Project: Macbook Tablet

By enigma-penguin
in Apple (macOS)

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Grand Master

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I saw this on your blog recently Enigma and it looked awesome! (Y) You're making some decent progress, looking forward to the final product :D

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Grand Master

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Some of the finishing touches are going to have to be put on hold from here on out as university commitments come up (the reason for rapid progress over this week) but as it stands right now;

- The touch functionality is working perfectly

- The wireless is properly restored

- The issues with the inverter board heating has been solved (you can see the hinge cover is partially back below)

- Screen rotation works on horizontal flips (vertical spazzes out)

- It has a new battery and it now fully portable

I'm going to use it over the next week and see how everything goes, so far everything has been pretty cool and I'm a lot better at typing on it now after spending time in the IRC using it. I will have to make a clip to hold the cover closed before the weekend is over though, as walking around with it sticky taped shut isn't pretty :p . I will post up the polished version of the case when I get around to it, but for now it'll do the job I want it to.

The Maclet beside it's big brother the MBP during my typing tests on the IRC:

portable-macs.png

And a quick view around it:

flipped.png

IMG_0418.JPG

IMG_0417.JPG

Also let me say thanks for all the kind words and interest in the project guys, it's been fun to do so far :)

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Grand Master

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I finally took off the rear protector on the screen and fitted the little buffers to stop the screen scratching, the screen now has a stupid chemical sheen on the back side. I'm slightly annoyed by this, but I'll leave it as it is for the moment. I will have to get it off using rubbing alcohol or something, but Im checking with the supplier first to make sure I cant bork anything.

I will also add a protective layer of my own over the top, I've tested it out and funny enough a projector slide sits in perfectly :p It's a cheap option but it'll do for now.

I've found a way to lock down the top cover properly using a heat gun (plastic welder) and a clip, so that will be done next. I'm going to do it so that the battery must be removed to open the top cover, for safety reasons.

EDIT: instead of posting again, I'll tack this on here.

Also: Someone found a way to enable ink without a recognised tablet on mac in 2005 (Here)

Here is how to enable INK on ANY Mac with OS X (tested with 10.4.2) and make use of it using a touch screen display (I use a carTFT 7''):

- Go to /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/

- Double Click Ink.menu. The INK Icon will appear in the tray (upper right area)

- Chose "Open Ink Setting" (or similar, my OS X is German) from the INK icon's menu

- Enable Ink by clicking the according check box. Voilá!

And that still works (10.6.3) so I've been messing with that for a few days :) works well enough but it can get confused sometimes.

Uploaded to youtube (might still be processing)

Note: it's seriously hard to hold something to video with and actually control a touchscreen.. sheesh..

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  • 2 weeks later...
Grand Master

enigma-penguin Veteran

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I think someone did submit it to hack-a-day, it never actually got accepted/posted. They have far more trippy hacks to show these days though :)

I've been increasingly worried about the touchscreen causing the Maclet to turn on during transport and I didn't want to have to make some kind of crummy looking cover. So I found an alternative; I now have the sleep magnet jammed into an old stereo headphone jack. When I plug in the headphone jack (the nub) I gain a "sleep switch", turning the jack upwards and the Maclet sleeps turn the jack downwards and the Maclet turns on.

I have to refine the magnet position so it isn't so particular, but it solves my on and off button issue with less trouble than I was going to have; I call that a win :D

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  • 4 months later...
Grand Master

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cmpscabral and LeftClicker; The screen is made by e-gelax, it can be purchased through many ebay sellers. The one I used was called Race-Buy and they're pretty good with customer service and fast on delivery :) You could pick them up for $50 buyout when I purchased, but I've seen them go for cheaper on open auction.

Frylock86; The battery life is about the same as a normal 07 macbook, but the new battery makes it a bit better than it once was so about 5 hours + depending on the screen brightness. It's certainly enough to get me through a day of university and awesome for lecture notes using Preview.

