This starts with the disassembly of the LCD.
Unfortunately, this model of laptop has an all metal case
(though it's cheap moulded aluminum and I always thought it
was plastic). This means that the LCD is screwed right to
the casing unlike many other laptops that have a very thin
metal frame around the LCD for support and are screwed to
flimsy plastic cases. Once removed from the metal casing,
this LCD was very hard to handle. The inverter, the part
sticking off the bottom in this picture, was not attached
to anything any longer. The wide, flat "cable" for lack of
a better word, that runs along the entire bottom of the
LCD, left side, in this picture, was exposed and delicate.
The edges were exposed and delicate. All in all, I had to
be very careful. Mess this up and I'm done with the
project.
I took measurements of the actual viewable area of
the LCD and did some math to figure out where the hole
needed to be cut into the backboard, which is made of a
compressed wood pulp like a cheap clipboard, if you're
wondering. I then drew lines on the backboard with a pencil
at the right places. In the end I found out that I didn't
calculate the center exactly right and my hole is slightly
off-center but we'll address that later. It's so slight
that it's not noticeable unless you're trying to get the
mat to fit. So anyway, I measured the hole and cut along my
pencil lines with a sharp utility knife. I suppose a dremel
would have been useful here but I don't have one. The knife
did a good job although it generated about as much dust as
the dremel would have. That was annoying because I don't
want dust between the LCD and the glass in the final
product. When I was done cutting, I blew the dust off with
an air compressor and cleaned my table thoroughly. Note
that if you mess this up or just don't want to work with
this messy material, you could buy foamboard from a craft
store and use that instead. It's pretty strong but is easy
to cut with a sharp knife.
Here's the cut hole. I had to notch it in a few
places to get the LCD to fit better. Okay, this isn't very
exciting.
I had seen other people use tape to hold their LCDs
in place. I doubted this would work well but I tried it
anyway with thin strips of duct tape. Needless to say,
that's not the way to do it. It was sagging after a few
minutes and the LCD threatened to fall out when I tipped
the thing forward. No, this was a bad option. I knew I was
going to build this as a permanent mount so I wasn't
concerned about permanently gluing it in place. So that's
what I did. I bought some epoxy, which I had never used
before. I wasn't sure what to expect but I can tell you,
this stuff is serious business! Mix the resin with the
hardener and apply it to the surfaces and it dries (cures,
actually) to be clear and hard as rock!
Below is the LCD with the epoxy applied around the
edges. The epoxy was not runny so I didn't have to worry
about it running down through the small gap around the LCD
and getting on the surface or gluing my project to the
cardboard it was sitting on. And no, this isn't a Ryobi ad.
I had to set some heavy objects on the backboard to keep it
flat. It tended to bow upward a little bit while the LCD
sat flat due to its weight. I wanted the LCD to be flush
with the front of the backboard and the weights were an
easy way to keep it all flat.
The next morning, after the epoxy had hardened, I
powered on the system again as a test to see if I had
damaged the LCD while gluing it. By the way, when buying
epoxy, buy the quick curing stuff. Having to wait 10 to 24
hours for this stuff to cure added an extra couple days to
my project! Anyway, when I turned on the computer, the
screen freaked out and seemed to be burning up. The LCD
displayed a weird white mass that slimed its way up the
screen from the bottom. I powered it down and waited a
minute (calmly, of course). I turned it back on and it was
fine. This happened one more time later on. I wonder if
this is part of the intermittent failures mentioned in the
beginning of this tour... The fix seems to be a quick
reboot and it only happens at boot up so I'm not concerned.
Well, not REALLY concerned. If any readers know of this
problem or know if its dangerous, please write me an e-mail
or post a comment about it. Let's move on, though.
