Hello folks,
I guess this is the most appropriate subforum to ask this kind of question.
I'm having a broken screen Samsung Galaxy Note 5. And instead of find a touch screen replacement, I want to just get rid of the screen entirely
and instead connect the board to external monitor via hdmi interface preferrably. I believe the part that connect the touch screen is called "LCD fpc connector", correct me if I'm wrong.
So I guess I need something like an adapter that convert "fpc connector" to "hdmi connector".
The question is, is this hack possible? can the phone board output to hdmi monitor at all?
If yes then how to do it properly.
Please englighten me, I'm a total noob on this
Many thanks!
Hey huannb,
I also wanted this badly enough to stumble upon your post. From the light research i have done so far, it seems like this is a project only for those who have well labeled board diagrams and a deep understanding of LCD driver technologies.
FPC stands for "Flexible PCB Connector" and it's usage is ubiquitous in the small form-factor electronics space. If you are working with a FPC connector, you are probably handling a one-of-a-kind engineered interface. There are some hardware hackers who have achieved great feats such as THIS JAPANESE HARDWARE HACKER who build a driver board to adapt iPad retina displays to HDMI. I haven't stumbled on a write-up depicting and FPC interface to HDMI conversion yet. If you find one, please post it here because i would like to meet the person responsible for making it.
The way i see it, we have two choices from here. Reverse engineer a device and build a snowflake adapter which only works on one device, OR recycle the device and continue to live within the realm of consumer hardware.
kipziptie said:
Hey huannb,
I also wanted this badly enough to stumble upon your post. From the light research i have done so far, it seems like this is a project only for those who have well labeled board diagrams and a deep understanding of LCD driver technologies.
FPC stands for "Flexible PCB Connector" and it's usage is ubiquitous in the small form-factor electronics space. If you are working with a FPC connector, you are probably handling a one-of-a-kind engineered interface. There are some hardware hackers who have achieved great feats such as THIS JAPANESE HARDWARE HACKER who build a driver board to adapt iPad retina displays to HDMI. I haven't stumbled on a write-up depicting and FPC interface to HDMI conversion yet. If you find one, please post it here because i would like to meet the person responsible for making it.
The way i see it, we have two choices from here. Reverse engineer a device and build a snowflake adapter which only works on one device, OR recycle the device and continue to live within the realm of consumer hardware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Thank you very much for your insight, it is super helpful and somewhat deep enough for me .
It does seem to involve quite a lot of hacking and there isn't a universal approach.
For my case, it is not worth the effort anymore, I have found a way to use most android mobiles to external monitor without fixing the screen itself without much complications.
I doubt that I can find anyone competent enough to explore this realm any further .
Thank you so much again for your research. Cheers
Related
Hey guys, I'd appreciate your input on this idea.
I have a G1 that was run over by a car. The screen is, of course, completely broken, but the rest of the hardware works properly (charges, adb, etc.).
I also have an old Asus S5n laptop with an awesomely thin lcd display, but with a fried video card.
I have relatively no experience with laptop or phone internals, so here is my question:
How plausible would it be to build a G1-powered tablet using the provided hardware along with a touch panel kit and perhaps a modified android kernel?
getting the Asus screen to display the output of the G1 phone will be a miracle and if it is done...ur probable half way there.
good luck with that
Soo... the only ways I can think about going about doing this is getting a proper LVDS driver for the laptop display (quite possible but expensive [$200+]) and then getting the video output from the G1. I'm not sure that's possible but I remember seeing someone somewhere doing that... could be wrong (hopefully).
Even if you were able to do all of that, you would be lacking input as the touchscreen wouldn't really be augment-able.
Either way, good luck with your project1
So I had bought three Stratospheres for cheap (bundle auction), hoping that I'd be able to pick up another cheaply with a good screen or bad glass+good LCD. However, beings I've not taken one apart to that extreme I wasn't aware how hard it'd be to separate those pieces At any rate, they all work fine otherwise, I know at least 2 boot to Android since I eventually get the haptic vibration indicating it'd reached the unlock screen. I had also hoped that at the very least the Wiki would've been right about HDMI out, but it's hard to find out what all have full support (the Epic 4G [D700] I got instead for example has it mostly but no one's able to get it working).
New screens cost the same as a working Strat, and seeing as I already bought an Epic after finding that out, I'm wondering what to do with these. I love tinkering, so being able to solder in a Composite, VGA, DVI, HDMI video connector and use it as a self-powered Stick Computer would be seriously awesome.