Gotta say I'm amazed how far this spread, I really never expected someone to pick up the mod story 4 months after completion... if anyone has any other questions feel free to ask :)

Wow...

http://gizmodo.com/5654737/turn-a-macbook-into-a-tablet-for-100

http://hackaday.com/2010/10/01/mac-tablet-keeps-the-look-of-the-donor-macbook/

http://lifehacker.com/5654478/turn-a-macbook-into-a-tablet-for-100

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/10/macbook_tablet_mod.html

Also: My thanks to the staffer or member who submitted it to hack-a-day and much <3

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Neowinian

gription

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Ha! I found this on LifeHacker this morning and was thrilled to see someone else used the same touchscreen as I did for my Kitchen PC project. You can find a brief discussion of it at my friend's site: Techsmessaging

The driver that shipped with my kit was from 2005, and as you can imagine, gave me some headaches when I upgraded my powerpc iBook to OS 10.5. With your post I was able to find updated software that works much better with 10.5! My iBook isnt as robust a system as your tablet, but its placement on the wall of our kitchen is perfect for reading recipes and watching how to videos. My wife and I have been using this almost daily for the last 8 months, it works great.

enigma-penguin--It would be helpful to chat about some of the settings and preferences you are using. Have you figured out what the "TPmon" setting is? Also, have you opted to use constant touch mode and auto right click? I have a tough time figuring out how to get the right click function working consistently.

Lastly, I use the onscreen keyboard regularly but cant figure out how to (shift + any letter) to get a capital letter, ive also toggled between a medium sized keyboard and huge one...but have no idea how i managed to do that! Is there a set of instructions out there for the onscreen keyboard?

P6PBI.jpg

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Grand Master

enigma-penguin Veteran

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Ha! I found this on LifeHacker this morning and was thrilled to see someone else used the same touchscreen as I did for my Kitchen PC project. You can find a brief discussion of it at my friend's site: Techsmessaging

The driver that shipped with my kit was from 2005, and as you can imagine, gave me some headaches when I upgraded my powerpc iBook to OS 10.5. With your post I was able to find updated software that works much better with 10.5! My iBook isnt as robust a system as your tablet, but its placement on the wall of our kitchen is perfect for reading recipes and watching how to videos. My wife and I have been using this almost daily for the last 8 months, it works great.

enigma-penguin--It would be helpful to chat about some of the settings and preferences you are using. Have you figured out what the "TPmon" setting is? Also, have you opted to use constant touch mode and auto right click? I have a tough time figuring out how to get the right click function working consistently.

Lastly, I use the onscreen keyboard regularly but cant figure out how to (shift + any letter) to get a capital letter, ive also toggled between a medium sized keyboard and huge one...but have no idea how i managed to do that! Is there a set of instructions out there for the onscreen keyboard?

It's awesome to see another project with this screen, I love the presentation of the ibook like that. Congrats on some really nice work. (Y)

I initially had issues with the drivers shipped as well (thus the searching for the e-gelax site) and it's good to hear you got some benefit from the search too :) I'm pretty thrilled with my project as well, it gets almost daily use either at home or at university.

As for settings, I elected for normal mode with constant touch and no auto right button. I also had issues with right click, though I generally don't need to right click anything (I use the cog drop down if I really have to) and I press and hold on dock icons to get the previews of windows. I originally knew the trick that made it properly right click most of the time, but the memory eludes me I'm sorry to say. When it comes to the shift key and command keys, I'd suggest the sticky keys option in your system settings it works wonders; you should find it under Universal Access. The keyboard style change I'm unsure about... I imagine it hasn't simply resized, but changed the button layout as well?

TPmon at least as far as I know, is for selecting which screen the touch panel is actually on when you use more than one. I could be wrong but I never really saw any other use to it (except maybe the button click sounds).

Again, awesome work man. I feel inspired to make a wall mount in the kitchen :laugh:

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Neowinian

israel102

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after seeing this i took apart my old hp laptop with its broken screen. the screen is really messed up so i just removed it completely. im a total noob to this stuff so i have a few questions i would love to have answered, if you dont mind:

first of all, i see a lot of touch layers that you put on top of a screen but there are also real touchscreens. i cant tell which one is used here. as i said, my screen is broken so i need a full touchscreen. is it not possible to get a full touchscreen for around 50 bucks?

how is this touch screen connected to the pc itself? it wasnt clear from the article. is there need to buy a touchscreen controller? a usb adapter?

any help appreciated

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Neowinian

gription

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israel102-- The setups described in this thread have a functional laptop screen and an additional touchscreen that sits on top of the original computer screen. It sounds like the original screen on your HP is broken and would need to be replaced, then you would the ~$50 touch screen on top of it. Good luck. :punk:

Here is a video of my project in action.

