Some people build birdhouses… Why not do something geekier?
Recently, I traded my brother for an old Dell laptop. For a while, I had dreamed of converting a laptop into a photoframe. I’d seen others do it, various blog posts on techniques, etc. However, my hope was to just “figure it out” rather than starting with the experience of someone else. Below is a picture of the result…
Why would you want to do this? Plenty of reasons!
- Digital photoframes are expensive. I know that the price of these has come down severely since their introduction, but I still can’t believe that one would spend $100 dollars for such a small device (some examples). No offense meant, but it wasn’t for me.
- The screen is huge compared to other digital frames.
- It is not just a photoframe! Remember that it’s stlil a computer. I can play music, movies, and anything else from my home network or the internet. This may seem silly, but during a party – it’s quite nifty!
- My wife actually likes it – all married nerds will understand that any spousally acknowledged technological success deserves its own bullet point.
So now the obvious question: “can anyone try this?” Obviously, the answer is yes or the post wouldn’t continue below… However, I wouldn’t recommend my seat of the pants approach. There is good information out there to make the process less painful – this is a “do what I say, not what I do” situation.
If you’d like to try this at home, here are some links and recommendations:
If you are not a hard-headeed uber-geek and want to do some research, try some of these links to learn about other’s attempts. As these are from instructables (see the previous post), there are plenty of instructions: http://www.instructables.com/id/Digital_Picture_Frames/
If I can offer a few slight suggestions so that you avoid my mistakes:
- Heat is a problem. Make sure you are careful about providing adequate ventilation behind your frame, until you are sure that your personal design will not require a firefighter…
- Frame size is really tough to judge. Try to find a frame that is deep, but that is 150% of the area of your screen. I managed to squeeze mine into a smaller space, but the heat and the cramped internals will require an upgrade sooner or later.
- Keep in mind that it is going to be quite heavy (unless you are butchering a perfectly good new ultraportable laptop). This is going to make hanging or even standing the frame a challenge. Aim for a frame with a back support made of plastic or stronger, rather than cardboard.
Apart from that, there’s not much that I can share… Although it may seem like an overly technical post (that has little real info), I’m one hundred percent confident that YOU CAN DO THIS! It’s a fun weekend project and let’s be honest: that old laptop was going to sit there until you either stepped on it or lost it in your next move…
~ab
It looks amazing and I enjoy it every day. Indeed, this is spousally approved technology. BUT – the pop-ups (like currently, the Windows – Vitrual memory minimum is too low) are annoying. Any way around it other than logging in remotely to fix it? xox
Sheesh – so I mentioned that it’s my brother’s old laptop… Although if you let me butcher a brand new machine… :)
Can we have some more pictures of this from different angles – or perhaps a video of it? This looks like something I might want to do. I have two old laptops laying around and not enough pictures in the house.