Picture Frame
From Fozzee.net
This page has been neglected for some time. The picture frame project has been one of serious pain on my part, for a variety of reasons...
At this time, work is complete, though the project is not necessarily a success. Basically, it all works fine, but the display looks like crap. Initially, this was to be built on a Fujitsu Pentium 120 laptop. When I came into a better Toshiba laptop, I jumped at the chance to change. It has USB and CardBus, after all. I failed to consider that it (still) had a DSTN display, that looked even worse than the one I'd been using... Suffice to say, the frame is totally functional, and not even all that bad looking (externally), but virtually useless because of poor image quality. Enjoy some pictures of the external case, anyhow.
Parts:
- 8.5x11 picture frame (Walmart $9.99)
- Donor Laptop
(Fujitsu Lifebook 531T, P120)Toshiba Satellite P3/750 - CF to 2.5" IDE converter ($15 + $5 s&h)
- Random bits of plastic and metal (mostly salvaged from the inside of the laptop itself)
- 2 2.5" 44-pin extension cables... See below. ($30)
Total : $60
I'd determined that the way to get that drive behind the frame is a laptop hard drive extension cable. I ordered (for $15) what I thought was the right part (it wasn't), and then made the mistake of trying to turn it into a "twisted" ribbon cable. Not so good. So now I have a dead cable, and had to order the proper twisted one; For another $15. The short of it is that I was bit by the "Stupid Ribbon Cables have inherent twist, but not like you think" bug... Basically, a regular ribbon cable inverts the two rows of pins, so that it's not just an extension. An "Extension" ribbon, in addition to being the unusual M-F configuration, individually twists each pair of wires, thus making the connectors pin out the same.
