Laptop LCD Panel Skeleton Frame

cults3d

I had a dead laptop that I took apart a year ago, saved the screen in hopes of doing this project. Finally had time and a good design in my head, so here's a skeleton frame to Frankenstein yourself some kind of display rig. The idea is to use off-the-shelf 1/4 inch nuts, bolts, rods, and couplers along with special clamp pieces I made to fit perfectly on the specific panel I had. Once all tightened up, the frame feels great to hold in my hand. The next step was to create panels that I can attach to the frame to hold all the circuit boards I need to make this panel come to life. So using the clamp parts I already designed, I made little panels that can be put on any side of the frame and also attach itself to the panel to keep it from moving around. I didn't bother to put holes in the models; instead, I opted for a cheap, quick way of just making the right shape then using a drill to put the holes where I need them to mount the boards to it. Whatever panel you have, just search around eBay for LCD panel controller boards and contact any of the top sellers with info about your panel and they'll tell you if they have something that will work. It worked for me! After I had it all set up, I had a working LCD panel that I can connect to HDMI. Since I have a spare Chromecast, I decided to make this panel at least into a streaming screen I can control from my phone. So I found on Amazon a 12v to 5v converter to power the device, plus I got a new 12v power supply that came with a splitter so I can route power to the controller board and the converter board. Don't worry; the whole rig does not consume more than 2 amps, and the supply I have is for 5 amps. Quick trip to RadioShack to get a 5.5mm power socket, little soldering and walla, the converter can now be connected to the power supply. Since the controller board had support for two 1-watt sound speakers, I got some off Amazon to add sound to the LCD rig which gets its sound through the HDMI port from the Chromecast. So that's the whole thing in a nutshell. I might make some adjustable legs down the line so I can put it on a table but right now it's mounted on my pegboard. I posted the STL and the FreeCAD files if you need to adjust the sizes of things in the event you want to create a simpler rig from a spare LCD panel you may be laying around... Unless I'm the only weirdo who had such a thing just laying around, which makes this pointless. Side note: With the 5v power supply, you can do more than just power Chromecast; you can run Raspberry Pi or any other device that can spit out video to the panel. The sky's the limit, hence why I made a skeleton, giving people the freedom to change things over time. Either way, Happy Making!