I have no idea how the internal workings of a laptop are utilized. Inside there are boards and wires that are nothing like a regular tower PC, of which I have built many. So when I started this project I had two goals. The first being not to break the laptop I was going to be working with. The second goal being that I couldn't spend more than 30 bux.
This all started when Jacque and I ordered a new Macbook from apple.com. When it showed up on my door step I was in heaven to have a laptop under 14 pounds. My old Compaq Armada E500 had served me well over the years but its 500 MHz processor and 256 of RAM was finally starting to show its age. My first plan for it was to build a NES computer however after pulling the laptop apart it turns out that mother board is way to big to fit inside a NES case. So my second plan sprang into action. I set out to build a digital picture frame for less than 30 bux*.
* Not factoring in the cost of the computer which at this point has been bought and paid off for well over five years.
Step 1:
Laptop Deconstruction
I have no pictures from this part of the project because I hadn't decided to write up how I made the picture frame at this point. This was the first laptop I had ever dismantled so I basically just took out any screw I could find on the outside of the laptop and when I thought I had them all I tried to pry the laptop in two. It turned out there were tons of screws I didn't even see so after some more unscrewing I finally was able to crack the case in two. To my amazement pretty much the whole internal case was full of motherboard. I had expected to find lots of little boards all wired together but this wasn't the case at all. So after finding all the screws I could see I started to pull off all the things I didn't think I needed to run the picture frame. If I didn't know what it was it was out on the floor with the rest of the junk. After about 40 minutes of tinkering I plugged it in and it didn't do anything. The laptop remains didn't even beep to tell me something was wrong. I had a pile of plastic and metal with electricity running to it. So I started to put things back onto the motherboard until it would boot up. In the end it turns out you need just about everything for this model to boot up. My original plan was to build a housing for the mother board to sit on to cut down on size but in the end I just ended up tossing the bottom of the case and keeping the top with the keyboard and mouse intact.
all the stuff I didn't use
Step 2:
Buying Stuff
After about two weeks of playing with the dismantled laptop I had somewhat of a plan as to how I was going to attack the framing part of the project. As with most of the things that happened with this project it turns out my initial though process was a bit off.
I started with the idea of builing a frame out of some two by fours we had laying around the house. They were the perfect thickness and with a little wood working I could end up with a nice looking custom frame.
Above is my attempt at woodworking. It turned out nice but took about three hours to complete just one side of the frame. As I soon found out, we just don't have the right tools for what I wanted to do with this frame. So it was off to the store to pick up a frame and some essential accessories.
I went to a local crafts store and here is what I picked up.
One 20 x 30" piece of foam board at 1/4 of an inch thickness.
$ 2.79
One black 10 x 13" picture frame with glass.
Regularly $ 9.99
ON SALE FOR ONLY $ 6.00
Two 24" pine stakes at 1/4 of an inch thickness.
$ 1.39 each
One 10 x 13" silver framing matte.
$ 2.99
One box of Nerds.
$ .79
OK that last one wasn't part of the project but I had to keep the woman happy because I would have had computer parts and saw dust all over the place for the next few days. And it worked!
Grand Total with sales tax...
$ 16.42
That puts me exactly $ 13.58 up on my $ 30 limit. I'm in good shape at this point.
Step 3:
Framing the Monitor
This should be called steps 3 and 4 because I had to do this step twice. The first time I didn't take into account that the actual viewing portion of the laptop screen wasn't in the center of the monitor so it was off center on my first attempt. On the second attempt I got it right.
After a bunch of remeasuring and re-cutting I got this great piece of foam board that the monitor fit into perfectly.
I placed the monitor into the foam board and had to secure it to the foam board somehow...but how?
Duct Tape was around and it worked perfectly for securing the monitor to the foam board. I also taped down some wires that were floating around the back of the monitor.
Step 4:
Laptop Frame
So with the monitor aspect of the laptop handles I still had only a slight idea how I was going to attach the guts of the laptop to the back of the picture frame. I thought I would figure it out later and set out to build a box to house the all the computer parts for now.
I took my 24" pine stakes and cut them to fit around the heart of the picture frame.
As you can see from the picture I didn't have much left over scrap after this step so if you happen to do this in your project...don't mess up. :) I used some wood glue and some corner claps to secure the frame and for good measure I put a few nails into the sides as well.
I didn't have the nails on hand so I had to buy a box at the store. I planned on using them later in the project as well so I though it was a solid purchase.
One box of 1/2 wire nails.
$ 1.39
This addition to the project was well worth the money and I was going to the store anyway so I didn't waste any extra gas on this one little expense.
New Grand Total for this project with sales tax...
$ 17.80
I still have a while $ 12.20 to play with. Maybe when I'm done with this I'll order a pizza?
I absolutely, positively knew this would happen during this project...
I broke the glass on the picture frame due to a careless mistake. I was taking the glass out of the frame when I heard a snap. Several obscenities later I was OK with what just happened. It was at this point that I knew I had to either (A) find some glass around the house to cut down to fit the frame I have now or (B) go buy another frame. So back to the craft sore I went. I would have been very upset by the unnecessary second trip to the craft store but after some thought I needed a few more items anyway. I also had decided to return the silver matte that I had purchased with the rest of the stuff and instead just used the white matte that came with the frame.
