BUILD LOG- Dell Inspiron 7559 second monitor mod

[NoTxtWhileDrive]

This a build log thing of my progress so far in my auxiliary monitor project called by me as: "Project ghetto Valkyrie." 

 

As a prelude I'm going to mention that this is not my first monitor related mod thing... I once made a adjustable stand for a monitor using my drafting lamp and some 3d printing.

 

 

-2016

The whole thing began with Linus' CES2016 coverage of the Project Valerie, when I heard it as "Valkyrie" instead of "Valerie" and it kinda stuck with me. And the proceeding DIY solution video. I been playing with the Idea in my head of making my own with my Dell Inspiron

-2017, early Feburary?

I started doing sketches on my schematics notebook on the core mechanism I will use and some crude assembly drawings.

 

 

-2017, May (probably.)

Only significant progress I made in until this point is a revision on the Elbow hinge... ehh too lazy to scan It and it was pretty minor in the scheme of things... It was Finals period at my semester at this time. Normally, I put it on hold for a while.

 

- June-ish

Salvaged the lcd screen from my old Lenovo ideapad S100 then verified if it still works... It does not. Then extracted screens from my sisters' netbooks and both of them are in surprisingly good condition. I chose the lcd from the older of the two netbooks because the newer one could still be fixed so I reassembled the newer netbook and store it for later.

 

 

After finding a suitable screen I started to search ebay for a lcd controller board. And automatically picked the cheaper one. because yeah. Now the wait begins

 

- mid August

I never bothered to make a model of the initial schematics because I needed the board dimensions to do anything useful, though I made a somewhat accurate model of the laptop screen, which involved me holding my laptop against my a desktop scanner to get some accurate pictures before realizing duhhh.... amazon product pictures....

 

The controller board was suppose to arrive a month ago at the latest checked the tracking and it said "In Transit". I contacted the seller for a refund or a re-shipment, they chose the latter. We reached an agreement. Now the wait begins (again).

 

- September

Pretty much given up on the project at this point, it seems the second order is also a bust. So I cut my losses and move on with other stuff.

 

- early October

(to be fair guys this was my first time buying something in ebay, or shipping and postal service in general) It turns out the second shipment did arrive... a month earlier. yeah.... to quote a great per5-0n: "my b". (please someone get that reference).

 

 

Evaluated my design from may-ish... that sh*t is way too complicated and hard to manufacture, a redesign is in order. With a caliper and the driver board in hand I started to model. ditched the sliding/retraction mechanism like in the original Project Valkyrie mostly due to space constraint for a slot in mechanism, Ala joycons (stupid name. ) slotting in the Nintendo Switch kinda deal. And an elbow joint for viewing angle adjustments. (I have animations for both joints but can't seem to upload gifs there (not sure if it supports it at all)).

 

 

Printed it at the weekend of Oct. 7-8 (no pictures sadly) and were now at the present.

 

 

- Moving forward

• Need to design around the lcd controller board and its case. It does not fit like in my design... haven't given much free space between the bare lcd and the bottom of the controller case it seems.
• Redesign the part that connects to my laptop, even with duck tape and expensive (for me) 3m? m3? double sided tape I now regret buying... And for the fact;   I absolutely don't want to superglue or screw mount it I want this to be reversible in the case when I have the need to remove it.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
• Make the buttons more accessible.
• Find someway to power it using a powerbank or something...

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.

-Andy

 

[EthanCoow]

This project looks so cool, shows what 3D printing can actually do for us, not just for fun.

Also, this is much better than that ghetto taping job that a guy called Linus did, pmph!! This $H!T is much better.

Edited October 11, 2017 by EthanCoow

[NoTxtWhileDrive]

6 minutes ago, EthanCoow said:

This project looks so cool, shows what 3D printing can actually do for us, not just for fun.

 

I agree, kinda getting sick of people posting knickknacks and what are in essence paperweights (if their heavy enough to weight down paper, that is). Though to me this is my definition of fun lol.

 

[SlipperyPete]

15 minutes ago, EthanCoow said:

This project looks so cool, shows what 3D printing can actually do for us, not just for fun.

Also, this is much better than that ghetto taping job that a guy called Linus did, pmph!! This $H!T is much better.

hey there, in the future consider deleting pictures when you quote someone to reduce the length of the post.

that aside

i agree. this guy has really taken 3-D printing to a useful level in an awesome way  

[EthanCoow]

16 minutes ago, NoTxtWhileDrive said:

I agree, kinda getting sick of people posting knickknacks and what are in essence paperweights (if their heavy enough to weight down paper, that is). Though to me this is my definition of fun lol.

 

Yeah. All those paperweights that don't even weigh enough to be paperweights. But seeing you do custom 3D modeling yourself is very cool also. Did you learn in yourself? Because I'm interested.

5 minutes ago, SlipperyPete said:

hey there, in the future consider deleting pictures when you quote someone to reduce the length of the post.

that aside

i agree. this guy has really taken 3-D printing to a useful level in an awesome way  

Noted. Changed my original post not to clutter this thread up. 

[NoTxtWhileDrive]

18 minutes ago, EthanCoow said:

Yeah. All those paperweights that don't even weigh enough to be paperweights. But seeing you do custom 3D modeling yourself is very cool also. Did you learn in yourself? Because I'm interested.

Mostly, around 80% got the rest was from youtube tutorials and asking in the autodesk forums. Try it if you can; the program is Autodesk Fusion 360 and its free for 3 years using its education program.