Lilliput 8" touch screen LCD + The $25 Macbook

[Byrd]

Hi,

two recent conquests:

Lilliput 8" touch screen LCD: a gift from a friend, which he used to use in his car to play Xbox games. This thing is so cool, complete with VGA and composite + sound input. I wish I had six of them for various projects, but I think it'll go into a future carputer or as a secondary monitor in some sort of case mod.

The $25 Macbook: I purchased this BIN off eBay over a month ago, noting the seller's bad feedback but thought I'd give it a punt anyhow. It was sold untested for parts only and looked very rough. Needless to say, after waiting one month the item never arrived and the seller refused to respond to any messages, so a Paypal dispute was opened! For others opening a Paypal dispute, note it takes a minimum of ninety days for a potential refund to be given, so you can be out of pocket for a long period of time.

However, after a week of opening the dispute, the item miraculously turned up, wrong name spelt in a package with no return address on the box ... and very little packing, it was definately rough. It was covered in scratches, stickers, small cracks in the casing (some due to the poor plastic quality, others "mystery" bumps), and I wasn't expecting much regarding its function. I had a spare Magsafe power adapter, plugged it in ... and was amazed to see it work perfectly! It's a C2D 2.0Ghz unit, 1GB/80GB model - perfect upgrade for my wife's 20" iMac G5. I'll clean it up best I can, and think I've a spare 1GB stick and faster 100GB 7200RPM HD for it.

Pics to come!

JB

 

[olePigeon]

Glad it worked out for you. Just stuff it somewhere, so long as it works. Will be a great upgrade to that G5.

 

[jongleur]

Saw the subject, and had visions of a FrankenMac resurrected with a 8" LCD grafted in top. }

 

[Byrd]

Why not - perhaps a potential hack of these two recent conquests might be in order! The best thing about the Macbook though is the LCD, regardless of cracking in the plastic surround, it looks bright and flawless.

Wife is quite happy to receive this Macbook. Her iMac is the 20", last 2.1Ghz model with a new 1TB drive (I ripped it from my NAS project, looks like I'll be getting it back!) and 2GB RAM - and it's just getting too slow for basic web browsing, MS Office, iPhoto, even scanning. Mind you, I did install all the "latest" PPC apps I could find for it (eg. Office 2008, Photoshop CS2, iLife 08), but it's just disappointing to use. I could scale back the apps by finding older versions but this takes time. On paper this should be a gold machine, but the poor optimisation of PPC apps is showing for her needs.

JB

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Saw the subject, and had visions of a FrankenMac resurrected with a 8" LCD grafted in top. }

Ditto, if wife (or you for that matter) likes to cook and bake, maybe shorten the front bezel of a classic at the "Snow White" line and put a laptop MoBo in a shallow pan behind it. Then hinge it underneath a cabinet in the kitchen as a Macintosh Classic Touchscreen-Recipe Station/Programmable Timer, Gaming Station a/o TV-n-Tunes Server. [}] ]'>

You'd want to lose the set-back section below the cooling vents of course, maybe retain a smidge of it on the left or right corner as a "handle" for either the proper appendage ergnomics or proximity to sink, prep area or cooktop considerations. Yes, I designed Kitchens in a previous lifetime.

Bonus points for doing a parallelogram hinging implementation with the laptop's DVD/CD Player behind a widened floppy slot! :approve:

That the nabbin' of some Mac Collection/Hacking Acceptance Bonus Points would be the objective of the exercise goes without saying.

Most especially, let slip the part about sacrificing your carputer project toy for her enjoyment! :lol:

jt

edit: if she HATES being in the kitchen, you might actually nab even more toy tolerance credits. )

 

[protocol7]

Might be worth taking the MacBook to an Apple store and see if you can get the plastics replaced.

 

[CC_333]

protocol7: Do you think they'll still do that? These machines are no longer being manufactured, so replacement parts may no longer be stocked.

I would be interested in giving it a try, though; I have a 2007 MacBook who's plastics are beginning to show their age (cracking, scratching, etc.) Either that, or get another one for cheap and replace it outright.

Problem is, they're still modern enough that finding one cheap is still kind of hard (unless, of course, you're lucky, as Byrd was).

My $0.02.

c

 

[Byrd]

Yeah it definately has the chipped plastic edges around the top case, but the other "mystery" cracks elsewhere suggests I may have a difficult time justifying replacement plastics from an Apple store. And for $25 I don't want to push the good luck, I've not picked up a bargain off eBay for a good couple of years, even though the seller was very frustrating to deal with.

So far I've scrounged up a total of 1.5GB RAM for it, and a 100GB 7200 RPM HD which should be heaps, now running 10.6.8. One thing is that the Superdrive I really have to force the disc in, it reads it fine. It ejects OK, is something up with the mechanism?

 

[protocol7]

@CC_333: Not sure. I always got the impression these out-of-warranty Apple repairs were very much YMMV. It can't hurt to try.

 

[olePigeon]

They have plastics, still. My local tech fixes our laptop carts all the time (white MacBooks.) You might get the keyboard/palmrest done for free, but the LCD and housing will probably cost ya. I don't think they can replace the LCD plastic, it has to be the whole LCD.

 

[mcdermd]

The bezel around the face of the LCD is included as a part of the "quality program" that replaces the palm rest/keyboard assembly.