X Driver wrote:

gam3r wrote:

Phenoum wrote:

hrm - unless it's going to double in length - im not seeing it gam3r - unless you add a sliding mechanism, that's never going to cover more than a portion of the keys (making an L-shape)

It doesnt move vertically, it just turns around that point like a pivot horizontally.  You can turn it all the way around until its flat with the bottom and it covers the keyboard and the trackpad.  Anyone see it?

I see it. I've thought about this idea also. I think It's the only real solid way to do it. You'd change one hinge to a swivel, the other you could have a spring loaded pin to pull and release the second hinge, then rotate the lid 180 degrees around to cover the keyboard. This would work really well if you could get the swivel. I'd bet you could find something off the shelf. Route all wiring through the swivel

BINGO!! There we go. hang em' up

Hey Sneak, amazing first post! That idea looks even better!

sneak wrote:

Thank you very much guys.

Very good. It could work if you can move the boards at the bottom. May be the easiest way so far. I can't wait to see someone make one of these.

Nice post sneak :-)
Gam3r: The single hinge idea will not work, here's why. have a look at a tablet pc, when it goes from 'regular' mode to tablet mode the bottom left and bottom right corners or the screen swap positions relative to the rest of the laptop. This isn't possible if one of the corners is fixed.

Try it out with two sheets of paper to represent the screen and the base, join them at one corner and try to get it to work.

The best result you could get is an L shaped tablet, the worst is a keyboard with a reeeeally offset screen :-)

I had lunch with my sister so I took a picture of her cell phone.

As you can see it is the kind of cell phone that you have to open (little screen on the outside, bigger on the inside) but there you can flip the screen and close in backwards. This way you can use your phone as a numeric compact camera. Excepts here her camera sucks...
So this is precisely the kind of thing we want for our EEEs.

if anybody else is still like me trying to find a way that leaves both origional hinges intact, i have a new addition to the idea. see i spent about 4 hours yesterday trying to find a 7 inch lcd screen that could be put on top of the lid. problem is i couldnt find one anywhere that was less than an inch thick, also, they all ran off of 12 volts or more. big problem to add an inch of thickness along with power requirements like that. i was originally thinking i could by one of the inch-thick ones and see if it could be slimmed down...fat chance. i dont  know why nobody makes a thin 7 inch lcd as a standalone by itself, the eee is living proof that they can be 1/4 inch or less in thickness, so why doesnt anybody make one? i was starting to get a little discouraged, especially when the one inch thick lcd's where $319 each, and i was seriously considering forking out that much for one. i went to bed instead and when i woke up i had this sudden idea. it all starts with "what else can i buy for $319?" well, it occurred to me that a eee 2G surf can be had for $309...anybody catching on to the idea? buy a 2G surf and use its screen on the outside of the lid! 50 bucks more to do the touchscreen mod on it, so it is a little more expensive than buying a premade touchscreen, but the thickness is right, the dimensions are right, we all ready know that it can be powerd by the eee cuz it came from a eee, just use a switch or something to turn off the inside one if nessesary, switch power between the two. also, you get a little added bonus of a spare battery, which i know many of us would love to have. granted its the lower powered battery but its still a backp battery. you could sell the RAM chip on ebay for a few bucks (maybe), and/or sell the wireless card on ebay to help offset the costs, in addition to that you would have a spare keyboard you could play with if you like backlighting OR sell it to one of us who want to fabricate a backlit keyboard, also a spare motherboard incase you brick it. you get the idea. i wish the 2G could have a webcam because it would be awesome to have one pointing out but to buy the 4G just for that would seem like more of a waste (to me), in the end you take the surf's LCD, add the 50 dollar touchscreen, fit it to the lid, hook it up and tada! the top part of the lid cold probably be taken off the surf to make it thinner, not certain havent opened mine personally yet. if a switch was set up so that you could use the same LCD controller and switch between the two screens you wouldn't really lose any battery life. i dont know if both could be powered at once or not, might not work very well plus why would you need to? disable the magnetic switch of course, so that when you want to you flip the switch to tranfer the power to the external monitor, flip it closed and away you go. perhaps a bit spendy but the spare battery would be nice, everything would be set up pretty well, spare parts for the future, retain the sturdy hinge design.
now that i think about it, if you were like me and have more use for the webcam on the outside vs. the inside...use the surf screen as the main internal LCD, as in the entire plastic case and all, use your original 4G with webcam on the outside...yeah
might have to consider adding weight to the base to hold it down but maybe not, the LCD is pretty thin and light...
sorry to babble on and on but what do you guys think? im determined to find a way to be able to do this and retain both hinges otherwise it would never hold up to my school use
-Andrew

