DIY Computer Monitor

Ever since finishing that robot I have not been getting many new ideas that excite me.
I am still in the still waters of creativity, so, no new projects yet.

The only thing that I have worked on since that time was adding a second monitor to my desk. It was a one day project; very easy.

I followed this Instructable mostly, and some other sources.

First I took the screen off of a broken laptop. 

Order the control board after talking with the eBay seller about specification.

Then wait a couple weeks for the board to arrive.

Then I plugged everything in and taped things together temporarily. I rested the screen on the corner of my desk like so.

I used the dead laptop's 12VDC adapter to power the screen.

After finding some time to work on it, I decided to replace my paper calender with the second monitor!

The control board only costs $35.

It has HDMI VGA DVI and some other audio plug stuff.

Most HDMI monitors cost $100 or more.

I have a sheet of plexi-glass holding everything together. The plexi-glass is secured to some scrap pinewood, which is epoxied to the back of the screen.

The epoxy is actually doing a really good job holding the wood to the plastic on the monitor

I also glued the inverter and control board to the back of the screen.

Not pictured here, but there is a stand I made that can hold screen. Since the screen is practically just a rectangle, I found a way to mount it onto a sort of stand if I ever wanted it off of the wall.

Overall this was a fun and easy project; I recommend it to anyone who has a dead laptop and needs an HDMI monitor for a low price. It's been a couple months since I built it, and it's been pretty consistent in displaying the right things.

Since installing the monitor I feel that my productivity has increased: it reduces the need to alt+tab to references, and also allows greater organization.

Highly recommends*