Alright, so this quest has rewarded me with a 26″ HDTV for roughly $60. Not bad. But what about my production monitor project? Well, it’s still on and poppin’. I received the Proscan controller board and inverter and hooked it up to my LCD panel. The only problem is, I have no cable to hook the inverter to the mainboard where it will draw it’s power from. So I was basically back to square one and had to order the connector cables today ($2). I don’t anticipate there will be an issue with this setup once I get the cable and I think I can move on to building a case for my monitor once I’ve verified it works with the new controller and inverter. … Well, I take that back. I did do something silly. I blew a capacitor on the Proscan board by plugging this high powered 12V adapter into it. It sounded like a cheap handgun going off and spewed its powdery guts all over the place. Neat. *Insert Diabolical Laugh Here* But I soldered on a new higher voltage capacitor in it’s place and will use a more appropriate power adapter if I haven’t killed the board. It didn’t look like the rest of the board was damaged but we shall see. The Proscan controller also has a DC connector and uses a laptop style power adapter. This is just what I wanted. If I’m feeling really lofty, I may build a solar powered UPS battery backup with two-stage battery charging for the monitor for extended use applications.

Lastly, I’ve abandoned the idea of using a laptop LCD for a production monitor. Simply put, it is the difference between choosing a car that just needs a new fuse to fix the head lights or a car that needs an engine and a battery and on top of that, the car in the worst shape will cost you more. *Smile*

Once I have the LCD guts working I can focus on building a rugged case to survive vigorous production use.

*NOTE* You may want to consider the size of your finished production monitor if you plan on traveling via the airlines. Mine will be 15-17 inches and I wouldn’t take that with me if I was flying anywhere. You could ship it and hope no one gets the hot fingers with it. *Smile*

I also want to add that my economic goal for this monitor is for it to cost less than $100. I admit that had I known as much as I’ve learned since I first started this, I would have spent far less than I have so far. Right now the cost of the monitor project is at about $75, if I stick to using the Proscan controller and inverter. However, if I just repair the original PSU, then the cost would be about $30-40 (but I would have to plug the thing into the wall all the time. Booooooo!). Also, if I’d known then what I knew now, I could have gotten a similar Polaroid TV with a good PSU for dirt cheap and swapped it out. But know YOU know and you should be able to avoid my costly mistakes.

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I’ve learned quite a bit more since the last post. Making an LCD panel work (outside of fabrication of the components), is both simple and not simple. All you need to make an LCD panel work is an LCD panel, some kind of backlights, an Inverter to run the backlights, a controller board to control all available aspects of the display and process signals, and a power source. What an LCD panel from a laptop lacks is the controller board since the LCD on a laptop is controlled by the video card and/or motherboard of the laptop. But if you look at an LCD TV, the only thing that is different is that it has a controller board to manipulate the display instead of a component on a motherboard that can’t be removed like with a laptop.

So, I went on Ebay and started looking for controller boards I thought would work with my LCD panel. It’s not that doing so isn’t worth it, it is just time consuming. If you are like me and don’t mind hunting for something and having to learn tons along the way, then this is no issue. But if you just want everything laid out before you (i.e. like you would with buying commercial products), then this venture is not for you.

In the process, I learned what backlight inverters do and why they may or may not be important. They sound important until you realize they are just powering the little CCFL lights that make the screen bright enough for you to see. Then they don’t seem so important because if you really want to, you can always get around it by using cheap CCFL lighting effects kits like this person, or doing something really gangsta like this person.

As for the LCD panel, it’s simple. If it’s broken, it’s useless, throw it away. If it’s not, it’s good, keep it. That leaves us with the controller board. This is the big pain. The good news is, they are being sold on Ebay from cheap to “get the f**k outta here”. The bad news is, they may only work with specific LCD panels. The other good news is, many commercial LCD TVs use panels from the same few companies, like Hitachi, Samsung, etc. I will have more on this when I get the controller board I bought on Ebay for $45. The board also came with the keypad and for $20 more I bought the inverter for it as well; all with free shipping (I’ll be using this board set with a larger LCD panel). I’ve ordered an new inverter for the IBM screen (the exact same part the laptop came with) and I’m going to use a controller from a similar size LCD TV. More on that when it’s done.

