- This topic has 8 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 5 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hi all,
I’ve been poking my nose around this site ever since I got my N110 about 6 months ago but finally now got around to posting. You all do some fine work and I’ve referenced other posts on this forum many a time. Currently I’m in the process of converting my N110 to a tablet and wanted to share my experience and get input for how I want to finish the project.
So, here is a list of what I have already done:
-
Upgraded to 2GB of Kingston DDR2*Installed Windows 7 Home Premium 32*Bought a
10.2″ resistive 4-wire touch screen kit from ebay*Completetly disassembled the netbook*Tore apart 6-cell battery resulting in the six individual 3.8V cells and the battery controller circuit board*Designed and fabricated an entirely new bamboo + aluminum case (not yet 100% finished)
And what is still on the to-do list:
-
Finish work on new case*Experiment with optimizing bluetooth and WiFi antennas placement in new case*[Possibly] Add and interface to accelerometer*[Possibly] Add and interface to haptic feedback to indicated touch signal registered*[Possibly] Add a Blackberry style trackball or PSP style thumbstick plus a couple auxiliary buttons*[Possibly] Incorporate a GPS receiver (internal or maybe external USB)
Why convert to a tablet?
I’m sure most people out there reading this already have a pretty strong opinion towards tablets considering how much they have been talked about in tech circles as of late. To some, this project is ruining a perfectly good computer by ripping out the trackpad and keyboard. I personally have been interested in experimenting with touch screens and have found it to be a very natural way to interface with a computer. I’m sure this discussion has been had elsewhere on this forum so I’ll just talk about my experience:First I analyzed what I was using my netbook for to determine how a lack of keyboard/trackpad would affect my daily usage. I found that the majority of my time spend on it was browsing the internet with Chrome, some reading and very little creating of Office documents, Skype video calls + chat, and watching video (both locally stored and streaming).
Chrome: using an extension called “chromeTouch” the browser reacts to clicking and dragging like panning around on a website on an iPhone making navigation very simple and natural. Also, I rarely type more than URLs and search terms when browsing, so the Win7 On Screen Keyboard is sufficient.
Word/Excel/Powerpoint: The vast majority of my use of office programs is to pull up and follow along with documents provided by my professors. Any document creation could be performed with a USB or Bluetooth keyboard or on my school-issued HP Elitebook.
Skype: video calls will be no problem, however chat could be difficult. Using OSK would be difficult and tedious, and using an external keyboard could be awkward depending on the sitting position. Still not sure what to do about this.
Video: VLC is my usual player and would be usable with touchscreen, but I am still looking for a skin or alternative application that is more touch friendly.
Conclusion: 90%+ of my time on my netbook will be enhanced with conversion to a touch tablet, while 10% will likely be negatively effected to some degree.
I initially would have just left the netbook formfactor alone and simply added the touch panel in front of the LCD, however there was not enough room for the bezel to still attach properly and the ribbon cable off of the touch panel was in a very difficult place to route down through the hinge. So with the knowledge of a substantial amount of work to make the touch screen functional, my analysis of my netbook usage, and my need to be different 😉 I decided to commit to converting it to a tablet.
***UPDATE 1***
No more work has been done :-(, but I had some time to further detail the work thus far:Touchscreen
When deciding to buy a netbook, the potential of a DIY touchscreen addition was a big selling point. I did some research and ended up spending about $70 on a 10.2″ touchscreen kit that included the glass touch panel, the controlled circuit board, and 2 extension cables with solderless connections. Unfortunately, this panel is not multitouch and it is resistive. I still haven’t decided if my ideal tablet would use resistive or capacitive technology as there are pros and cons of each. My biggest issue with the resistive screen (besides lacking multitouch) is that it takes more than a light touch for it to register a press. This isn’t so much a problem when using a stylus or being conscious of using your fingernail, however when trying to use the tip of your finger, you begin to feel like you have to push rather hard. To assist in overcoming this issue, the idea of haptic feedback in the form of a small vibration when the touch controller registers an input has been a serious consideration [More on that later]. I do have a decent pen that has both an ink tip and a stylus tip, which I intend to use pretty frequently with my finished tablet. Between the stylus pen and being comfortable using my fingernail I am confident in the usability of my resistive touchscreen.I decided to commit to the tablet mod only after setting up the touchscreen temporarily in front of the LCD and trying to do my typical tasks using just the touchscreen. After a few days of leaving the touchsceen-enabled N110 on my desk I was happy with the experience and found this setup to fit my usage habits closely enough to justify the project. Had I not experimented with a test setup I would have never chosen to do such an involved modification.
