Sooo... You've destroyed 4-5 perfectly fine LCD screens for something, that you could've acheved with sheet of white plastic/vynil and a lightbulb. Nice work indeed.
R.I.P that power book Ti :( Some older to vintage laptops are worth saving and some are sometimes worth hundreds to collectors like the Thinkpad 701C aka Butterfly and the Thinkpad Transnote.
Felix is so polite, "Mr Heckendorm". Surely they would have been working together long enough that he could just call him Ben. It's the same with Karen.
If you remove that cover that we left on and didn't block any of the light with decoration like I did, they get pretty bright. It would be interesting to try!
I thought upcycling meant making a higher valued product out of discarded stuf, like a messenger bag from old truck canvas or something. Why is this (re-using parts of something old and/or broken) not just recycling?
It's my understanding that recycling breaks materials back down to their raw materials in order to make new products. Upcycling reuses part of something old as is without returning (material) to a previous stage in its cyclic process.
Haakon Anderson that's a fair point as long as the rest of the laptop is trash theHeckwithKaren I get that, but I think the distinction is a little arbitrary.
Yes, i make one draw table for my mom... is a sony 32 inchs tv, replace the lcd with a glass 3mm thin, and the 3 lines of leds (7 leds ffor line) i used an dc dc step up (thesse from china).
I have wanted to do this since I saw DIY Perks do this. I love your idea! I would personally have used a 1/2" MDF and routed an edge for the screens to sit on. That way yo could also use the router to cut channels for your cables. Throw a piece of ship board on the back, or something else to cover it up and it would be perfect!
not sure if those glasses and/or the display are actually circularly polarized? that might not actually show up with 'ordinary' polarized light/specs. any captain know more about this?
Good episode. While I enjoy watching most episodes, I don't have the skills to make a N64 portable but stuff like this is within reach. Thanks Karen for this cool crafty project.
+The Ben Heck Show, what would be my best way to get HD Led screens close to mobile phone size in Botetourt screen and non touch screen format to use in a personal project.
Hey, Ben, Karen and Felix. I picked up an Atari Jaguar and Jaguar CD, with a selection of games at a games trade store for next to nothing. I've also got a couple of old laptops I no longer use. The atari consoles are really not in great shape, so I was planning to make a jaguar portable, utilising a laptop screen (inspired by your cool ideas), any pitfalls re: voltage (I'm from uk), processor clock, using the CD unit outside of a traditional console setup, etc I could run into? I'm planning to run everything from the one unit
Need to make water color screen covers. That can be painted or some kind of stain glass plate. That would be so awesome. I want a Tri Force above the head board flat picture of the Tri Force.
How fragile are the LCD back lights, and how much juice do they pull off? Could it be possible to build like a camping light with one of these and a travel battery bank?
They require a decent amount of amps to run and on most batteries, that would run out pretty quick. Ben says you might be able to do it if you hooked them up to a 12V battery. Not sure how long it would last though. I'm terrible at Ohm's Law math.
Personally this was the first episode that I found really useful. As a tech i have access to many lcd screens and to note even if the lcd layer is broken you can still make this.
My two-car garage uses upcycled decomissioned railroad rails for various load-bearing supports. Didn't build it myself, but was surprised to find that structural detail.
Need to be painted... MDF looks so meh bare. I'd also Honestly have chosen to screw it together. Blocks in the corners do well to take screw threads from two angles to join corners. To me, the retainer "hooks" are far more intrusive than a couple screws would have been. If you didn't want screws either, use a stack of blocks, one connected to one panel, and the other connected to the other panel, and then screw one block to the other block from the top, inside the lamp. No exposed retaining "hooks" or screws then! You also could have cut a top cover with additional zelda patterns, and simply hot glued a diffuser swiped from one of the CCFD panels to diffuse the spilled light from the backs of the panels.
No, because then you would see that an LCD backlight (or 4) isn't nearly enough to illuminate a small room. It's a decorative lamp, but it's useless on it's own.