Fabricating a case was one of the toughest aspects of this project, and EnigmaPenguin did a great job of putting together a very nice little package. The size of the light box on my project provided considerable latitude for extra wires and encumbrances but is a great way to make use of an otherwise out dated machine. Thank you for the complements Enigma.

With that, 2 questions:

Does anyone have some G4 memory sitting around? :whistle:

Do you have any great recipes? If so, send them to bloomcook (at) gmail.com :cake:

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Neowinian

MacG1110

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cmpscabral and LeftClicker; The screen is made by e-gelax, it can be purchased through many ebay sellers. The one I used was called Race-Buy and they're pretty good with customer service and fast on delivery :) You could pick them up for $50 buyout when I purchased, but I've seen them go for cheaper on open auction.

Frylock86; The battery life is about the same as a normal 07 macbook, but the new battery makes it a bit better than it once was so about 5 hours + depending on the screen brightness. It's certainly enough to get me through a day of university and awesome for lecture notes using Preview.

Gotta say I'm amazed how far this spread, I really never expected someone to pick up the mod story 4 months after completion... if anyone has any other questions feel free to ask :)

Wow...

http://gizmodo.com/5654737/turn-a-macbook-into-a-tablet-for-100

http://hackaday.com/2010/10/01/mac-tablet-keeps-the-look-of-the-donor-macbook/

http://lifehacker.com/5654478/turn-a-macbook-into-a-tablet-for-100

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/10/macbook_tablet_mod.html

Also: My thanks to the staffer or member who submitted it to hack-a-day and much <3

Can you provide a link I searched ebay for it and found nothing

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Neowinian

LeftClicker

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Yes I saw that, but it has no way to buy them...

I just checked (stupid me for not doing so earlier) and you are correct. I looked at some of their distributors and could find touch panel/LCD combos for less than ~USD$300. I'd appreciate a link as well.

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Grand Master

enigma-penguin Veteran

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Hi Guys,

The touch screen itself was purchased from the ebay user Race-Buy, at the time they were regularly selling touch screen products. At this time it appears they are no longer selling the items, but they do still come up from time to time on ebay for the same kind of price I paid with other sellers. The item in question is a 13" 16:9 touch screen overlay with a USB host controller, I did a quick search of ebay and I didn't see any touch screens of that size right now (a few larger ones though).

EDIT: haha! I found the old auction..

http://cgi.ebay.com/13-16-9-USB-Panel-Kit-Set-add-Touch-Screen-Function-/320583074097?pt=Computer_Monitors&hash=item4aa43d8131

Hopefully you guys can see that too! It looks like they only stopped selling in late September, damn.

The screens are sold by online stores, but at higher cost though. EETI is one of them, but I too never found a way to buy from them. Top Touch was another, but I couldn't find one in the size I needed.

Israel102; Sorry to say but as gription says above the screens we used were just the touch layer, finding a full integrated panel at that price point may be difficult. However with a good amount of digging you can find anything at a good price, it might be $50 but it may still be worth it (in the end you might have to replace the LCD and then buy a touch panel). The touch screen itself is connected to one of the laptops USB ports on the side of the computer, it can be internalised by wiring it up to the keyboard/trackpads USB connection or by soldering it into the external USB socket (you lose the use of one USB port, but you don't have wires poking out).

I was pretty lucky to find so many for sale at once, but if you're patient more do come up guys. Just keep your eyes peeled or you can attempt to email them through ebay, hopefully they still know where to get the screens.

The Decryptor; Hahaha, take solace in the fact that it wouldn't have been built without your suggestion :p

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Neowinian

kinwa91

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I haven't seen anything quite like this! AW MAN YOU'RE INGENUOUS!

I happen to have an 2-year-old (late 2008) MacBook on hand that I would LOVE to try that mod on!

Just a quick question, what have you done with the power button? I didn't quite get that part where you shorted the USB pins.

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