iBook projector mod

[thecow]

My friend and I are trying to do this with a old clamshell iBook. My dad has a bunch of them at his lab that they don't need anymore, so if I screw up on one of them, it doesn't cost anyone anything. I have a few questions before I start.

1. Is there anyway to solder a DVI connector to the end of the cable of the iBook's LCD?

2. If I can't do #1, what would be the best way to watch DVDs on it? I could rip it and copy it to the internal or a firewire hard drive (this would take a loooong time) or network it to my PowerBook through the ethernet with a router. I don't have a crossover cable. Also, I've heard that you can use firewire to create a network between 2 computers. Would this work?

I will post pictures of everything if all goes well.

 

[zim2411]

There is also the option of taking the LCD and using an LCD controller, but we do not have the iBook yet, and therefore do not know the make/model of the LCD. Also, from all 5 minutes of research I did, LCD controllers cost a freaking ton. Waaay too much for our project.

(I'm the friend mention above)

 

[thecow]

Umm... I already gave you the link on im. Anyway I'm fairly sure that we are getting this one.
Edit: Oops. You were talking about the LCD. If anyone knows the manufacturer and model # about the LCD please tell us.

 

[Dreadnought]

Good idea guys, thinking now to build one myself. But wasn't there a powerbook if I recall correctly where you could get the back of and put it on an overheadprojector which is described on the link above? There is something in my head that remembers an old add for it, but it never really sold a lot.

 

[brap]

Heh.

Yeah, that article got me thinking, too

I'm not allowed, though - my other half won't let me run the risk of buying a perfectly good LCD and f**king it up

 

[thecow]

The LCD that I am getting has a backlight that is on it's last legs, so this is perfect for something like this. Don't need to worry about it.

Does anyone have the answers to any of the questions that I asked?

 

[zim2411]

Okay we got the iBook and an overhead. We plan to spray paint the overhead black, and a friend of ours is going to paint some flames on it.

Conceptual Photoshop rendering:

Tomorrow we begin construction

 

[dvdh]

. . . .network it to my PowerBook through the ethernet with a router. I don't have a crossover cable. Also, I've heard that you can use firewire to create a network between 2 computers. Would this work?. . . .

You shouldn't need a cross over cable to do this between two macs. They should be able to switch with a regular cable.

Also, connecting with a FireWire Cable is a good option. Just start up one of the computers, hook up the Firewire cable between machines, and boot the second one while holding down "T" on that machine. This will boot the second machine as a firewire drive attached to the first machine. (AKA Target Disk Mode)

BTW: LOL to the project image . . . but ?

 

[thecow]

It Lives!!!!

The projector finally works!! Here's how the construction went: My dad brought the 366MHz iBook home from work. I installed panther on it the night before the take apart. The next day Zim and I took the screen off of the base part and ripped the backlight off. We still didn't have the bulbs for the overhead and we found out that it is very hard to setup a iBook while holding the LCD up to the light. The first time I tried to boot it, the HD made horrible grinding noises about half way through the start-up, so we had to boot it off of a external Firewire HD. Now that it booted, we needed to test it with my FW DVD drive. It turned out that the reason that the 366MHz iBooks didn't have DVD drives built in is because they are too slow to handle a DVD without skipping. Next, Zim got a spotlight from his house to test how well it projected. After we moved the table back to make the image bigger I plugged the LCD back in and right then my dad came into the room and told me that the LCD was smoking. I plugged the cable in the wrong way and it fried the LCD and the GPU.

A few days later dad brought home another iBook but this one is only 300MHz. The one I fried was the fastest one that wasn't being used. This one had a idiot proof connector on the LCD so I didn't fry it. The videos have to be very compressed to play and the color temp of the bulb isn't great but it works. We are going to try to put linux on it later to see if we might be able to squeeze a little more power from the 300MHz G3 but neither of us know that much about linux. Here are the pics:

The overhead's resistor for the bulb is broken so I had to improvise with a rheostat.

Some shots of the hight tech cooling and screen elevation stuff we used.

The iBook with the video cable going up to the LCD.

The final result. Guess who chose the movie.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Damn, that is cool. Yknow that Powerbook have auto switching ports, though, since I think the G4s onward. Maybe some G3s, too.

I don't know if linux will squeeze some extra power out of that ibook, though...

 

[topicolo]

Hahaha. I love the gratuitous use of duct tape. More pics of this piece of art please! It's so classy