Trying my hand at a DIY Cintiq

[Claymonkey]

So this project has CONSUMED me the last two weeks. I've spent FAR to much time on ebay and researching each aspect of this project.

Company page

Awhile back I found a news thread that talked about a guy that built his own Cintiq for under $200. Needless to say I was extremely interested since I've wanted a large Wacom tablet for years and a a Cintiq since I first heard about them.. I could never justify the cost though.

This guy basically has a how to for making one however Project Page and a still young forum built around people trying their hands at this as well Forum link.

I just stopped being a lurker there this week and just posted my build log there. I figured a few of you here would be interested in a project like this and I know for a fact some of you know more about electronics and prototyping than most of the people on their forum. There are a handful of truly knowledgeable people there however so it's worth looking into. Anyone has any useful hints/suggestions on this I'm all ears.

My build log there

Having actually made progress on this project instead of trolling ebay and this forum I figured it was time to start my build log.

So... with an appropriate tongue in cheek name for my DIY Cintiq we move forward.

The build:
This build is going to start out conservative and then hopefully get progressively excessive. I'm already enjoying The UD-1212-R as a tablet, and I want the benefit of actually being able to use my project at each step of the process. At first I'll be sticking to the basics of Drew's original design except where noted otherwise. The biggest immediate deviation will be using a laptop lcd instead of a old lcd monitor.

My initial ebay hunting has gotten me the following parts:

• [li]Tablet: Wacom UD-1212-R (came with cable but no pen or power cord) - received[/li]
  [li]Screen: Samsung 15" LTN150P2-L03 LCD panel: Resolution 1400x1050. - received - but arrived broken - (replacement has been ordered and shipped)[/li]
  [li]LVDS Controller: tywong888's lvds controller - shipped from hong kong... waiting impatiently[/li]
  [li]Serial->USB adapter: very small Prolific chip adapter - received and works great[/li]
  
  [li]Also bought - pen and power cord from http://www.coolgraphicstuff.com -received and they work great... easily the most expensive part of the project so far[/li]

Initial goals (Revision 1.0):

The initial build will be a relatively boring knock-off of Drew's build. It will have the following:

• [li]embedded 15" 1400x1050 laptop lcd in the lower 9x12 section of the 12x12 workspace[/li]
  [li]upper 3x12 area will be mapped to the palettes moved to my primary monitor of the software I'm using on the embedded screen[/li]
  [li]changeable templates for the palettes of the programs I'm using. For now just printed out on matte photo stock paper for sturdiness[/li]
  [li]dye the tablet cover black and stencil in white the 'Ritwiq' logo - Auto Zone and Michaels Arts and Crafts have been the best places to find this item locally.[/li]
  [li]find a matching screen protector or get one custom made from http://www.zagg.com - I've been using there screen protectors on my phones/pocket pc/cameras and the screens still look brand new[/li]

Here is the tablet right now with the Photoshop CS2 template in place. Mapping those are a pain but oh so useful:


Here is a quick mockup of the tablet when it's done:


Thoughts on shielding: Any additional shielding that needs to be done I'm going to attempt to do by take sheets of aluminum foil, covering both sides of it with contact paper to protect any nearby electronics. I'll connect a piece of speaker wire under the contact paper to the aluminum and the other end to one of the grounds on the boards.

Revision 2.0 goals:

• [li]serial->usb adapter - It's an extremely small adapter that uses a separate Type B -> Type A cable. This is ideal for this project and I want to break the unit out of its soft rubber housing and embbed it in the tablet. I'll have to move the power plug next to the lcd's power plug at first (see next item) and wire up a custom serial/power plug based on the pinout diagram I remember seeing here in the forum[/li]
  [li]Make it run off of one power adapter - both the tablet and the lcd run off of 12v power brick and if I can get away with running them off the studier of the units with a y-splitter excellent.. otherwise I might have to look into making a resistor/regulator (he says having never done this before )[/li]
  [li]Add lcd stand mount holes on the back - attach a plate and/or cut in the notches needed to use the two spare lcd stands I have. I'd love to take it back and forth with me to work and use it as a second monitor at work.[/li]

Pie in the sky goals:

• [li]Create a custom case using resin casting methods. I've never done this but this is where my sculpture background and casting knowledge will come in handy. The reprap project has a good how to on this process http://dev.www.reprap.org/bin/view/M...lingForCasting [/li]
  [li]Replace the templates by embedding either two 5.6-6" lcd's or a series of Nintendo DS/Pocket PC screens. Finding a way to control the mini screens is the main problem. You can get the DS screens on ebay for $3 each though... What I'd really love to figure out is how to make each screen a seperate usb monitor that you can use within Windows.[/li]
  [li]embed a usb hub if the above is successful. I've also thought about using a vga->usb adapter for the main screen but from what my research has shown the response time isn't great.[/li]
  [li]add a mounting system on the bottom of the tablet so I can have it run off of an eee pc/msi wind/pico-itx computer[/li]

Early snafus:
LCD - The box showed up EXTREMELY mangled. I opened the box and found the lcd very well wrapped in bubble wrap and an antistatic bag, surrounded by shredded newspaper. I unwrapped it and was examining the back and was glad to see that it seemed to be a good unit... then I noticed that one corner was bent at a 30-40 degree angle from the rest of the screen. I then flipped it and saw how completely managled and broken the lcd was.. The spiderweb is pretty impressive actually.



I have yet to hear back from the seller but I'm pretty sure they are going to say "oh well", especially since I won it for $12 plus reasonable shipping. I'll see how much I can fight that, but in the meantime I found an online retailer that had the same model for $30.. still very reasonable and I already had the LVDS en route configured for this model, and I really don't want to have to settle for 1024x768.

LVDS controller - Not really a snafu but something to note. The seller has been mentioned in the forum before, and I might have even found this controller because of a post here... losing track of research details by this point. He asked me what panel I would be using this for so he could program it... I’m hoping that this is just a niceness and I can reprogram it if I wish. Anyone have this unit and tried to reprogram? Is it just pin settings or a PIC programmer affair?

[Claymonkey]

As an interesting side note the tablet I'm using for this project was originally owned by Digital Anvil. It's always interesting to see where the stuff you buy off ebay comes from.


Digital Anvil Wiki

[rylan]

I'm not sure what that particular lvds controller is... usually the scalar is configured by a flash bios chip that contains timing parameters dependend on the lcd module type, along with settings for the OSD if there is one.

[Claymonkey]

The LVDS is going to look like this:


and has the following specs:

Controller Specifications:

* Input: VGA
* VGA Input: 640x480 to 1280x1024
* LCD Panel Connection: Both LVDS / TTL
* Support Panel Pixel: VGA 640x480 to 1366x768 (8" or above, nearly all 10" to 22" LCD)
* One low tension output for back light
* Power consumption: 12V 2 to 4A

Package included:

* 1x LCD Controller
* 1x Keypad Board
* 1x Single Lamp BackLight Inverter
* 1x 110~240 12V 4A power adapter (power cord not included)
* 1x Controller to LCD Connection Cable (please send me the lcd model)
* 1x VGA Cable

It's a hong kong special so don't know a whole lot about it beyond that yet.

[Claymonkey]

So I got the LVDS board. It looks like it uses a realtek chip rtd2523b and a SyncMOS SM5964. Programing would appear to be done by an ISP programmer.. the connector is 4 pin though the DIY programmer I found for ISP is either 6 or 10 pin. Mind you I haven't researched it THAT deeply yet.