Anybody play with old lappy parts to make nifty things for a newer one? Just playing around kind of things, even if they are more novel than efficient-

Examples of ideas I've been toying with;
-A touch pad rewired to a mouseport cord.

-A touch pad set into a trimmed circle shaped bezel, and set into a trimmed circle shaped cutout in the laptop so that it can be swiveled at up to 45* either direction. (Obviously a mod to try on a crappy laptop.)

-A clip on attachment that houses a flourescent tube backlight from an old screen that plugs into the USB port for illuminating the key board.

-Remotely hooking up the display of an old lappy to a new one.

-Reconfiguring an old lappy in a wooden frame solely to run as a photo album slideshow for your table or desk.

Any other cool ideas? I have some Gateway guts an a couple of old laptops. I'm game.
I wanted to do the flourescent backlight clip-on thing, but someone told me I chance drawing too much from my USB port and harming my I9200. (voltage and current isn't my strong point. Fabrication is, though.)

-BTW, I had workable lappies and gave them to nieces & nephews, which made them very happy! The bits I'm talking about are from shot units.

I really like creative people by the way. I am myself an inventor.

Check the link out in this post. http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=84434

I'm thinking of doing something similar at some point with feeds of wave conditions, & tidal height for the marine science field station I work at.

Well, When I'm laying on the couch watching the tube with my I9200, I have to turn it in such a way that makes it easier to use the mousepad. But imagine if it swiveled.
Like I say, certainly not something I'm looking to do to a new laptop, but it might be neat to do it to an old one. -Even to take photos and send it out to some companies as an idea.

I have the inverters along with the bulbs. One bulb is about 6 inches long, and then I have two that are 8 or 9 inches long. They all have their original inverters with them, and they all run on 12v maximum, but will output good light at five volts. I just don't know what the current draw is because I powered them up by battery with no meter. If they can operate at USB 5V, but draw too much current, then the board could get to hot.
Spazolton (or is it "Spazitron"?) told me about it ( I PMed him.)

A 1000 bucks?!
Gueeze. I thought I could just figure out the interface myself....NOT!


g00nter, thanks for the link!
I recently moved into a new house and whenever you move, it's often "purge" time. The wife tells me I have too much crap in my workshop because it inevitably spills out into the rest of the house.
But I have these laptops that don't work, for various reasons, and I just like to putter alot. (I have a lot of time on my hands. )
I have a few friends with antique shops, and they often give me things to fix for them, and offer me old furniture that they can't sell for whatever reason. I give it to my father in law to work on it, spruce it up, and sell it. I've recently been offered an old desk that the top folds down on. Half the hardware is missing, but that replaceable, and I thought it would be really neat to have an LCD built right into the back, and the keyboard framed into the drawer that pulls out so it sits recessed and level (maybe even but the chassis inside the drawer and vent the bottom.)
The piece would look 1885 untill you dropped the top down to reveal 1995 (Gateway Solo bits).

I'm sure this has been done before.
Even if it didn't function as a computer, it would be nice just to have a continuous slideshow of the family going. I have 80 GBs of photos of the family.