Yeah, you have to align the polarization film onto your sunglasses to match the direction on the screen. - I was actually thinking about this while your were making the lamp thinking - "wouldn't that be cool to have Vista's motion back-screen running so you could see it with the polarized method?" ;O)-
I can't believe I couldn't find any comments on how the Titaniums they are tearing apart are probably the coolest laptops ever! The first PowerBook G4 (nicknamed Titanium because of its titanium shell, yeah, you read that right, titanium) was released in 2001 and at only 1" thick it was ridiculously thin for its time, and was actually thinner than the model that replaced it a few years later. Even my 2012 MacBook Pro is hardly any thinner than that beautiful machine. That laptop was gorgeous and well featured for its time with a built in 56k modem, two video outputs (VGA and S-Video), USB and Firewire, and even included the very first generation of WiFi (Apple laptops were some of the first to include WiFi standard). It gained gigabit ethernet by the end of 2001 (something that didn't become standard in the PC industry for years), and a full size DVI port the next year. And to upgrade the RAM or HDD all you had to do was lift the keyboard up. Yep. There were too little clips you pulled back with your fingernail and the keyboard would peel away to let you access all the upgradeable parts (which was also possible on its predecessor). I absolutely loved the one I had while I was in High School. It was already seven or eight years old at the time, and the paint was wearing off (one of the challenges that came with the titanium enclosure), but to this day I think it is still my favorite computer of the many I have ever owned. And now Ben Heck is taking apart boxes of them to make lamps... Oh how the time flies! Bonus fact: that box of Titaniums you can see at ua-cam.com/video/dJWQc0NJ9DA/v-deo.html would have been worth over $10,000 new in 2001 when those laptops where new.
4:10 - Why, it's the Battletoads pause music! How many bonus points do I get? 1? .5? 3/8? BTW I'm really digging the guitars during the VO segments. 6:32 - C'mon, Felix, it's "Karen". 14:32 - Ben, you meanie! :(
I was hoping for a stained glass effect. Alternative ending: print color images onto transparenty paper (like for overhead projector) and sandwich that in between the screen and the frame. Which image you print is entirely up to you. Tropical beach lamp anyone?
cool project but I have one better you could do something a 4-way monitor projector for an Android phone. it would display your I need side so you could use it as like an alarm clock or message indicator that sits on your nightstand.
I used this method the past new year day, we had no electricity in the building. so we used old LCD and lead battery.... more than 10h... not bad. we also made a PWM signal generator with a 555 to control the brightness.
I would send my request once more. Please Please mix the episodes at a higher volume. This is the only show I'm watching that is soooo quiet. The volume on my laptop is all the way up to be able to hear properly. And no ... I'm not that deaf yet :P
I don't know if it would look tacky or not, but the window lamp could look cool if you put a transparent film photo of some nature in front of that lamp. Make it look more like a real window.
What exactly is the problem with CCFL backlights again? Because I have a bunch of laptops with those. I came specifically back to this video to check again which screens were useable, and why, but the why is missing... :/ I'm guessing it might be because CCFLs flicker, which might be uncomfortable with prolonged use? Or is it a matter of uniform lighting?
So far I like the natural look. I couldn't come up with a good color scheme anyway. Not unless I made the face pieces black and colored each decorative layer to correspond for their element, i.e. Fire=red, water=blue, earth=green. But then would I make the triforce piece yellow? I don't have great painting skills and I wouldn't want it to look like elementary furniture with primary colors. Maybe some day, if inspiration comes along.
theHeckwithKaren You had the same idea that I did with the different colors. May have been easier to do with it disassembled. Still looks good as is, and I thought it was a great idea! Glad to support a fellow Michigander!
I got them from my local electronics recycler and we returned all the parts we didn't use. There might be a recycler in your town that would let you have some. Nate's just happy to see things get reused rather than just thrown away so he gives them to me for free.
![Video-Monitor aus altem Laptop/Notebook basteln | Recycle Projekt [DIY]](/img/n.gif)
Every episode, there is at least one moment where Felix looks like he's questioning the life decisions that brought him to where he is today.
When are we gonna get a video about how you built Felix?
Shhh.. Don't let Felix become "self aware"
How about Karen teardown?
hes so....... robotic. no emotion and looks pissed of sometimes lol
he at least laughed at ben's csi miami meme impression d-;
Sooo...
You've destroyed 4-5 perfectly fine LCD screens for something, that you could've acheved with sheet of white plastic/vynil and a lightbulb.
Nice work indeed.
You coud've at least built a pseudo lava lamp with lvds controller.
Yea, I was a bit disappointed that they didn't use the LCD part of the screen at all.
Agreed!!
...then consider the fact that they were probably 1366x768 TN panels with horrible viewing angles.
Nothing of value was lost.
Thick air between (Fixit)Felix and "Mr. Heckendorn" (7:01) ?
This is going to be great- I've been hoarding old laptop screens for a project like this.
Logan Henry 0:48 that's a lot of PowerBook g4s
I'm pretty sure I have the exact same HP Pavilion dv5 laptop. Oh, and your celebration tune is the Battletoads pause music!