The point here is this … if you have an LCD panel from a laptop you want to turn into a LCD monitor with AV inputs, go on the web and buy a LCD TV with a broken LCD panel. They are cheaper than the controllers themselves where the seller has simply pulled them out of an LCD TV with a broken LCD panel or dead inverter. (If you look at the picture of the items I bought on Ebay, you’ll see the controller board I bought was more expensive than the LCD TVs I bought that just have bad inverters.

It’s also important for you to get a controller board that already has the power connector on the board. Some LCD TVs have a separate power supply unit (PSU) and you just don’t want to deal with those at all. You want a completely self contained board so all you have to do is plug your LCD panel into it and plug in a power adapter (which can be found anywhere on the cheap).

While I was out hunting the vast universe for a controller for my LCD panel, it started appearing far easier to buy an LCD TV that has a bad inverter. You would be getting essentially a working LCD TV without the backlights working. At the most, it would be a $20 fix. Even if it cost you $60 to fix, it be worth it. For instance, I bought a 26″ HDTV TV for $0.99 (you see it right)! The shipping was $39 (the TV is 33lbs so that’s not too bad). And the only thing wrong with it is… yes, the inverter is bad. So, I’d say it is a steal if I even had to pay $60 for a new inverter but I won’t, so it’s even better.

If you buy an LCD TV with a bad inverter, when you get it, simply dismantle the TV, replace the inverter and mount the LCD panel (w/backlights), inverter, and controller board in a custom case of your making or choosing. Viola! You have your very own high resolution production monitor for dirt cheap!

While I was editing this post, I received the first LCD TV I bought off Ebay. It is a 15inch Polaroid HDTV. When checking around the web it seems these TVs are not very popular with consumers and from the looks of how many are for sale on Ebay for the same problem, I can see why. But another man’s junk….  I plugged the TV in and a nice red Polaroid screen comes up and then one that says “no signal” and the screen goes black. I shine my trusty LED flashlight on the screen and I can see “No Signal” moving around the screen. So yes the monitor is still on and working but the backlights are not. Because the screen does light up momentarily, I think I can safely say the CCFLs are fine and that there is definitely a problem with the inverter. I can’t believe folks give away TVs for this issue but hey, it means a cheap HDTV for me, doesn’t it? *Smile*

Well I’m off to dismantle this thing. The other issue I’ll have to address is that this TV has a plug similar to ones used on computers. I’m going to have to figure out a way to use a 12V battery pack I have. Stay Tuned!

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I pulled out the hard drive, memory, speakers, LCD Panel, LCD panel supports, and couple of miscellaneous parts. The LCD Panel is in good shape. The Gallery below shows the dismantling process.

The greatest challenge is the LCD controller. Before I started this project I had no reason to learn how LCD monitors worked or what made them work. But since I pulled this panel, I’ve had to figure out what I would need to not only make it work, but how to get a signal from my camera to it. Throughout the the process I learned a few things I will share with you (bare with me, I’m also still learning).

From what I’ve learned, one could get a LCD controller board that simply has jacks on it so that you can hook it up to a PC. They are plentiful and pretty cheap. However, if you want AV jacks for using your panel with a camera or other input devices, you need an LCD controller (or A/D board) that has multimedia jacks. If I understand correctly (we’ll see when I test it), these are just the boards that come standard with all of the LCD TVs. These boards however are not regularly sold outside of an LCD TV. Some places (literally about 2 places) do sell them direct to consumers at acceptable prices but I’d rather shoot for affordable.

In light of this information, I feel I can safely assume one could simply get not only the A/D board from an LCD TV and use it on any compatible LCD panel but also pull with it, the inverter, button bar, and power board (if required). Of course you wouldn’t do this with just any LCD TV. You want to obtain an LCD TV with a cracked or broken LCD panel (only) OR any problems not related to a faulty board. If the LCD TV has a backlight problem, no big deal, you will just have to replace the inverter and in some cases, maybe the light tube itself. I will stick to only cracked or Broken LCD panels or ones with inverter problems since this part can easily be replaced. Any TVs with A/D board issues defeats the purpose of what I’m trying to do.