Also on the topic of the touchscreen, I have realized that the UI is hugely influential on the overall usability of the finished touchscreen device. Although I am quite pleased by what Windows 7 has done to be more touch friendly, I am still looking for supplementary programs that are designed for the touch interface. Hopefully as touch is becoming more pervasive in desktop-OS computing, more programs will be created and made available.
New Bamboo + Aluminum Case
Now here is where this project started to get interesting (and fun!). I had seen the very well done writeup by the guy who turned his Dell Mini 9 into a tablet. He was able to use much of the existing case in the final tablet housing. I decided to go a different route and fabricate something entirely new. After playing around in SolidWorks for a few weeks, developing different case ideas, I settled on a wood and aluminum design.I was able to pick up a 1″ thick bamboo cutting board for $12 locally. With extensive help from my good friend Tim, who happens to also be a very talented Industrial Designer, we cut the bamboo to size and milled out the cavities for the battery cells and the main cavity for the mainboard. Then we used an approximately 0.075″ thick sheet of aluminum for a front and sides cover and cut the opening for the screen and bent the two sides.
I still have some cutting to do in the aluminum for the webcam hole and edge ports and will eventually give it a brushed or bead blasted finish. [More pics to come as work on this progresses]
Overall I think the bamboo and aluminum will be a solid and fairly lightweight case. The overall dimensions come out to 10.1″x7.6″x1.1″ and will have some iPhone-esqe curvature to the back; a large portion of the back will be flat, but it will curve up slightly along the edges to *hopefully* give it a good feel in hand.
I will continue to update with info on my future plans as I find time. Darn school…
***UPDATE 2***Possible Features
Accelerometer:
It has pretty much become standard on handheld touchscreen devices to include an accelerometer that automatically rotates the screen between portrait and landscape modes based on the physical orientation of the device. While not absolutely necessary, I think an accelerometer would be a nice addition to my project. I have had some success in the past interfacing with the hard drive protection accelerometer built into my HP Elitebook, however, no such accelerometer is built into the N110. The only other option is to add one myself.A user named rock99rock on the mydellmini.com forums has a good guide on using an ActionXL USB motion game controller to send keystrokes. This seems like the easiest and cheapest solution that does everything I’m looking for.
Haptic Feedback
As I mentioned in the Touchscreen section above, I am very interested in implementing some form of haptic feedback in the tablet. For this project I’m using the term “haptic feedback” to talk about a small vibration being returned to the user in response to the touch panel registering an input. I have used this type of system in a touchscreen cell phone and found it very helpful in improving accuracy and reducing frustration when using the touchscreen. I think it would especially beneficial in this project because of my use of a resistive touch panel.I have noticed that the touch controller circuit board includes a surface mount LED that illuminates when a touch is registered on the panel. I haven’t yet done any investigation with a multimeter, but I assume that the voltage across the LED is about 3V when on. My thought is to use this 3V signal to drive a transistor which in turn switches power to a small motor with an offset weight to act as a vibrator. I have a couple options for the vibration. First is a very small (3/8″ diameter”) motor/weight combo from an old broken cell phone. Second I have a very cheaply made USB game controller that has 2 rumble motors in it with different amounts of weight on each to vary the intensity of the vibration. I will experiment with all 3 and determine which will provide the best experience.
