Video Projector
 

Im looking to built a video projector out of a lcd panel and a overhead projector. Pretty much just something to mess around with. I have 2-3 old laptops i have accired over the years that have been stripped of most of there stuff. ram / battery / hd / cd / etc. What i need to know is there anyway i can maybe buy a controller for one of there lcd screens or something and hook the screen up to my desktop or even a tv in if the controller supports it. If that is possable it would save me from halfing to buy a lcd monitor to convert into this.

If it aint possable my next bet would probly be to find enough parts to get one of the laptops running and use its screen as the projector. id just half to mount the laptop on the side of the overhead or something. Any feedback is welcome.

Thanks Smackre,

Hey nice! You just summed up what is keeping me busy for the last 6 months:
- I have made an projector out of an overhead and a 15inch TFT.
- I 've looked into and abandonned the idea of hooking op a laptop LCD to my pc.

First the laptop LCD to pc. It is indeed possible. But for someone with a master degree in electronics I suppose.
There are no ready to use convertors that you just can plug between the LCD and the pc, just because there is absolutely no standard in these things. Every brand has there own controllers, each with there own interface. Which are all, of course, are kept as a business secret. General way to get this to work is:
- Find as much info and specs of the LCD as possible.
- Make sure the controller is still attached to the LCD
- try to find out the pin lay-out of the controller. (if you are extremely lucky you can find it in the specs). I've heard guy's that completely reverse engineered the controller.
- You should end up with seperated inputpins for red, green and blue. There could be more then one (i.e. 3 or 4) pins for the same color.
- warm up your soldering station
- get an old pci VGA graphics card. Make sure there is a VESA Feature connector on this card.
- solder the pins of your controller to what you think is the corresponding VESA Feature controller ( http://pinouts.ru/data/VesaFeature_pinout.shtml ) . You need at least pins 1,2,3,5,6,7,9,11,12 and probably some 'display on' signal.
- This would give you at best a whopping 4-bit (16 colors) LCD.

This is not really worth the effort I think... (and this solution is completely useless as LCD for a home-made beamer)


Second part: the overhead.
I've had one for 3 weeks until someone tripped mid-movie over the powercord. TFT broken :|
2 tips:
- as refference: a 250 Watt overhead needs a completely darkened room to have a acceptable contrast, a 400 Watt overhead can give barely enough contrast with the shades closed. Do not forget there is a lot of difference between the contrast trough a slide and through a TFT. A TFT has 2 polarisation filters the light has to pass through.
- have some casefans blow over and under the TFT. (the TFT should be a few centimeter above the glass of the overhead ). This wil safe the crispness of the colours of the TFT in the long term, because TFT's can't stand heat. Wire the fans to 8V or so, so they don't make that much noise.

I've got really a lot of info on the laptop LCD to pc toppic. Downside is: it's in Dutch... Here is the link: http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/...sages/799377/0
The first page has some pictures of the conversion in progress.

at last: Here is nice idea i've seen what you can do with old laptops: Make them into electronical picture frames! Take of the screen and turn it around (like a tablet pc) so you are seeing only the screen. Put a nice border around the screen so it looks like a pictureframe. Load up a slideshow or animation. Use your imagination! Put in a wireless dongle and control them remote,....
Here is a link with lot of pictures of electronical picture frames. Very cool indeed! Link is again in Dutch, but lot's of pictures to keep you amused...
http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/...ssages/1020344

GR8 guide here, i just wish I could find a cheap LCD panel like this one :-(

http://inventgeek.com/Projects/HomeT...meTheater.aspx

Another great guide from Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20041113/index.html

just ordered this monitor for the LCD. It looks good to me. I hope it works out.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWN%3AIT&rd=1

now im looking for good but not to $$ overhead. I wonder if its possable to built one. Ill half to do some studying.

im looking for a overhead atm. i have found a few that are priced great. but ever one of them seem to have a 10X10" screen. well if im correct my 14.1" lcd is going to be around 11.28" wide. I need a overhead that will be that big. Any suggestions would be great.

I got my projector on order. And my lcd should be here monday. I remember in school the fans in those overhead are noisy so i think i may try and change the fan in the projector. I was actualy thinking about tring to find a way to make it water cooled instread of fans. just to make it less noisy. Anyone have any suggestions let me know.