The back up plan is being able to just buy the A/D board new from one of the places that sells them at an acceptable price. But lets try to be a little more thrifty with this project, shall we? I’ve bid on some great broken LCD TVs on Ebay. It’s been forever since I’ve used the site but the prices for these TVs are very reasonable and so is the shipping. I also wanted to get an A/D board that would support the maximum resolution my LCD panel is capable of (1024×768). Getting an A/D board that can support this resolution and higher is a plus because I can always just update the panel at some point.

So right now, I’m waiting to win an auction and get the TV to pull parts from. Stay tuned for part 3!

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So I bought this kit (a mere $10 or so) and removed the carburetor from the car. I had my Chilton’s manual and my kit and went to work on cleaning it and replacing the old parts with the new ones from the kit (an extremely easy task).  When I was done, I went out to the car to put the rebuilt carburetor back on. While doing that, one of my roommates said to me “What if your car doesn’t work?”. It was a strange question to me. My response “Why wouldn’t it work?”.  I wasn’t being naive I just felt like if I’d informed myself (i.e. knew what kind of carburetor I had, knew what kind of kit to get for that carburetor, had the Chilton manual with exact steps on what to do, followed them, etc.) there is no reason why it wouldn’t work. It worked before I took it off (however terrible) and it should work better when I put it back on. It did indeed work fantastic when I put it back on.

I told this story specifically for this post because it has two important relevant elements. 1. You may be attempting to do something considered mystical by the average person, and 2. You may be told it can’t be done, it’s not worth doing, or you just should buy a new one (I was told all three of those things in regards to my carburetor issue).

Lets get a little more backstory shall we? If you search the web to find out about how to convert an LCD panel from something like an old laptop into a LCD monitor for whatever you want to use it for, you will find “it can’t be done”, “it’s not worth it”, “it’s easier just to buy a new monitor”. Those things may have been true at one point but it no longer applies today.

Low budget filmmakers often want and need to find cheaper solutions for production monitors. Let’s face it, they are very expensive. The CRT ones are not only very expensive but usually very big, bulky and heavy and not really what you want to take on shoots (however just fine for post production work). So then we will consider LCD options. The cheaper portable LCD monitors are still a little expensive but if you happen to find one at a reasonable price such as the ones http://www.LCD4Video.com carry, then the quality is only good enough for framing. If you’d like a higher quality monitor for focusing you are looking to spend well over $500. I know in a world, used to paying big bucks for electronics, there are still many of us who believe we are being ripped off in that regard. I’d go into that but it would be quite a novel.

Many thrifty filmmakers then decide to use commercial LCD TVs or monitors …um… the big ones, to avoid paying the high costs for the small LCD production monitors. But who wants to lug a big ole LCD monitor or TV around? And we are still talking somewhere between $180+ for one of those unless you can find something used.

So then there are those of us who want to take an old laptop LCD Panel and make our own affordable LCD monitor that has a high enough quality for focusing. LCD panels can be had from old and new laptops that are no longer working but still have good screens. You can obtain these all over the internet for as little as $8. These are the main things to consider for your project:

1. LCD Panel – Any resolution; but for focusing you may want a bare minimum of 1024×768.
2. LCD Controller - This just isn’t any ole LCD controller. You need one with multimedia ports. The bare minimum for making a production monitor would be one with just AV ports (yellow, red, white). This is the primary component that makes people think it’s not possible to pull a laptop screen out and convert it for other use.
3. LCD Inverter – The Inverter lights up the fluorescent tube inside the LCD screen. These are actually already present in the laptop. If it is still good, pull it out with the LCD Panel and use that instead of buying a new one, unless your controller comes with one then just use the new one.
4. Button Bar – This little board connects to the LCD Controller and adds button functionality for controlling your LCD Panel. These can be obtained dirt cheap as well.
5. The LCD Case – You just need something to put everything in for a finished monitor. The beauty about a DIY monitor is that you can make a case that fits your gear and you can be mindful of where you plan on mounting it or how you plan on using it.

So our task here is to build our own focus quality production monitor using an LCD panel pulled from a laptop and to build it at an affordable price. I must mention that there are at least two companies selling LCD kits that include focus quality LCD panels, controllers, inverters and button boards. These kits are indeed made from LCD panels from Laptops and they work great.

This will be a multi-part tutorial as I’m in the process of making this monitor. Stay Tuned for Part 2!

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