Power an external display out of a laptop

[juanm]

Hi there!

I have an idea, and I'd like to know if it's feasible.

You know the Pelican cases? www.peli.com
My goal is to take a macbook or a macbook pro -I don't know yet, maybe even a pc- and put it, as disassembled as needed, in the case. Then, put a display in the lid.
I know I could simply put the whole laptop in the case, but I want it to be usable under the rain.

Do you know if it's possible to power an external LCD out of the laptop? It'd be, then, connected via the Apple DVI-VGA adapter. A secondary battery would work too.

If I use the laptop's own display, how long are the ribbon and power cables? I'd need them to be at least two inches long. Are there ribbon extenders?

Do you know of any forum dedicated to this kind of projects?

Thank you for any answer... and sorry for my English

 

[bartelby]

You may as well use the laptop's screen.

On a side note, I have a Pelican case with me in work at the moment. It has a gnome in it.

 

[mpw]

How tough do you need this computer to be? Why not look at a simpler option like this?

 

[Sesshi]

Or this
http://us.kontron.com/index.php?id=82&cat=459

 

[juanm]

Thank you for your answers, but there are a short list of necessities I'd need on it:
Actually, I want to make an all-in one photography case, so those laptops don't work for one or more of the following reasons. I need it to be:
- Very rugged. It'll be bouncing on a zodiac at full speed. Simply put, I need it Pelican-rugged.
- An integrated card reader without firewire or usb cables waiting to be accidentely disconnected.
- At least one more external hard drives under the laptop itself.
- An integrated screen shade. I mean, you open the lid, and you have a screen shade so you can effectively use the screen everywhere.
- And I'd like it to be a Mac. A PC would do it to download the pictures from the card, but then I'd need another step to get them into Aperture.
- Integrated heating (and cooling) system.
- Long battery life.

I've been wanting something like this for some time now, so I keep looking for solutions... One of the big problems is the screen. I want to make it at least rainproof. If I use the laptop's screen without disassembling it, I'll be hard to achieve. Disassembly is the solution: it can be then fixed to the lid, and conveniently covered and sealed. But the problems would be the connection between the graphics card and the screen, and how to power it.
I'll PM the guy who put a WUXGA screen on his powerbook (aka Frankenbook) to see if he can help me with his experience.

 

[juanm]

http://chasejarvis.com/blog/2007/03/photography-laptop-case-aka-pimp-your.html

This is, more or less, what I want, but it'd still need:
- to be waterproofed.
- more integrated
- I don't know how resistant it would be to vibrations. I gives me the impression that things can still move a lot inside the case...