EDIT- buy.com you can get a 2G surf (black) for only $299, this idea just got cheaper oh, and you would have an extra power supply  (or sell it), sell the extra case, make up for the cost in a short hurry

Last edited by andrewr (2008-02-02 5:52:30 pm)

Well we don't want to put a second screen, you do. But those kind of big switch exist, they need a power source.

And to make them longer the best would be having two plugs male and female exactly the same and using wrapping wire. Other wise, well cut them one by one and solder to both sides of a piece of very thin wire (kynar AWG30).

Stoney3K wrote:

Last wrote:

How about not using a twist hinge @ all!

Design connectors @ both hinge points that will allow you to simply pull/snap off the screen entirely from the keyboard, rotate/flip 180 degrees & snap back into the hinges via the connectors?

Actually would be better to only use a wide single hinge then you could easily stuff your cables to a single connector in the center but the battery won't allow that.  Ah well. lol

I was thinking the exact same thing. As long as you keep the distance from the connectors to either side equal, you can flip the screen around by just taking it off and clipping it on in the "screen up" direction.

The camera and touchscreen can go through 1 USB cable which will supply 5V power. I'm not sure as to the pin count on the LCD though, if it's not in the tens of pins you could get away with a pretty compact connector.

You don't need to swivel the screen, since you won't be using it when you're flipping it! Just take it off, turn it around, and put it back on again. Use as a tablet. When you're done, reverse process.

that sounds awesome!

RK wrote:

andrewr, I was also searching for 7" LCDs on the net and couldn't find much. But I got another idea when I was at the shopping mall. Those useless digital picture frames. They are everywhere, some are relatively thin, and most are 7" and either 800x480 or 480x234, and cost under $100. Maybe they use similar LCDs as the EEE.

hey i think you may be right on! they have like 8in ones too...hmm i wonder...

So I have seen lots of talk about different styles of hinges, but I have not heard anyone mention the pure slate since the first post?

It looks to me like the eee is just begging to have the keyboard taken out completely and have the whole black screen/speakers/webcam unit placed in the keyboard slot. The whole screen assembly could simply be removed. This would make the eee smaller, lighter, and a sweet tablet pc. Everyone has been complaining about the small keyboard size since it came out anyway, so this could be a chance to eliminate it altogeter. The idea being that the eee is usually a second computer anyway and is mostly used for viewing webpages and looking at documents on the run, not writing dissertations.

Does anyone know if it would fit, or would it have to be raised above the surface?

I think I have a new idea,.. Why not purches a 10.6 inch WXGA monitor preferable with a touchscreen (If you could get a hold of one). Then put thee eee motherboard inside it by using the eee plastic lid and some molten plastic. You could buy a ipod battery charger and use it to power both the lcd and the motherboard, ore maybe you could draw the power from the motherboard??? You could even solder a bluetooth to the motherboard, and use a bluetooth keyboard. This would be possible, look at what the extreame mini ITX case mod'ers have made!

Just bought my touch screen kit. Should be coming soon. Still looking for ideas on how to hinge it. I might be going with X Driver's altered idea off of sneak.

lol i wonder if walmart would let me take one of those picture frames apart to see how they work...probably not lol most of them use camera cards though dont they? i wonder if they are compatible with regular video signals, i dont think ive ever seen one that had an external video in but ive never looked that close either...great idea RK thats definatly something to look into. i still wish there was a super thin 7" consumer LCD screen available tho, the technology to make one has been around for a few years now so i dont know why i cant find any.