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Tapping off the power supply for a LCD

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cigardude:

Very cool, I do enjoy that build! Now I have something to think about. Thanks for you help guys.

cigardude:

So let me ask you about the monitor that you used. Did it take a regular power cable that looks like one that you use for the PC or did it take a power brick? I re-read your build thread and although I cannot find it now, I thought you had an issue with AC DC power for some reason with the monitor. On a side not, man I love those buttons.

cigardude:

I think I answered my own question here. I took a look at a few monitors that I have and the one with the power brick outputs 12Vdc --- 5A. That is what the power supply is going to be providing isn't it? I see that the positive is on the "inside" and the negative is on the "outside". That would mean that I would need to connect the +12v to the "inside" and the ground to the "outside", correct? If so this is totally doable. I will have to go to a 19" monitor if I don't want to spend money on it since I have one here but it's cool. Kind of excited that I learned this new technique!

ninjasquirrel:

My monitor was actually part of an all-in-one gateway profile 5 pc so it was powered from the motherboard through an LVDS connection (i didn't know of such a thing until the hours of research I conducted to learn a work around...) I found a distributor from china that makes an lcd inverter board that matches almost any model of screen you have and is powered by a 4 or 5mm (can't remember) dc power connection that provides 12v to the board; it outputs a VGA connection. I had an old car charger that was the same size so i chopped the end off and soldered the leads from the RCA phone cable to this from the barrier strip. Bottom line, I think you're on the right track given the fact that yours has an external power supply so you just trace down your leads and patch into your ATX.  Good luck!

cigardude:

I just wanted to let you guys know what I ended up doing. I also hate searching and finding threads with no resolutions on them, lol.

I was able to successfully hook up a 19" LCD that uses a power brick to the power supply. It expected 12v DC so I was able to hook it up like NS did in his build. There was a + and a - for the cord, so you just hooked it up accordingly to the power supply. This was just a test as I am planning on building a somewhat smaller project and wanted to used a smaller LCD.

Next step, using a LCD from a notebook. After some searching on google I came across an eBay seller who sells a nice little kit that will let you send a VGA signal to a notebook LCD. I have a bunch of old notebooks that work but are not fast enough for what I was planning on doing. I ended up taking the LCD screen out of the notebook, decased it and disconnected everything from it. Cleaned it up a little bit and waited for the parts to come in. It takes 12v DC so using the same cable that I rigged up earlier, I hooked it up to the power on the kit and the VGA to the kit and viola, I have a nice 15" screen that is thin and very very light for my build.

With the testing done, I can now start designing and getting the project from my mind to reality! I just wanted to thank everyone who responded for their ideas. It really did help a lot!





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