house, if you ever moved and then that would cause less hassel imo.
You can purchase 'VGA' cables in lengths up to 100' pretty easily, beyond that you need a signal booster. I have used used 100' cables at 1024 x 768 on many instances. I couldn't tell you about resolutions higher than that, but I don't see a problem. The one issue I have noticed it that occasionaly you will get a sync shift with longer lengths of cable. Try cablewholesale.com
you can go buy em, like this one in kongs cnc log http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=480363&postcount=229 'doc
Wow, well good then, this sounds like its going to take off, I'm getting the monitor tomorrow hopefully and I'll also talk to my boss at Ace Hardware, hes a great handy man, he should know a few different ways to do this. I don't believe you can just buy the desk lamp arm, and if you bought just the desk lamp, they are quit pricey, and I would need at least 3 of them to go everywhere. I don't see there being too much problem as long as I hit a joist stud, which I intend to do, my dad is a contractor as well, so this should go smooth once I find how I want to build the arm. So stay tuned, I'll post pictures of where it will go and the materials I will use, and of course, the finished product. Are you sure that link is right Doc? It brought me to a single post.
Well cablewholesale.com looks extremely promising, they suggest for VGA cables over 15 feet you use a super VGA cable, which they clam can run up to 100 feet without signal denigration, so when I find out how much cable I need I think I found what I'm looking for, thanks a lot mrgoins for the link. The flexy cable I was referring to earlier, I found out what it really looks like, its metal, and has raised rings every 1/2 inch I would say, but I'm not sure that will stay put with something heavy on the other end, not to mention how long it will need to be, I'm thinking 10 or 15 feet? Humm...I'll post pictures of the living area soon.
Fear not about signal quality... In the projection computer at our church (which i happen to run) we have a geforce 3 (i think so anyway) and it powers dual monitors and the projector that comes off a splitter of the second screen, to a 100' vga line and thats at a 1024x768, so i say you'll be fine...
no, pneumatics I think he is talking about the cylinders that hold open trunk lids on cars. Or close screen doors.
yer look at the arm holding the CRT up in the 3rd picture. also mappers sell one look here www.maplin.co.uk product codes A18BK and A14BK for assisted 'doc
Whoops, didn't see that, but I do now, interesting, glad I wont' need something quite that big. So I got the LCD from fries yesterday, great deal if I do say so myself, 370$ for a 17 inch 600:1 contrast ratio, 12 ms response time, Samsung monitor, work's like a charm . So maybe tonight I'll get up some pictures of my work area. Another suggestion for the arm that was brought up was making it out of PVC pipe, and using tension screws, and instead of each joining being able to rotate, just one in the ceiling, a ball joint, would rotate. Problem with that is PVC looks like crap and I would like more than one joint to rotate. So what really looks good at this point is that flexible wire, but I'm not sure where to get it, and if I do find a place I would rather be able to fiddle with it myself to see the strength.
VGA extensions..... I dunno about everyone else, but I've personally made and used successfully a cable of over 50mtrs, maybe nearer 65mtrs. As long as you get good quality cable it'll be fine. IIRC the quality will decrease the further you get away from the source and if you've got cable coiled up it'll decrease the quality too, so try to get/make as close to the right size of cable as you can. Coils = bad Good luck.... MiniG
Ok, I think I'm at the final solution. 1 1/2 inch metal bradded tubing with 1 inch, may be 3/4s copper tubing running through it. All thats left is to measure it out, get some weight on it, and see what sizes I actually need to get this bad boy to stay put, but not be too sturdy.
