Old Laptop to Digital Picture Frame

So I've had this idea for a while to make a 'digital picture frame' to display all the photos we take that might never make it to the printer... I had looked around at some of the digital frame now available, but they where all either to expensive or to small (or both).

When my friend Dave (thanks Dave!) gave me an old Dell CPx I decided to use it to make my picture frame. Initially I was going to just flip the screen over and build a frame around it - case and all intact - but after very little time working on this solution I knew it wasn't gonna fly. After I got past the fact that I was going to dissemble a working (but very slow) laptop, the build process was actually fairly easy.

The first thing I did was take everything apart... I won't bore you with the details, but if you're going to attempt this be prepared to take out A LOT of tiny little screws.

With everything apart, I took some measurements of the screen and motherboard and then I was off to the local craft and hardware store for materials.

I found a 10" x 13" x 2.5" shadow box on sale for $10... I also got a piece of 3/16" foamboard and a piece of 5/32" plywood along with some miniature hinges and a magnetic cabinet door latch and a piece of 12x14 black mat. All in all I think I spent about $30.

Back home the first step was to cut the foamboard down to 10x13 to fit into the frame. I wanted this piece to fit tight, so I cut it just a touch over the desired dimensions. Next I carefully laid the LCD in the center of the foamboard and sketched the edges, then I cut this out. After the screen was fitted into the foamboard, I had a good idea how much I wanted to mat, so I cut the mat down to 10x13 and then cut in 1" all the way around.

With the shadow box glass down, I laid the mat on top of the glass, then carefully laid the LCD on the mat. Then I took heavy duty duct tape and taped the edges of the LCD in place. (this was also how I attached the LCD to the foamboard).

Here's a shot of the back of LCD...The next step was to mount the motherboard on the piece of plywood (also cut to 10x13). I installed the hinges and fitted the motherboard just about in the middle and tacked it down. It closed and all looked good so far, but then I remembered my wireless NIC card. OK... slight problem. The NIC stuck out about 1/2" past the edge of the plywood. So I moved the motherboard over to the right as far as I could and mounted it.

Since the NIC was sticking out too far, I had to cut a notch in edge of the frame. I closed the back as far as I could, traced where it was hitting, then took the back off (with the mobo still attached). I then used an X-Acto knife and drill to carefully cut out a portion of the frame.

After making sure it fit, I took the mobo off the back, cut the upper slots for vents and a slot just below the CPU fan. I also cut a notch for the power cord, then I put the mobo back on (I'm just using small wood screws) reattached the back and checked for fit.

I wanted to make sure that all the ports where still 'usable'; I needed the PS2 port to plug in a keyboard and do the final setup. I'm also thinking about adding a wireless USB keyboard to make 'tweaking' it easier.
This is my final setup... I'm 'streaming' pictures from a shared network drive to the frame. Currently I'm just using the "My Pictures Slideshow" that ships with WinXP. I hacked the registry (not much of a hack) to set the screensaver delay to 1 second. Since there is only one user on the box and no password, it boots, maps the network drive, and starts the slideshow. I setup a task in Windows Scheduler to execute a shutdown nightly at 11:30pm and configured the Dell bios to power up daily at 6:30am (my wife didn't think it should run 24x7, although 4 other computer in the house do...)

Here's a couple pictures of the finished product...

(my wife on our vacation in Mexico)

...and just for the hellofit - the 'leftover' CPx parts...
Somebody asked how much time I have invested... I guess about 6 hours. I worked on it over the weekend and still had time to do all my other 'normal' activities.
Questions? Comments? Let me know what you think!!