Laptop to tablet total conversion mod.

SteveOBHave · 22 Mar 2010 at 12:10

It's been done a few times before but I thought I'd have a go at it myself.

A friend of mine has recently gone home to New Zealand and has kindly left me his old laptop. It was at one point or another dropped and the screen fairly well destroyed. I initially had plans to turn it into a media PC but with the addition of a rather long HDMI lead between my PC and the TV I no longer need this.

Enter plan B - a total conversion mod from laptop to touch pad/tablet PC.

I was rather taken by the idea of the Apple iPad but decided that paying £400 minimum for a half baked excuse for a PC or worse yet an oversized and not overly mobile iPhone/iPod touch I thought I'd set out with a budget of around £200-£300 and see if I could make myself one.

Technically this is not a difficult thing to do as long as you have a rudimentary understanding of electronics and some minor soldering skills.

So what I currently have is a dismantled laptop with a smashed screen. The laptop is an Asus A6000.

It has an AMD processor in it (I'm not entirely sure which - I'll have to have a look at it once I get it out from under its heat sink.) and a couple of gig of ram. It also comes with a DVD-RW drive and a whole stack of USB ports (4 all up) so connectivity and using a keyboard and a mouse with it are not going to be a problem nor is installing my intended OS, Windows 7 Home Prem.

The plan.

Essentially I intend on cutting out the area surrounding the keyboard and touch pad and insert a new replacement LCD screen in the hole that is left whilst retaining all the inbuilt buttons so that the fabrication side of things will be kept to a minimum.

So on the shopping list:
1x Dremel style multi-tool Link - £32
1x replacement LCD Link - £70
1x Resistive widescreen touch panel kit link - £90
1x soldering iron plus bits - £15
1x Windows 7 Home Prem upgrade - £65

Total at this stage including a laptop: £272

beermonster · 22 Mar 2010 at 15:16

Interesting idea, my only concern would be the depth of the lcd panel might be more than the space available once the topcase has been cut out.

SteveOBHave · 22 Mar 2010 at 15:58

beermonster said:
Interesting idea, my only concern would be the depth of the lcd panel might be more than the space available once the topcase has been cut out.

Yeah you are quite right with your concern - there are a whole stack of issues with things like the points where the screws go in from the bottom of the shell and attach to the top, the spacing between the battery socket and general re-routing of the wiring. The best part about this particular laptop is that it does actually have quite a bit of free space on the interior for the USB touch screen controller and any wiring that was originally in the monitor.

I may have to re-think how the top and bottom halves attach and I think I may be plugging some holes with epoxy where the monitor was originally mounted.

I don't want this coming out like some sort of a bodge job - I really want it looking like it could've come out of the factory looking like this - dreams are free tho

SteveOBHave · 27 Mar 2010 at 16:07

Well I've gotten started on this - so far so good - some space issues that I'll have to come up with a solution to but this is where I'm at.

In bits: Marked out on the top of the base - also pointing out the battery bay which I have cut the top of giving me an extra 2-3mm.

Steves first power tool:

Cutting done and laid out with screen inside - messy but it fits - there was stacks of cutting off mounting points and various strengthening bits - I'm not too concerned by this since the display itself is very rigid as is tha bottom half.

Internal connections:

Rear fit: it will actually sit flush and I have a panel to cover the back.

But... the side and the front is a real problem.

To the drawing board - I have ample spare plastic left over from the laptop lid - I'm thinking that there could be a way to fabricate a panel of some description... We'll have to see tho.

SteveOBHave · 29 Mar 2010 at 10:22

Turns out that as long as the battery is not in the two halves will come together almost perfectly... The battery will subsequently go in but have the front edge jutting down a little - I can deal with that... nothing that a small catch can't secure... SORTED!

SteveOBHave · 30 Mar 2010 at 09:28

Replacement Screen and Touch Panel kit ordered.

vail3r · 19 Apr 2010 at 20:41

Any updates on this? Considering doing this myself with a laptop I have just bought cheap off a friend

tbz_ck · 20 Apr 2010 at 13:50

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