Now I know powering a motor every time the screen is touched has the potential to drain the battery pretty quickly. That’s one reason I’m hoping the smallest, cell phone motor I have will work well enough. Also, I would like to be able to turn this function on and off somehow through software. I don’t know the best way to translate a software, on-screen interaction to actually control the hardware. The only idea I have is to re-purpose the NumLock LED as a switch. Since all of the status LEDs that run along the front of the N110 are obstructed, and the NumLock function will no longer have any affect (as I no longer have a physical keyboard), it just might work without any unwanted side-effects.
GPS
As I currently don’t own a GPS device nor do I have a smartphone with GPS, I am interested in using my new tablet for GPS functions. Another google search later and I came across another post by Dell Mini users about an internal GPS mod. I imagine using this in car (though mounting could be a pain) both for GPS and audio/video playback. It could be handy on occasion to have GPS functionality on the tablet outside of the car environment, but right now it doesn’t look like I have room to install it within my case as I did not initially plan room for that. Therefore I think I would be perfectly happy using a wired USB GPS module and just keep that in my car.
Questions/Suggestions
And if anyone has questions or suggestions I would love to hear them. I know this isn’t much to go on yet, but I plan to update with more pics and more information soon.Pictures:
[img]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_mt9g51CjViE/S8NzPj8j2LI/AAAAAAAAAK0/wlZQF31Dd-M/s144/P1020633.JPG[/img]
Being disassembled[img]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_mt9g51CjViE/S8NzP5ThPBI/AAAAAAAAAK4/DVIxgGzxTks/s144/P1020634.JPG[/img]
Tinkering with touchpanel on my desk[img]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_mt9g51CjViE/S8NzQjB_yrI/AAAAAAAAAK8/f70M7P7cqYk/s144/P1020635.JPG[/img]
6-cell battery innards[img]http://lh3.ggpht.com/_mt9g51CjViE/S8NzSRneOzI/AAAAAAAAALM/sl6nGXSU3Sk/s144/P1020651.JPG[/img]
Touchpanel controller with USB hub board[img]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_mt9g51CjViE/S8NzTx3dvlI/AAAAAAAAALg/FuLJIVjxKMs/s144/P1020663.JPG[/img]
Mainboard sitting in milled out Bamboo cutting board with aluminum coverMore pics to come as I make progress
nodtotheagedp – Welcome to the forum.
Thanks for sharing your ideas and like Speed has asked above, any chance of some work in progress pictures?
🙂Thanks everyone!
Well I have a few pictures up now. Clicking any of them will take you to an album with about 30 pictures total of the project. I will keep editing and updating my first post to provide more information on what I have going on.
Wow – cool project. I am definitely a fan of the whole tablet idea and see myself getting one as the market matures.
Very interesting read. I’m going to link to the thread from the front page – I’m sure a few tech blogs will pick up on this.
Thanks very much for sharing your work with us 🙂
in your project i noticed you have removed the batteries from controller, err doesn’t this wipe the memory on the controller thus effectively breaking it forever? (unless I am wrong)
I guess you could still supply power through the AC connected with the batteries hooked up but then you would lose the ACPI functions such as the battery stats? Though I guess you could just build a custom indicator to show the battery remaining in the pack
I think the trick is when you replace the cells you supply a voltage to the controller so not sure what’s gonna happen to your battery pack, you mite get lucky…Hey blazer-
I wasn’t aware that that was a possible outcome of disconnecting the batteries. Not knowing too much detailed information about how the controller regulates charge and discharge, I can imagine a situation where what you suggested is possible.However, I’ve seen a number of guides online that show you how to order replacement cells for a shot battery and install the brand new cells. This guide in particular provides a lot of good info on Li-Ion cells and shows (on page 2) all of the cells disconnected from the controller before the new cells are installed. Based on that info I haven’t been concerned with the controller circuit getting confused and breaking. I guess I’ll find out when I rewire them. I’ll keep you posed how it works out.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.