[rock99rock]

So I have contemplated doing this for some time. After seeing Rob928's finished project last week, I decided to get off my rear and into gear.

I didn't take too many pictures during the project, so I will be as descriptive as I can for any questions that arise.

There were about 3 ways I could have done this. "Project A" mockup:



This mockup had the monitor flush with the battery, and looked damn sexy. There were a few design issues with it though. In order for the monitor to sit so low, the "heatsink" and the palmrest had to be completely removed. If I could get the palmrest detached from the heatsink, then maybe it would have sat flush:



So as you can see above, I drilled out the plastic "rivots" (picture missed the sides which were drilled out as well) to seperate the alluminum heatsink, the black plastic belly, and the silver/grey palmrest.

This is what remained, which surprised me as I did not know it was all one piece:



In order for the LCD to remain flush, the back "brace" between the 2 "posts" had to go:




That was my final picture for "PROJECT A". Even after removing the palmrest, the monitor would still not sit flush due to the aluminum heatsink and black molding. (Cant give up function over aesthetics :thumbsup Not only that, there was no safe way of mounting the monitor to the base without having to customize the hinges in a way that was not possible with the tools available to me.

"Project B" was so short-lived that no pictures even exist. The idea, was to use the original hinges, but have the monitor in the relatively same place as the first picture, but mount the touchpad and mouse buttons over the battery. This never panned out, as it was getting late, and I have ZERO plastic molding skills. It looked great in my head though It would have been about 50% thicker than my original concept though, and that deterred the process.

"Project C" I decided to use the the original lid, and cut a hole in it. Reversed the LCD, and voila! Looks pretty damn good. Still have some edge cleaning to do for the inner bezel, but not much. Thank God for the Dremel, and my serious mathematical skillz. The LCD is offset by about 3mm (at least for my panel it was) So the hole is not exactly centered according to the lid, it is centered to the placement of the LCD. The routing of the vga cable was not easy, but doable. I will probably modify the original silver palmrest to fill the gap between the lid and the body.



Here, you can see the small gap that I have to fill, 3/4 of the sides of the machine:




Ba-zinga:



To Do List:
1. Install touchscreen (ordered from mydigitaldiscount, should be shipped this week)
2. Install GPS (ordered yesterday)
3. Install ATSC Tuner (ordered yesterday)
4. Re-route wifi antennas
5. Install hinges to mount lid to base
6. Install magnets to hold lid to base
7. Build dock that utilizes power and usb connections.

Future Project:
8. Redo lid. Maybe line the inside of the lcd bezel with some sort of liner?

[anguish]

Looking forward to seeing the finished project. I must admit, it does look pretty damn slick so far!

[mattchiro]

nice!

[lifegrasp]

I was kidding in that first comment - great job man!

[grassle]

Whoa! Impressive.

[TobyRhino]

Sweet.

I thought cutting a hole in the top if the lid would look better than just turning the screen/lid around like the previous tablet mod. FYI It does

[AaronASB]

What is the material covering the top of the bezel aka outside of laptop. Looks like some kind of tape made to look like leather? What is its purpose..? Where did you get it?

[rock99rock]

Originally Posted by AaronASB

What is the material covering the top of the bezel aka outside of laptop. Looks like some kind of tape made to look like leather? What is its purpose..? Where did you get it?

It was a vinyl skin kit that I got off ebay, mainly to prevent the lid from scratching. It will be coming off once the tablet is complete.

Thank you all for your kind comments. My dad and I spent many hours this weekend getting to this point, and I can't wait for the rest of the parts to arrive to complete the task. With his engineering background and plethora of tools, this was a pretty fun project.

[Thorsteenster]

Nice work on the conversion! I hope you get the touchscreen soon, I can't wait to see how it works under OSX.

[rock99rock]

Originally Posted by Thorsteenster

Nice work on the conversion! I hope you get the touchscreen soon, I can't wait to see how it works under OSX.

Apparently, the touchscreens were delayed, and wont be delivered to MDD until later this week. Itsa bummer.