R.I.P that power book Ti :(
Some older to vintage laptops are worth saving and some are sometimes worth hundreds to collectors like the Thinkpad 701C aka Butterfly and the Thinkpad Transnote.
2:58 How to convert fake laughter into real.
Benny The Ben Hecker
Felix is so polite, "Mr Heckendorm". Surely they would have been working together long enough that he could just call him Ben. It's the same with Karen.
They still need to add that to his programming, i'm sure its probably a plan for a future episode.
I love it whenever Ben starts explaining stuff Karen goes 'the thousand-yard stare' , she has no clue what he's talking about.
"I have come here to chew bubble gum and edit spreadsheets and I'm all out of bubblegum."
Suggestions: 1) add individual switches for each side. 2) make a cache/shelf/safe on the inside.
The detail work on the case is what makes this project so excellent.
I've got a ton of old monitors and laptops laying around. This'll probably be the first project I'll replicate :)
Do you mind showing which component should be soldered? Details please
Do you think these backlights would produce enough for plants. I'm thinking about using them to make a plant box / terrarium.
If you remove that cover that we left on and didn't block any of the light with decoration like I did, they get pretty bright. It would be interesting to try!
Cool. Then I may need to try it.
I thought upcycling meant making a higher valued product out of discarded stuf, like a messenger bag from old truck canvas or something. Why is this (re-using parts of something old and/or broken) not just recycling?
You're right--I think they just wanted to sound a little fancier.
It's my understanding that recycling breaks materials back down to their raw materials in order to make new products. Upcycling reuses part of something old as is without returning (material) to a previous stage in its cyclic process.
Haakon Anderson that's a fair point as long as the rest of the laptop is trash theHeckwithKaren I get that, but I think the distinction is a little arbitrary.
Buzzwords. People love them. ;)
Could I take the backlight from an old 55" tv and hang that over my work table for a work light???
Yes, i make one draw table for my mom... is a sony 32 inchs tv, replace the lcd with a glass 3mm thin, and the 3 lines of leds (7 leds ffor line) i used an dc dc step up (thesse from china).
Probably.
love seeing you all working on the project the way did in this video.
I have wanted to do this since I saw DIY Perks do this. I love your idea! I would personally have used a 1/2" MDF and routed an edge for the screens to sit on. That way yo could also use the router to cut channels for your cables. Throw a piece of ship board on the back, or something else to cover it up and it would be perfect!
@Ben is there a way to make some sort of Mood lamp out of the LCD screens that changes the Collors?
Was that a Dave Jones impression at 2:19?
not sure if those glasses and/or the display are actually circularly polarized? that might not actually show up with 'ordinary' polarized light/specs. any captain know more about this?
Good episode. While I enjoy watching most episodes, I don't have the skills to make a N64 portable but stuff like this is within reach. Thanks Karen for this cool crafty project.
+The Ben Heck Show,
what would be my best way to get HD Led screens close to mobile phone size in Botetourt screen and non touch screen format to use in a personal project.
Could you post the connections you made on the circuit?
Hey, Ben, Karen and Felix. I picked up an Atari Jaguar and Jaguar CD, with a selection of games at a games trade store for next to nothing. I've also got a couple of old laptops I no longer use. The atari consoles are really not in great shape, so I was planning to make a jaguar portable, utilising a laptop screen (inspired by your cool ideas), any pitfalls re: voltage (I'm from uk), processor clock, using the CD unit outside of a traditional console setup, etc I could run into? I'm planning to run everything from the one unit
can you try to make an external screen out of an old laptop screen?
Good to see an episode from Karen. I get the impression she's way more capable than is shown on screen, particularly if she set up a hackspace.
Need to make water color screen covers. That can be painted or some kind of stain glass plate. That would be so awesome. I want a Tri Force above the head board flat picture of the Tri Force.
I always wondered is this your guys regular work space like do you all work together?
spreadsheets ... YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH
4:09 Battletoads!
hey ben is it possible to take an hdtv that is broken and get av output so it is still useful for getting local channels
How fragile are the LCD back lights, and how much juice do they pull off? Could it be possible to build like a camping light with one of these and a travel battery bank?
They require a decent amount of amps to run and on most batteries, that would run out pretty quick. Ben says you might be able to do it if you hooked them up to a 12V battery. Not sure how long it would last though. I'm terrible at Ohm's Law math.
Personally this was the first episode that I found really useful. As a tech i have access to many lcd screens and to note even if the lcd layer is broken you can still make this.
My two-car garage uses upcycled decomissioned railroad rails for various load-bearing supports. Didn't build it myself, but was surprised to find that structural detail.
