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Lots of things

montreal, Canada

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The HDMI to LVDS converter inside the laptop

Dissasembly : From this, I have kept the external body, the frame, the keyboard, the monitor and the speakers.

I never expected this to have a swappable cpu !

The early fitting of the components : In here, there's the SDR (witch fits perfectly through the 3.5mm jack ! made to be !) the Pi and (although hidden) the SSD. I also had to cut the frame a bit to fit some stuff. The pi is slightly too tall, but the buldge is not toooo bad.

Sneak peak of what I hope this sleeper-pi will look like by the end ! (fully closed with the SDR, Pi & SSD :

The PI is right under the Windows logo with the USB pointing towards the left. here's a part I cut from the frame :

Fig.1 Packed tight !

Fig.2 My phone's light is on under the monitor. I couldn't see anything xD

Fig.3 Disassembled !

Fig.4 It works !

Fig.6 Testing the monitor with the Pi

Fig.5 Cable is too short, needs an extention.

Fig.3 I broke the dremmel.

Fig.1 Dissasembled with the final location of the controller (top-mid)

Fig.2 In red, the size of the controller under the frame. In blue, the frame that needs to be cut (more or less).

Fig.4 Adjustments.

ThinkPi - Old Chassis, New Tricks.

Project ThinkPI

Ohai
You might be wondering, what the heck is this title ?
is it a Think Pad ? Did he mean Think Station ? What's with the Pi ? Can I have some ?
NO.. you can't.

This is a little project of mine, where I will take this old 2007 T61 Think pad, gut it, hack the heck out of the frame, and shove a Raspberry Pi 3b+ in it !
you may wonder. Is this possible ? will it fit in ? what about the display ? the keyboard ? how does that all work ?
Well, this is where this goes from a simple computer, to a true project laptop.

Why I want this :
I've been doing some fun stuff with an SDR, or a Software Defined Radio. witch lets you do tons of stuff with radio frequencies (receiver only for my unit) I can listen to ATC, the ISS (given I have a proper antenna) and the real purpose of this : Weather satellites !

So then, I wanted a Pi to run this at first, small, compact, powerful. but then I realized, I need a monitor, keyboard, storage...
Yeah, I could have took my existing laptop.. but I already had a PI I bought a PI !
And it wouldn't be as cool without one.
Tons of people have done "Pi laptops", but they are mostly either 3d printed, thick and flimsy, or they're plastic kits that are super tiny, and quite frankly unusable.

Project Milestones :

Gut it
Gather components
Get the monitor working with the Pi (potential deal breaker) || Works as of Jan 14th 2019
Get the keyboard working with the Pi (Has been done before, though most of the projects I've seen are abandoned, even the most recent ones.
Power
Fit it all in

Components :

Raspberry Pi 3b+
Nooelec NESDR SMART Software Defined Radio
Thinkpad T61
Corsair Force LS 114gb Sata2 SSD
Some SATA-To-USB adapter
HDMI+DVI+VGA LCD led Controller Inverter Lvds Board Kit for LP154W02(B1)(K6) (Controller for the monitor)
Some thinkpad kbd to usb controller (soon)
Some power solution (soon)
Potentially some replacement for the fingerprint scanner & the track pad (those tiny keyboard w/ track pad gutted maybe ?)

Color(s): Black

RGB Lighting? No

Theme: Case Mod

Cooling: Passive Cooling

Size: Mini-ITX

Type: General Build

Build Updates

Update #1 See with your own eyes !

I got the display controller In its neat little package. (Fig.1)
And holy shit it works !

Now you see, I was a bit scared at first, since the connector didn't match the one on the ribbon cable of the whole monitor unit.
After some more digging and disassembly, I found out that the cable in question is also used for the top led, the back light (more on that later) and the activity led on the bottom.

The actual panel connector is right smack in the middle of the panel, on the back.
So I connected it !
and it.. wait.. does it work ?
hard to see... (Fig.2)

Oh ! Right ! The back light !
You see, the back light is controlled separately from the display connector. the power for it comes from the separate board of the activity led (sounds weird, but the back light is at the bottom, next to that board) and I then realized, wait ! there's another board with the controller that has a plug that oddly resembles the back light's cable ! (Fig.3)

Finally though, It works. (Fig.4) And its flawless ! (Fig.5) And a great step forward to the completion of this project.

That's all for now

Next up : Keyboard or Power

Edit :
Oh right, I should maybe mention what the thing does.
Other than convert HDMI, DVI or VGA to the LCD's thing, I can also use speakers through it and use the AUX input too.
So the audio can go : Pi > Controller > Speakers
Or : Pi > Controller > Headphones / External
I have to adapt the included speakers though, the 4 pin plug is too small for the one on the controller, but I'm sure it will be fine.

This board does take a lot of power though, 12V 3A. That's about a typical laptop charger. so its going to need a beefy battery.

Fig.1 Packed tight !

Fig.2 My phone's light is on under the monitor. I couldn't see anything xD

Fig.3 Disassembled !

Fig.4 It works !

Update #2 - Display controller fitment.

So I took the chassis apart again to see how the controller would fit (Did I mention how much this thing is awesome !?)(Fig.1)

I had to cut a decent chunk off (Fig.2) and in the process, broke the cutting wheel on my dremmel (Fig.3).
As you can see, it fits pretty well in the chassis but will require more adjustments once I get another cutting wheel (Fig.4). The grinder+drill is too crude.

The board fits right in its place. it lines up perfectly with just about everything. I will however have to cap off the bottom of the laptop, as it stands right on top of the docking port hole. Furthermore, The LVDS cable for the monitor is too short (Fig.5) and will require an extention. I have not attempted to put the backlight assembly in yet, but since there's only 1 hole for cables to pass through easely, it will also need to be extended.

Finally, I have tested the LCD with the Pi outside the chassis, Its plugged in the wall for now, but not for long xD (Fig.6)
Also, I don't have a picture of this, but this board is really good. the controller for the LCD has an unused IR reiciver plug that outputs 5v witch could be (In theory) used to power the Pi. That would help a lot with the power delivery as I woudn't need a 12v to 5v converter (though those car-to-usb controllers should work well). I just don't know how much current it can put out. and sadly, I don't think it can handle a Pi.

That's it for now xD

Fig.1 Dissasembled with the final location of the controller (top-mid)

Fig.2 In red, the size of the controller under the frame. In blue, the frame that needs to be cut (more or less).

Fig.3 I broke the dremmel.

Fig.4 Adjustments.

Fig.5 Cable is too short, needs an extention.

Fig.6 Testing the monitor with the Pi

Hardware

Category / Value

Brand / Part

CPU

TBD/To Be Determined - TBD/To Be Determined (custom)

Motherboard

TBD/To Be Determined - TBD/To Be Determined (custom)

Memory

TBD/To Be Determined - TBD/To Be Determined (custom)

Storage

$ 105.24

Corsair - Force LS

Form Factor: 2.5 Inch

Interface: SATA 6 Gb/s

Capacity: 120 GB

PSU

TBD/To Be Determined - TBD/To Be Determined (custom)

Case

Custom - Custom (custom)

Cooling

TBD/To Be Determined - TITAN TFD-9225H12ZP/KE

Approved by:

ThinkPi - Old Chassis, New Tricks.

Most Recent Build

Best Build

ThinkPi - Old Chassis, New Tricks.

Build Updates

Update #1 See with your own eyes !

Update #2 - Display controller fitment.

Hardware

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