I'll gladly take hi-res PCB photos, with a DSLR and ample (non reflecting) light, if folks want to help tackle this Hell, for that matter... if you've got the know-how and want give it a try, I will give you one of these Strats to see what you can figure out. These aren't like the Epic as far as PCB goes, either. That Epic is very tiny and a fraction of the phone's size, but these Strats are pretty much the full phone's length and width, so lots to play with lol
Anyways, hope someone knows a thing or two and we can figure a hack out!
Thanks.
EDIT: This just came to me...What about something like these, in conjunction with a ROM (preferably Odin flashable) that has USB Hub support?
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=101&cp_id=10114#1011403
Unfortunately it isn't driverless, BUT it does list Linux support, at least on the VGA model! More than I'd like to spend given the project, but we can call that Plan Y (Plan Z being: buy a new screen lol)
Ez way - how about flashing with some latest ROM and enabling tvout (with help of screenshots from DDMS)
Then you can connect any cheap stuff decoding pal/secam and maybe an otg keyboard/mouse + power chord through hub or straight to the batt slot.
The tryhard way - you could try to exploit screen flex slot. You should find 16/24bit rgb dpi'ish interfrace there + 2 i2c/spi busses and some gpios. Maybe utilising it as 16bit rgb going to sort of converting circuit could leave you with like ~15gpio pins for mostly any kind of stuff u want (spi, i2c, irqs). You need a good breakout for that and gotta consider high frequency layout (as rule of thumb, try to make wires between consecutive ICs as short as possible and equal length)
Capabilities and possibilities are unlimited. Just human's imagination and life is.
Id be careful with usb-dvi converters. Might work. Might not. Check with otg keyboard or smth first.
Rebellos said:
Ez way - how about flashing with some latest ROM and enabling tvout (with help of screenshots from DDMS)
Then you can connect any cheap stuff decoding pal/secam and maybe an otg keyboard/mouse + power chord through hub or straight to the batt slot.
The tryhard way - you could try to exploit screen flex slot. You should find 16/24bit rgb dpi'ish interfrace there + 2 i2c/spi busses and some gpios. Maybe utilising it as 16bit rgb going to sort of converting circuit could leave you with like ~15gpio pins for mostly any kind of stuff u want (spi, i2c, irqs). You need a good breakout for that and gotta consider high frequency layout (as rule of thumb, try to make wires between consecutive ICs as short as possible and equal length)
Capabilities and possibilities are unlimited. Just human's imagination and life is.
Id be careful with usb-dvi converters. Might work. Might not. Check with otg keyboard or smth first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So TVOut on the does actually Stratosphere work? (with a custom ROM, I mean)
You happen to know where to find such a ROM? I know that XDA doesn't have a Strat subforum I've looked high and low, and can barely find custom ROMs, let alone one that's TVout lol Everything is still Gingerbread based, but I suspect that doesn't matter since the hardware is from that time.
As for the latter, I actually hadn't realized that without a screen, I'd be without a MOUSE haha I was totally focused on it having a slider keyboard and somehow missed I'd still need a mouse Nevertheless, doing it myself would be pretty hard :\ I don't know that much about the finer details of hardware, at least circuits of that complexity. Modding an analog audio circuit with new capacitors or an OpAmp is one thing, but that's straight forward In-Out, Power-Ground lol
That isn't to say I wouldn't attempt it but I'm not sure exactly what would be needed. If it's LVDS, I do have an older 15" laptop screen that'd be cool to hack a Strat to use :cyclops: That's adding a bit more complexity to things though, at least to start with right out of the gate.
Sadly I dont know where to get Strat ROM. But I assumed that its HW is pretty much the same as I9000, except the additional keyboard, so aries kernel with patches might/should/could work. There shouldnt be any major problems in porting it. I would get these crappy Sammy sources for I405 and I9000, diff them and try to apply diff on kernel_samsung_aries repo of CM.
About TVOut - it is matter of one or two gate ICs and a jack sensing onboard, as S5PC110 has built in tvout signal generator. So I would expect HW to support it.
Edit: There should be some tvout handling in original kernel sources if it is supported. Though, knowing Sammy, there might be aswell tvout driver enabled but HW not wired at all to support it.
I have an idea for a project that requires a large panel to be attached to a small phone, does any one know if this is possible.