One 12 x 16" piece of art board.
$ 5.49
And another black 10 x 13" picture frame with glass.
Regularly $ 9.99
STILL ON SALE FOR ONLY $ 6.00
Returned one 10 x 13" silver framing matte.
$ 2.99 back to me.
So after the return and new purchases I spent another $ 9.12 with sales tax. This puts my grand total for spending on this project up to $ 26.92. Dangerously close to my $ 30 limit. In retrospect the Nerds were a bit of a splurge. From here on I'll have to be very careful and very precise with how I used my materials. Lesson learned...
Step 5:
Laptop Frame Part 2
I know this should be a continuation of Step 4 but after the shenanigans of going back to the craft store and the necessary waiting for the glue to dry on the laptop frame I decided this was an additional step entirely.
OK so on my last trip to the craft store I picked up a piece of art board. Basically art board is just particle board with a single primed side that is good for painting and...well art. It's only about 1/4 of an inch thick so it's the perfect size to cut down to match the frame size and then cut out the inside of the art board.
I now nail the art board to the laptop frame using the wire nails I picked up earlier and then cut off the extra art board so that it is flush with the inner edges of the frame.
It's very important to get this right because the particle board easily flakes apart if you aren't careful. Also make sure you get all the art board out of the middle of the laptop so you can get the laptop back into the frame.
The backing of the picture frame has a hanger on it for wall mounting. This was great because I could attach this to the back of the laptop frame and I didn't have to come up with a new way to hang the picture frame. A few nails later and I had a finished backing to the picture frame.
I took this time to drill a hole into the frame for the power cord to attach to. I also drilled a few vent holes into the back of the frame just in case heat was to be an issue at some point. Due to the limited power consumption this digital picture frame would use I didn't think it was necessary but thought I was better safe than sorry.
Step 6:
Final Assembly
The final step in the build is finally here. The picture frame is really starting to take shape. Now before I slap everything together I had to figure out how I wanted to attach the laptop frame to the picture frame. I knew I had to be able to get at the computers disc drive to add new pictures so I had to get access to it in a fairly easy way. If you have a computer with an internal wireless card this wouldn't be a problem as you could just set up a network and dump new pictures onto the digital frame wirelessly. I however didn't have this luxury. In the end I decided to use screws to attach the two pieces together. This way I can take out the screws and still get at the laptop core of the digital picture frame.
I took out the drill one last time and put eight holes through the back of the laptop frame and into the picture frame itself. I put a piece of tape on the drill bit to keep from going too deep into the picture frame. The last thing I needed was to spend another 6 buxs on a picture frame. I could have gotten away with four wood screws but I really liked the way the machine screws looked and I didn't want to spend more money on cool looking screws so I just used double the screws.
Here is where I went a bit crazy. I knew from the beginning that I would be painting the laptop frame to match the picture frame but when I got out to the garage I could only find gloss black spray paint. The frame was flat black and I wanted it to match in the worst way. So I headed off to the store again...
One 12 oz. can of flat back spray paint
$ 2.99
Grand total update with sales tax...
$ 30.13
I blew it! I went over my 30 bux limit and by a grand total of .13 cents. Actually I wanted to pick up the $ 1.99 can of spray paint but they were out of flat back in that brand so I figured I'd go nuts and spend the extra bux. Plus the Nerds didn't really count so if you take them out of the grand total you get a new total of $ 29.29. I'm $ .71 cents up then...right?
So I paint the frame and with a few coats of the newly acquired spry paint and it's time to really put this sucker together. While waiting for the paint to dry I went ahead and cleaned up the glass for the frame and the monitor of the laptop so they are shiny and clean. Very, very carefully I put the glass and matte into the frame and follow that up with the monitor. With a deep sigh of relief I finish up by clamping everything to the picture frame and rewire the monitor to the laptop guts. With the scary part out of the way I go and grab the finished laptop frame.
Althought the flat black paint did put me over my spending limit it does look very nice. Well worth the $ .13 cents splurge in my opinion.
I slide the laptop guts into the frame and put that onto the back of the picture frame.
With a little help from my trusty screwdriver I finish up the project by screwing the two pieces together.
I plugged it in and the digital picture frame sprang to life.
I had taken the opportunity earlier in the project to dump about 2,000 pictures onto the hard drive. To get the picture frame to display the images I just set the screen saver to "My Pictures Slideshow" and set the time it took to start for one minute. Sure enough, one minute after startup and I have pictures in my frame.
DONE!
Conclusions
Now that the project is done I guess I could have done a few things differently. For starters I could have not broken the first frame of glass. That would have saved me a whole 6 bux. I'm also pretty sure that some of the materials I used could have been purchased cheaper at a hardware store. Although your mileage may very depending on the make and model of your laptop, I would highly suggest using a laptop with built in wireless for shear ease of updating. Although this design is fairly easy to get into, it would be a whole heck of a lot easier if you didn't have to take apart the digital picture frame at all.
Hopefully this has been helpful to you as you build your own digital picture frame.
