Slashdot Mirror
Making Use Of Old LCDs?
phorm writes "Not so long ago, higher-definition LCD's used to be quite hard to come by, with laptops and other hardware tending to use old non-TFT-style LCD's which ugly bleeding colors and poor refresh. Nowadays, almost everything has a nice TFT (Thin-film-transistor) display, including laptops, PDA's, digital camera, and often even cellphones. However, not all of these devices are as dependable as they once were, and many of them end up as little more than paperweights. With TFT-LCD's by themselves still being somewhat of a pricey commodity, is there any way to salvage and use these parts for home projects? I personally have an 8" notebook display, and a 1.5" digital camera LCD which are just begging to be recycled as something useful such as a projector component, status display, or something else useful. So far I've had little luck discovering a way to get these components to work outside of the original hardware, so I was wondering if any enterprising hardware-nerds on Slashdot have had better luck than I and could offer a few pointers. Are these components doomed to end up in a landfill, or can somebody offer a way to make them useful again?"
It'd be cool to wire up a front door peep hole up with an old CCD and LCD screen. Better yet, make it a reverse peep hole. Then you've got something.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
8" porn viewer in your bathroom.
Please reply most immediately so the shipping details can be worked out, I can accept western union payments at this time, but not paypal as the bankrupcy people will find out! I await your reply so these sad little orphaned LCD monitors can be given new life.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
bingo.
Your old LCD makes a great surface to cut coke into lines with a credit card. Much better than a mirror, since you don't have to stare at your own face as you snort.
Lovely screens...
And I *know* /. is just rife with old tyme hackers - folks with C in the heart and solder burns on their fingers (it's just those rogue 3 or 4 who actually use *windows* (spit, cough, hork)).
So who here HASN'T etched a circuit board (analog, digital, no matter)? Anyone? - see. Nobody. All l33t h@x0rs.
So fess up, how do I take apart my Powerbook 180 and get it to work with a Radeon card so I can stuff it into my Kaypro "Portable" case and bring it to Usenix with a dual Athlon64 mobo inside (the power supply in that box is HUGE).
Honestly, I swear the following is an exact parallel to this LCD question that no one ever bother to research on their own:
Dear Ask Slashdot:
A few days ago, my uncle gave me an old John Deere tractor, which is pretty much shot except for the engine. It seems a shame to waste a perfectly good engine, so I was wondering if I could take it out and hook it into my VW Jetta somehow. I know that the engine turns when you put liquid stuff into it and run the starter, so it should be able to work in my Jetta too. I did a Google search for "engine" but didn't find what I was looking for in the first ten results. Could you tell me how to accomplish this task? I only want to spend $20 or less, and only want to use a flat-point screwdriver and a cigar box full of old rusty bolts. Thanks!
...
OH NO!
Get a PCI or ISA pinboard and just connect one of the leads to each of the terminals and then you can write your own driver for that LCD without worrying about how to talk to the controller. Sounds easier than it is though. However it wouldn't be as difficult for an older 1bit LCD with larger leads, good luck finding a digital prototyping card you can afford ;)
Screw the lamp, Save the lamp's driver...You can pull some pretty decent sparks out of those puppys but they hurt :(. Yeah I know I'm off topic. ^_^
In all seriousness though, I tried doing exactly what you said a few years back and unless you have some way to drive the lcd (the board it came with generally) you are sol. But if you have it sometimes you can find nifty things, like where you can input rgb by soldering some wires onto a chip.
In other words, Slashdot IS your AI interface to google!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I did this once and it works great as long as you don't mind a huge cloud of noxious fumes emanating from your Jetta. It only cost me $10 too. YMMV.
Sure. No problem.
(1) Take the engine out of the Jetta. You
probably want to remove the hood since the Deere
engine won't fit very well with the hood on.
(2) Put the deere engine into the engine compartment
of the Jetta. Points to observe here include (a)
make sure to align the PTO of the Deere with the
transmission connector. (b) If they don't match
as is likely, you can wedge a bolt or two into the
gap, so that they interlock. No hammer? I bet you
can find a rock. Just whack on it with a rock until
the bolt(s) are truly wedged. If the Deere PTO is
too big, rather than too small, rub it with a rock
until it is too small.
(3) Strap the engine firmly into place. Hook up
the fuel line and ignition electronics. Fuel line
is trivial, with some rubber tubing, but for
ignition electronics you have to match the wires.
I suggest just connecting all the red outputs to
the red input, black to black, etc. Or else read
a book. As for strapping, some old belts or a dog
chain you aren't using can do wonders.
(4) Be prepared for some mild vibration when you
start the engine. Some rubber to use for shims
can be helpful here. The upside is that if the
vibration is strong enough, even without a good
connection to the transmission, the Jetta is
light enough so that it will move around just due
to brownian motion.
(5) You're ready to do some travelin'!
I replaced the pedal assembly on my BMX bike with
a pulse-jet in about 2 hours. linky linky.
But I want to try a DK8
when I can find a cigar box full of rusty bolts.
Anyhow, I'm sure you can do the Deere in half
that time, as long as no rock-rubbing is required.
Good luck!
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Well, I did something similar to this with my old Hoyt Clagwell tractor engine and AMC Pacer last year. I couldn't exactly figure out how to mount the HC engine into the Pacer frame, so I decided to hook the tractor engine up to a generator and charge up some old aircraft batteries that I got out of a DC-3 that was parked out at the old aircraft graveyard.
Of course, I had to retrofit the Pacer with electric motors and a beefed up suspension to support all those batteries, but it was well worth the US$100K that I put into the project. Now I just have to park the car and run the tractor all night to charge the batteries. The noise is kind of annoying to the neighbors, but I figure that I saved a cool US$2K on the Pacer engine rebuild that I would have had to do.
Only real drawback is that the HC engine is pretty inefficient. I figure that I am getting an equivilent of 5 MPG, but I'm sure gas prices will be going down real soon now.