I know from previous projects that the galaxy line phones seem to have similar cables and connectors but , for example, could I plug a note screen into a GS2? I know the ribbons wont be in the right place and it will be bodged together but that isn't important. What is important is will they physically connect??
My hardware knowledge is good but by software side not so good. I know that android is capable of adapting to different resolutions but will this work "out the box" or will the resolution need changing in the build,prop, or maybe more??
any ideas on this please share, I think this is quite an exciting project that I will share and colabarate with if it is feasable. Its still at the rough concept stage at the moment and I am just checking out the theory behind it so please share your knolage and experience
Possible, but not easy
add.thebad said:
I have an idea for a project that requires a large panel to be attached to a small phone, does any one know if this is possible.
I know from previous projects that the galaxy line phones seem to have similar cables and connectors but , for example, could I plug a note screen into a GS2? I know the ribbons wont be in the right place and it will be bodged together but that isn't important. What is important is will they physically connect??
My hardware knowledge is good but by software side not so good. I know that android is capable of adapting to different resolutions but will this work "out the box" or will the resolution need changing in the build,prop, or maybe more??
any ideas on this please share, I think this is quite an exciting project that I will share and colabarate with if it is feasable. Its still at the rough concept stage at the moment and I am just checking out the theory behind it so please share your knolage and experience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is feasible, lots of screens use similar interfaces (parallel TTL, MIPI, LVDS, etc.) so the trick is finding a display with the same interface as your phone already has. You will then need to make a board to adapt from the flex cable you have to the flex cable on your new screen. On that board you will probably also need to provide power since the new screen will consume more power. You will then need to modify the kernel, bootloader and Android to set the correct timing and resolution. (Timing, pinout and resolution for Linux kernel and U-Boot and resolution and DPI for Android) Shoot me a PM, I do this kind of stuff as a consultant and I am happy to give you some pointers!
Hi!
I'm new on this forum, and really happy to join the community.
I bought a Galaxy Tab A SM-T550 for my daughter, and I discover that there is no gyro/compass/magnetometer sensor that prevent using some apps.
After some cry, I decided to look for a DIY solution.
After some research, I found that some Android compass sensors have a I2C interface (e.g. AK8975) (sorry I can't post links yet).
I also found Android linux kernel drivers for this sensor.
As I have professional soldering skills/tool (even for BGA), and good Linux / kernel / driver skills, but nothing on Android (except modifying small programs and follow tutorial to install custom roms), I'm wondering if it is feasible to simply solder this sensor to the Galaxy Tab Mother board and directly have the compass feature in Android apps.
The requested actions I identified:
1. identify and order the sensor
2. Identify the I2C bus on Galaxy Tab A motherboard, plus power and ground signals
3. Identify a place to solder the sensor without risk to prevent casing mounting
4. Solder
5. be sure that the stock kernel supports this driver
6. Be sure that the driver is embedded in the kernel or the module is loaded
I'm wondering if someone with android and hardware experiences could help me to:
- tell me if this idea is totally crazy or seem feasible
- tell me if I identify the good tasks
- to find informations for some of the tasks (specially locate the I2C bus on motherboard)
- maybe propose another solution.
Thanks a lot!
Laurent.
In two years I have been the only other person sufficiently annoyed to look up something along these lines. I don't have your level of skill so I guess it would be pretty crazy for me to attempt this. I really wish they would have done something about this though, they have them in all phones so why not put them in tablets? They have more space to fit them in and I don't think they are hugely expensive.
LVDS is a nightmare. Don't know what LVDS is? If you've ever taken apart a laptop, it's that display connection it uses. And there's no standard so it's different for nearly every device.
Maybe phones and tablets are using it too?
I've already done my research and saw that other people are using Xilinx Spartan-based FPGA development boards to achieve this. It seems to be in the specs and is probably the perfect solution to this problem.
Oh, and my friend was throwing out an old TV and I found one. TV is a Panasonic Tc-p50s1, the board it's on is the Main Unit Board Pn# Tnph0786 2a. The specific chip is the Xilinx Spartan xc3s500e.
The board it's on seems pretty pro, but the complete lack of any visible diagnostic ports make trying to reverse engineer it a nightmare.
Luckily it looks like the chip has JTAG on it. I'm unsure as of yet if I will try to figure out what all of the existing chips on the board do and try to reuse it, or if I will end up desoldering the Spartan chip entirely. Powering the unit also seems like it would be a concern since is uses some funky connections with completely unknown values.
Anybody here ever worked on a project like this before?