10.4" LCD touch-remote. Possible?

[Plecto]

Hi. I just pulled my old 10.4" LCD touchscreen out of my car and thought about what else I could use it for. Then I thought about my HTCP which is in need for a remote, how neat wouldnt it be to have a 10" LCD screen to controll your cinema with? To power to LCD I simply need to tape 8 AA batteries or something like that, but how do I make USB and VGA remote?

I have found some products that does this, but the one that makes VGA wireless is fairly expensive and bulky. I was rather thinking something I could solder to the contact-points inside the LCD screen.

Is something like that possible or am I dreaming here?

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Lots of folks do just that with an iPad.

 

[Plecto]

Yeah I guess an ipad would do the trick, if we forget that it costs around 900usd But then again I wouldn't have figured out what to do with my LCD screen which kind of was the issue in the first place

 

[blueroomelectronics]

iPad is $450 USD
Those displays are not usually easy to do much with. No specs and you'd need microcontroller knowledge just to get started.

 

[Plecto]

So there is no products out there that are small enough to fit inside my screen and strong enough to transmit a USB signal 10-15meters? I believe my screen has a composite input aswell, I guess that would make it easier than VGA.

I am just finishing my first semester of a electronics education here at the university of Trondheim (Norway) so I know a little basics, not much about microcontrollers yet though. But let's say I were to have this information. How big, how much would it cost and how much work would it be to make something that could wirelessly transmit and receive a USB and a composite signal?

 

[blueroomelectronics]

More than $450

You can get other tablets for even less. As for wireless USB & video no. Not with some old car stereo.

PS there are many remote control apps for the iPad to control a PC.

 

[Plecto]

Could you atleast explain why this would cost so much? I that making a fm transmitter is pretty cheap and easy to make, why is a composite signal that extremely much harder to transmit? As for the usb, this sollution is allready out there and it doesnt cost that much, the problem is just the size.

 

[ben7]

Touch screens use capacitive sensors, not regular switches.

 

[Euphy]

Hey Plecto, you would need a microcontroller at least to interpret the input (touches) and change them into something your HTPC can understand. You would also need a microcontroller to run the display build menus etc. More interfacing to convert it all into a wireless signal, and some in your pc to receive it. If it has a composite input, then I suppose it might be possible to use a wireless video sender ($50?) from your htpc to send video to it, and then configure it as a secondary display. It would essentially be a whole display that would display your buttons, menus etc. You would still need to do the reverse to get the control signals back into your pc. Depends what kind of interface the touch sensors has built it - maybe it'd be possible to emulate a mouse, and there are plenty of wireless mice around. Probably depends on what interfaces are already built in to the screen.

Anything's possible with the right resources, but Bill's right, spend $150 on a cheapie android tablet an get an reusable, ideal solution, or spend $100 and do six months work to get something that only does one thing.

 

[Plecto]

Thx for the answer Euphy, I think I can put this idea to bed for now then

I still got some questions though. This touchscreen has a simple USB input so I can't see why I would need a microcontroller to interpret the touches on the screen, why don't I need this when I'm plugging in the screen with a regular USB cable? Isn't is possible to simply create a wireless "usb-cable" which can be used on any USB device?

USB has four cables, right? +5V, GND and two signal cables. What I am thinking is just to wirelessly transfer these signals, don't have to interpret them or know what they do, just make sure that what is sent from one side is received on the other?

If it has a composite input, then I suppose it might be possible to use a wireless video sender ($50?) from your htpc to send video to it

This is exactly what I'm talking about, but where do I find these small enough?

 

[Euphy]

Hallo, I guess if it already has a usb output, then quite a bit of your job will already be done - I see things like

Q-Waves Wireless USB to HDMI Extender
Q-Waves Wireless USB Data Kit:

Which are essentially the blocks you are missing from your chain. Obviously those ones do wireless VGA, but a composite version no doubt exists too. Getting them compact enough will probably be your challenge, though things like **broken link removed** might furnish you with the raw materials if you know how to combine them.

 

[Plecto]

Yeah I think I'm getting somewhere now. There is just one last thing which would really put the cherry on top. Is it possible to get an accelerometer connected to a timerelay which would automaticly give power to the screen for a sertain amount of time if the screen were to move?