Car computer

you have a 12incher do you! :)

Easy tiger! Dont want you getting too excited and making a mess!

shit i think my car is having an influence! :)

This may sound dumb, but could you not leave it connected to it's parent processor unit, and just extend the existing internal wires to wherever you want the screen in the car?

I think converting to VGA is a complicated process.

The Dervboy

AFAIK it's not possible, as the video driver in the laptop runs the screen directly using whatever protocol the manufacturer chose. It's non-trivial to try and work round that and convert to VGA.

You'll need to get on ebay and find yourself a 12" VGA TFT monitor. They seem to only be about fifty quid.

Steve.

Nope, because the laptop is dead, but the screen is good :)

Its off a dell laptop

Here speaketh the ex-dell technician, ever had to work on an LS? 'Kin orrible things LOL Gimme a CPX anyday, sooo easy to fix.

Matt

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In that case, contact EarthLCD, and quote them the part number. ISTR that Dell use a lot of Goldstar, Sharp, and some Panasonics in their laptops. Most likely it uses a weird cable, because apart from the inspiron 7*00 models (I haven't worked on one for about 5 years) they all used onboard video, the 7*00 models used a seperate ATI Rage mobility card, but they all needed a Hi-Rose type cable. If you contact EarthLCD and quote the make, and part number they can probably sort you out with a suitable controller/cable kit.

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And here speaketh the ex Celestica employee who worked on the Dell Europe laptop repair line contract. :)

Depends on the screen. Most of them (ISTR especially dells) don't use real cables. They use flat laminated plastic sheet, with the wires replaced by strips of copper embedded into the laminated layers. Very thin, very fiddly, impossible to solder.

Even if you are lucky to get a screen with normal wires, you then have issues with shielding. One of the guys on the MP3car.com forums tried this. Took 3 weeks of working with the rest of us to get a working screen (he only extended it about 8-12"). he had to solder, insulate, sheield with metal foil, and insulate again, every cable at each join.

Then he had to replicate the twists of the original wiring harness, and insulate, shield and insulate again, each of the pairs as they were in the original.

Eventually it worked, but the signal wasn't as strong, and he ended up with some response delays in the image that weren't there before, plus it wasn't as bright.

Complicated to get the right bits, but when you have them, a damned site easier, it is plug and play compared to soldering.

EarthLCD, HeroElec, Miles Electronics can all provide the parts, but it ain't cheap.

But the laptop is dead, so option B is the only one for him.

BTW, if you can remove the keyboard, and get to the CPU panel, sometimesin dells they would pop out of the main board if they were the non soldered on ones. With that, they would appear dead.

OK. Here goes. As long as the screen lights up when you give it power (check whether it is 3, 5, or 12V), then your inverter and back light is probably OK.

Remove the screen from the casing. Probably 4-6 screws (most will be under rubber studs, some may hold the hinge together too), and the top and bottom will prize apart if you use something plastic and softish like a filler spreader, or a thin baking spatular.

Once you have the screen surround apart, you need to work out hpw to detach the screen from the base.

Hinges tend to be built into the screen plastics, and bolted to aluminium/magnesium blocks or a frame inside the base. Seperate them. Keyboards usually need to be removed, and every Dell is different, somtimes it is after the top plastics from the base, sometimes before.

The screen will interface with the base through a small strip connector that will enter the board at an angle, and most likely have a small folder locking clip (bit like a sim card in a mobile, but long and thin, not short and square).

once you have the screen disconnected, and the screen plastics removed, find thew manufacturer label, and make a note of any numbers/letters combinations you can find there, plus any barcodes.

Contact EarthLCD

for the controller/cables you need for that panel. The controllers they do are something like this. this one if you plan later to add a touch controller.http://www.earthlcd.com/CNTEVAD2.htm If you are buildign the whole thing into a dash (with the PC behind) then you could use a PCI or ISA card. All EarthLCD's controller are here.

ROFLMAO!!!

I feel your pain LOL still look on the bright side, you could have ended up in an Ink Fish call centre doing phone support for Time/Tiny!! (No I never did but 4 years ago it was bloody close ;-) )

On a side point what were Celestica like? Their bidding on a support contract for a branch of my work.

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Inkfish were one of the clients I dealt with when I was doing ISP setup for Telinco.

Why did I never get anything like that? When I did some work at Celestica, all that they would let me near was broken National Lottery terminals :-(

Andy

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Which depot were you at? I was at the Biley (can't remeber how it was spelt)/Middlewich depot at the old Airfield.

We had HP printers, HP Laptops, Fujitsu Laptops and PC's. I was recruited as an agency temp specifically for the new contract they got. Everyone except the managers was a temp.

I think Stoke had the board level repairs, because it was the old ICL Fujitsu plant.

Don't know about the other locations, never got to hear about them.

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Who was your boss? Might have known him/her. Small world isn't it.

The old ICL Kidsgrove plant was huge, when i was at College doing BTEC computer studies, we went on a tour of the plant, and it took all day.

My boss at Stoke was Dave Jones (drove around in a hairdresser-style Tigra). Don't know if you knew him.

You're right about Kidsgrove though - I can just about see the Kidsgrove plant from one of the windows in my house, and it's truly massive. There's been rumours recently of it closing down though, much like everything else in the area. Still, I've got my degree now, and I'll be out at the first available opportunity :-)

Andy