I gave my wife her PCMCIA wireless network adapter
back and dug out my old Linksys WUSB11 USB wireless NIC.
It's one of those blue ones with a cheap plastic antenna
that swivels. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of it
before I ripped it apart. I took the guts out of its casing
because the device was too thick. The guts are only a
couple mm thick, though. You can see it here in the upper
left corner with its antenna mounted at the top. I used
that double-sided sticky foam stuff to hold it down. What's
with that stupid cable, you ask? The Linksys wifi adapter
uses a weird USB cable that has the A type plug on both
ends. Since it's a non-standard cable, I can't easily get
one that's shorter and I didn't want to cut it and shorten
it myself in case I messed it up. I couldn't just bundle it
up with a zip tie because then it would be too thick to fit
behind the frame so I snaked it all around and glued it to
the backboard with hot glue. I also attached a 4-port USB
hub to the single USB port on the motherboard. That was
unnecessary since I only have one USB device right now but
if I ever need to plug in a keyboard and mouse or something
else, I can easily do that with the hub. I left a Xircom
PCMCIA network adapter installed just in case the wireless
card malfunctions and I need to connect with an ethernet
cable.
When I first soldered my power switch to the leads
that I had attached to the motherboard, I realized that I'd
never be able to separate the frame from the motherboard
without snipping wires or desoldering the connection. To
avoid that, I soldered this disconnect in place. This was
left over from a fan inside a server at work. The fan died
but I kept this handy plug and put it to good use. Now when
I have to remove the backboard/motherboard/LCD combo, I can
easily disconnect from the frame. Notice my horrible solder
job. I really should take a class or something. The first
time I attempted this I held the soldering iron on the
switch's contacts so long that I melted the black plastic
of the switch and had to replace it with a new one. Good
thing those switches came in a four pack!
One of the last things was the minor (major) problem of
what to do with the power cord. The cord that came with the
laptop is really thick and black and was not something I
wanted to see stretching up to the frame once it's in my
living room. I stole, ahem, borrowed the solution used by
the guy who also gave me the idea to use this IKEA frame. I
took the wires out of a CAT5 network cable and used that to
carry the DC power to the laptop. Unlike that guy, though,
I used two pairs (4 wires) instead of just one pair. I
found some specs on
PoE (power over ethernet) and
learned that a single pair can only carry 12.95 watts
safely. This laptop requires between 20 and 35 watts
at any time so I wanted to use at least two pairs. To
do this, I chopped the end off the power cable,
stripped the wires and attached a female RJ-45 style
network cable connector. I then attached the same kind
of RJ-45 connector to the other part of the power
cord. With the plug side plugged into the motherboard,
I could snap in my custom 2-pair cable with RJ-45 ends
crimped on it and extend the DC power as far as I
want, within reason, using the somewhat inconspicuious
cable. I don't have a picture of that custom cable
except for what you can see coming down from the frame
in the pictures of the frame hanging on the wall. I
plan to paint the cable to match the wall so it's less
obvious but I'm not sure if I'll bother doing that
since I think I'm ultimately going to drill a hole in
the wall behind the frame and run this power cable
through it. That way there are no visible cables
leading to the frame at all. I don't recommend this,
though. It might be dangerous and I don't want to
contribute to your burning your house down!