The videogame "theme" was battletoads pause screen?
I've noticed some peaking in your audio over the last few videos, hope you're getting that figured out!
I would've put the screens behind Zelda themed stained glass. A nice colorful mosaic.
Need to be painted... MDF looks so meh bare. I'd also Honestly have chosen to screw it together. Blocks in the corners do well to take screw threads from two angles to join corners. To me, the retainer "hooks" are far more intrusive than a couple screws would have been. If you didn't want screws either, use a stack of blocks, one connected to one panel, and the other connected to the other panel, and then screw one block to the other block from the top, inside the lamp. No exposed retaining "hooks" or screws then! You also could have cut a top cover with additional zelda patterns, and simply hot glued a diffuser swiped from one of the CCFD panels to diffuse the spilled light from the backs of the panels.
Felix is so damn polite. Good man.
I love the way you work on these engineering projects :D You have so much fun doing it! Big thumb up! :)
wouldn't it have made more sense to turn off the shop lights to show off a lamp?
No, because then you would see that an LCD backlight (or 4) isn't nearly enough to illuminate a small room. It's a decorative lamp, but it's useless on it's own.
You can actually use the CCFL screens fairly easily, I've done that and have a video on my channel about it.
Yeah, you have to align the polarization film onto your sunglasses to match the direction on the screen. - I was actually thinking about this while your were making the lamp thinking - "wouldn't that be cool to have Vista's motion back-screen running so you could see it with the polarized method?" ;O)-
4:08 Was that a Battletoads refference? ;)
Upcycling was just called Recycling when I was younger. 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' was the slogan.
I did this but my lamp has a selector so i can set it to different colours
if you use this as a night stand will there be the BLUE LIGHT effect?
"Looks like it's time to do some spreadsheets...YYYEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHH"
I actually laughed out loud.
I can't believe I couldn't find any comments on how the Titaniums they are tearing apart are probably the coolest laptops ever!
The first PowerBook G4 (nicknamed Titanium because of its titanium shell, yeah, you read that right, titanium) was released in 2001 and at only 1" thick it was ridiculously thin for its time, and was actually thinner than the model that replaced it a few years later. Even my 2012 MacBook Pro is hardly any thinner than that beautiful machine.
That laptop was gorgeous and well featured for its time with a built in 56k modem, two video outputs (VGA and S-Video), USB and Firewire, and even included the very first generation of WiFi (Apple laptops were some of the first to include WiFi standard). It gained gigabit ethernet by the end of 2001 (something that didn't become standard in the PC industry for years), and a full size DVI port the next year. And to upgrade the RAM or HDD all you had to do was lift the keyboard up. Yep. There were too little clips you pulled back with your fingernail and the keyboard would peel away to let you access all the upgradeable parts (which was also possible on its predecessor).
I absolutely loved the one I had while I was in High School. It was already seven or eight years old at the time, and the paint was wearing off (one of the challenges that came with the titanium enclosure), but to this day I think it is still my favorite computer of the many I have ever owned. And now Ben Heck is taking apart boxes of them to make lamps... Oh how the time flies!
Bonus fact: that box of Titaniums you can see at ua-cam.com/video/dJWQc0NJ9DA/v-deo.html would have been worth over $10,000 new in 2001 when those laptops where new.
03:12 We'd better get back because it'll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night. Mostly.
does it count that I strip copper from fan motors to melt down for design purposes?
Battletoads!
Topy44 i'm late :c
Topy44 Also used in Potatoman Seeks the Troof lol
Topy44 yea the pause sound if I don't remember wrong. :)
Ooga-chaka ooga-ooga-ooga-chaka.
You are correct. That's the pause music from the original Battletoads on the NES.
Exactly as I read somewhere a few days back. Ben Heck invents overthought and overcomplicated solutions to problems that do not exist.
hm, looks pretty original to me :) nice lamp - but please, lasercut some colored plexi glas and make some inlays!
Felix, is his name right, needs to be sent to charm school or something. Ben is always a joy to watch, Karen as well...
I've always wanted to make a battery powered laptop out of a mini itx motherboard and a full sized GPU. Has Ben done this or can he even do it?
Paint ?
This gave me some inspiration to do a whole room lighting set-up with laptop back lights! #up-cycling
I think that song is the pause theme from Battletoads?
At 14:02 that joke was quite.. polarising ;-) .. I'll get my coat.
Ben's upcycling goof at the end killed me!
