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Sunday, 27 January 2008 00:00 |
 A few months ago, we finally decided it was time for a new laptop. Ours was 5-6 years old. The hinges that held the screen on were starting to break. There was a crack running along the top that was growing. And it just couldn't meet our needs with its limited RAM and processor speed. So we got a new laptop (yeah!), but I found a great way to salvage the old one. I made a digital picture frame out of it.
I had seen a few blog posts on the web about people doing this and thought it was interesting. We were planning chunking the laptop so I saw no harm in me hacking it up to try my hands at this project. I'm happy to say that the result turned out great! The screen 15 inches which is much larger than the 8 inch digital frames I see at stores. Storage capacity is not a problem since the laptop already had a 30 gig drive in it. And a small wireless card, made it easily connect to our network. I won't go into details on how I did this. Instead, I'll give a brief overview of my setup, some links that helped me, and some tips. My Setup - I removed the battery from the laptop. This just generates heat and I wasn't planning on ever running it on battery power. Plus, the battery was old and never lasted long.
- I completely removed the casing from around the screen. Using electrical tape, I attached the screen to the back (or bottom) of the laptop.
- I used a shadow box as my frame. I glued the front of the shadow box shut so it would no longer open. I didn't want the laptop to fall out.
- I used foam board to create padding around the laptop when it sits in the frame. This holds the laptop in place so it doesn't slide around inside the frame.
- I installed Ubuntu Linux as my OS.
- I used rsync to have the digital frame sync up with a network folder. Any pictures I put in the network folder will be synced up to the laptop for display. I scheduled rsync via a Cron job and it runs at regular intervals when the frame is on.
- The frame is setup so that when it tuns on, it boots Ubuntu and immediately starts the slideshow software. The slideshow software randomly displays all images in the synced folder.
  Tips - Install all software and hardware needed before you start taking the laptop screen apart. It is much easier to do this now than when the screen is on the backside of the keyboard.
- I run VNC on the frame so I can easily administer it from another computer in the house if needed.
- Cut a hole in the back of the shadow box to give yourself easy access to the on/off button on the laptop.
Useful Links  BTW, I know I'm stretching it by putting this in my "Crafts -> Wood" category. Not much woodwork here. Maybe one day if I create a Technology category, I put this there. For now, this is the closest fit.
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