The used laptop from Craigslist: A Toshiba Tecra 8100
Here it sits innocently, no idea what its about to go through. When I got it, it was already missing the HD.. notice the empty bay on the lower left side.
Completely taken apart and still boots. Its booting from the CD-Rom drive which has a Bart PE version of WinXP Pro.
Barebones desktop with no icons or start menu.
The LCD is taped to the back of the matting. I used multiple layers of duct-tape to securely attach the LCD to the matting. While taping, take care of the power inverter (the strip of PCB at the bottom) and the power and display cables. The power inverter tends to get hot, so do not tape over it. Instead attach it with small pieces of tape like I have done here. Remember to use a reasonably thick matting so that it doesn't bend under the weight of the screen. Measure the viewable dimensions of the screen and order a matting with a window thats 1/4" smaller on each side.
The mat and the LCD inside the frame. The mat was slightly smaller then the insides of the frame and used to move inside the frame. To avoid that I attached the two pieces of cardboard on the sides that you see in this picture.
I added spacers to the four corners of the LCD to allow for air circulation between the LCD the the motherboard layer. I just took a long piece of duct tape and folded over and over and then cut it in half to get two spacers.
I re-assembled the motherboard onto the lower part of the laptop case. This did make the frame a little heavy, but gave a much solid backing for the motherboard and the CD-ROM drive. I stuck this to a piece of cardboard that I cut to match the inside dimensions of the frame. I used hot-glue to stick the two together. The cut-out at the top was for the LCD power and display cables. I attached the USB thumb drive using the extension cable that came with it. This allows for easy attaching and detaching of the thumb drive for changing the pictures.
From previous experience, I know that the hot glue alone will not be able to handle the weight of the case. So I threaded thin metal wires through the backing board and the case's screw holes and tied them down.
I slid the motherboard layer into the frame over the LCD and assembled the frame back. To cover the back I used some more cardboard and cut some slots to for the power-supply cable, the USB thumb drive cable One of the two holes on the left side are for the power on-off switch of the laptop and the other to allow hot-air coming from the CPU fan to escape. Together the two holes made a good ventilation system. To hold the backing board in place, I used clips that I got with the metal-wire hanging kit.
The fully assembled frame booting up.
The Bare desktop shows up before the picture slide-show starts.
Finally, the Digital Picture Frame is ready.
