Scratch Build – In Progress Para11el - 3rd July - Paint and water!

Another update for the day, after my last update ive been working on the LCD screen, the competition pro for the psone and im happy to report that ive managed to seperate the boards out and wire them together successfully!

No pics yet as ive poured glue all over the wires ive soldered to hopefully stop them from commin away ( ive soldered them but just in case!)

Hopefully this comming sunday will allow me to start on the mount for it, which will need a super big to get it to do what i want!

 

LCD + Sand Blasting and testing for covers

Some progress...

The LCD as reported earlier is now fully working, the power adaptor that came with it has the transformer from 12v to 7.5v built into the cig lighter part, and as I usually don’t like taking things apart if possible, I got a car accessories plug(female part of cig lighter) and wired that up though the Molex
Here are a few photos of the LCD in action:

A Video playing



And as everyone does a test with winamp...


Problem I have with it is the resolution... at the mo it works on 720x480 but I want to run it at a lower res so I can actually make out what’s written on screen (the winamp photo was taken while the GUI was at 200%). I tried setting it to a smaller amount (360x240) but wouldn’t save that setting- using the fx5200 on composite out.
Any ideas?


I have also had the case frame sand blasted to remove the surface rust as mentioned by jokkos! Here are some photos of the case now!


Compared to




Aiming to give it all a quick sanding to take off some of the roughness and then lacquer it.

I’ve also been doing some wiring for the case, As I mentioned earlier I don’t like to cut things up if I don’t have to, so for the dual PSU I've enlisted the use of a relay. It’s connected by Molex to my main psu, and when power is applied, will short out the ground and standby on the 2nd psu. At the same time it will kick the wc pump into life. Tested this for a long time to make sure it worked Also managed to scavenge a time delay from an old bathroom fan (will carry on spinning the fan for a set time after the switch is opened) so I’ve wired it up to run the wc pump for a little while longer after the pc is shutdown


Last thing I’ve been doing is testing some sheets of metal (don’t actually know what it is though its not alu/steel etc it’s an alloy of some sort) that I found. There’s enough to cover 5 sides of the case which is good enough at this moment. I managed to get a piece of that sand blasted too.
I then sprayed half with car body lacquer, and the other with a similar lacquer used in the glass industry.
The car lacquer gives a better finish, its smoother then the glass one, which still feels rough.

After the car lacquer, I decided to keep going with the car products and broke out a bottle of car polish! Mei is supposed to be the dog’s b****s in this field and that’s what I had handy

Here are some photos to show the results of a small area (didn’t bother with the glass lacquer side as it was rubbish).
50p piece is on polished side, £1 coin is on the lacquered side


Both are on the lacquered side


Its not 100% clear on the pics but because of the sand blasting, the polished piece has the effect of metallic grey paint which is cool- considering none of it is paint! and more importantly i didnt do ANY sanding to achieve this look!

I have an idea of how to apply a design on to the side panel- just no design at the moment! Will basicly mirror finish the panel, then mask it with a design. This will then be sand blasted leaving the mirror finish as it is behind the mask and the rest will be dull matt finish. Add the car lacquer and Mei polish and Bingo!

What i do need help with is the hinge to put the LCD on. What I want it to do is pull forward slightly, and move up. I have seen this done for other things but the only one that comes to mind now is a Sony TV stand they had a couple of years ago ( around 2000/1 I think). Im looking for a picture of it at the moment to help convey my thoughts!

 

Wow cool display
How much cost such screens?

 

I have one of those screens too they're nice... not quite expensive. One minority... they all seem to have some distortion in the top of the screen (yours has it too apparantely)

 

The screen im using is the competition pro PSone screen which i picked up off ebay for £26.99...

LuitvD, what kinda distortion? i havent played with mine long enough to have found any yet but will look out for it now that i know it may be there!
Main prob with it is still the resolution!

 

can't you see the distorion of the image at the top of the screen...? where the image bends left a bit...? I have exactly that distortion ...

and for the resolution: get a better videocard (or video driver )

 

intresting... never noticed the distortion mite pull it out and have another look!

And the vid card bit- i can understand the need for a better video card if im using a HIGHER resolution but i want to take it down to 360x240! half of the standard, cant see y i would need a better card to do that!

 

not every card can do resolutions like that... and a good card can run every low reso, at any freqency, and with some nice drivers you can stretch and maybe even rotate (90 degrees would be very nice)

So it's a better card as in more functions, not more power

 

ok done some testing, and my card does do 320x240 and 360x240 when a crt is connected... just doesnt like doing it through a composite source!

 

where u get the sandblasting matey?

Do they do painting aswell? or do u know anywhere?

 

the sandblasting was done on the sly at a glazing firm, and no they dont do painting... best place to get painting imo is car bodyshops!

 

can you send me the link to the painting shop aswell....

 

dont have a link to any perticular shops- best thing would be to go to any local car repair garage...

Atanum - there are a few near the Merc dealer on the edgware road just past burntoak... worth asking- the worst they will say is no they wont paint it...

 

having second thoughts abuot using the competition pro lcd...
If it wont work at a decent res then its useless... mite have to go for a 12" (Blame craigr1982 and this thread!

Any ideas? the 12" will be using a VGA out so shouldnt have the same probs as the competition pro one...

 

Have you tried Powerstrip ? It's the standard solution to odd resolutions.

 

well i tried- but i cant get it to recognise the LCD screen :s Its not listed as an output device

 

given up on the competition pro lcd, 12" tft arrived yday, and as all modders do, the first thing that i did is took it apart

Took the case off, and tested how far i down i could strip it... can get it down to the actual screen itself IF and only IF i can get the connectors for the driver board to lcd (see this thread)

If i can + that works then the orginal mod design will have to change to accomodate the size diff from 5" lcd to 12"! The 12" does look better in terms of covering what i need to hide behind it and the main thing is that at the resolution it can display (800x600) i can clearly see the mouse and text from the menues, and winamp doesnt have to be at 200% scaling to be used!

Gonna be busy with diwali this weekend so will hopefuly get the mount for the new lcd done if not designed by the end of the month!

 

Where did you get the 12" lcd from? Linky?

 

Its off ebay this one)

 

Sorry for the lack up updates, not a lot of movement that can be seen... All I’ve been doing is sanding down all the metal work with sand paper and my arm... Taking aaaagessss and only done the hard disk holder so far!

Also given up on the idea of making an extension for the lcd, got a bit frustrated with trying to make a payment for the connectors without having to setup an account and have credit check done and all that rubbish (I could only find farnel who sell them) so took a pair of wire cutters and snipped the cable! Heat shrink will be here tomorrow night so i can solder the ribbon cable in-between the connectors that are already there!

Once that’s done and working I can look at getting it mounted.

From there not toooo far to go! Can plan the sizes of covers (which I can’t do at the mo coz I don’t know how far the lcd will stick out), get the hardware test fitted so I can make up the WC loop!