Ben heck you should do either a PS2 laptop for a GameCube laptop
can u guys, can make a portable monitor from old lcd screens????
the hp laptop with blue tap on it can you up cycle the keyboard to me thanks
The song he beatboxes is the song that plays when you pause in Battletoads in the NES, where are my extra points?
4:10 - Why, it's the Battletoads pause music!
How many bonus points do I get? 1? .5? 3/8?
BTW I'm really digging the guitars during the VO segments.
6:32 - C'mon, Felix, it's "Karen".
14:32 - Ben, you meanie! :(
Did not expect the METAL riffs @ 4:40 lol you cannot kill the METAL
I was hoping for a stained glass effect. Alternative ending: print color images onto transparenty paper (like for overhead projector) and sandwich that in between the screen and the frame. Which image you print is entirely up to you. Tropical beach lamp anyone?
I really like that idea. I might have some 3-ring binder dividers that are colored and transparent that I could cut down for that. Great idea!
6:54 solve that cube pls, is not taht hard haha
I like to watch your videos in bed, feeling worthless and incapable, while your amazing trio does incuredibru thingus.
Ben should absolutely wear those sunglasses on the show more often.
"So we're making windows from Macs! Hahaha!"
[Felix stoically refuses to acknowledge that this was said]
cool project but I have one better you could do something a 4-way monitor projector for an Android phone. it would display your I need side so you could use it as like an alarm clock or message indicator that sits on your nightstand.
Isn't there any simple way to turn on the light on a notebook screen?
I used this method the past new year day, we had no electricity in the building. so we used old LCD and lead battery.... more than 10h... not bad.
we also made a PWM signal generator with a 555 to control the brightness.
COULD YOU GUYS DO SOMETHING WITH AND OLD LAPTOP LCD AND A RASBERRY PI?
I got a better title. How to magically turn a 5 minute video into a 15 minute video.
robofatcat thank god for the new +10 seconds action on the youtube app. Got a real workout on this POS episode.
Rob Fowler don't get me wrong I love Ben and what he is doing.. But a $5 led strip and some plexiglass and call it a day.
I love Ben's stuff too, This isn't it. I can't see how this adds anything to Element14 either.
You can do the same with some LEDs and light diffuser
Is it just me or does Felix sound kinda tired or pissed off ?
Seckin Engin felix has resting bitch voice ^^
in all seriousness, I think he's just respectful, like sir, which appears uncanny to us plebs these days.
That might just be the case xD I'm definitely *not* used to it haha
I think he's just more of an introverted person.
What happened to the N46?
Most likely N64 had a setback and they couldn't finish the next episode in time.
I would send my request once more. Please Please mix the episodes at a higher volume. This is the only show I'm watching that is soooo quiet. The volume on my laptop is all the way up to be able to hear properly. And no ... I'm not that deaf yet :P
Nice project. A night/in dark shot would be nice. Cheers! :)
9:03 did you just assume my temperature?!
jk
I don't know if it would look tacky or not, but the window lamp could look cool if you put a transparent film photo of some nature in front of that lamp. Make it look more like a real window.
Why not use Desktop LED lighted LCD screens?
I like how in the post credits Karen and Ben are singing the Zelda theme an Felix is in the back like WTH!!
What exactly is the problem with CCFL backlights again? Because I have a bunch of laptops with those.
I came specifically back to this video to check again which screens were useable, and why, but the why is missing... :/
I'm guessing it might be because CCFLs flicker, which might be uncomfortable with prolonged use? Or is it a matter of uniform lighting?
They require more power and hacking them is more complicated. The LCDs are much more straight forward.
Aha! Thank you. :)
can you show how to make a guitar sustainer
Karen, any plans to finish the wood you used for the enclosure of the lamp? Or do you like the natural look?
So far I like the natural look. I couldn't come up with a good color scheme anyway. Not unless I made the face pieces black and colored each decorative layer to correspond for their element, i.e. Fire=red, water=blue, earth=green. But then would I make the triforce piece yellow? I don't have great painting skills and I wouldn't want it to look like elementary furniture with primary colors.
Maybe some day, if inspiration comes along.
theHeckwithKaren You had the same idea that I did with the different colors. May have been easier to do with it disassembled. Still looks good as is, and I thought it was a great idea! Glad to support a fellow Michigander!
Hi, I would have liked to see the lamp in a dark room, do you have a picture maybe ?
Ben: "WOOOOOOOO!!!" -- Karen: "YEAAAAAAAA!!!" -- Felix: -__-
Can I have the ones you didn't use? I need them for a project.
I got them from my local electronics recycler and we returned all the parts we didn't use. There might be a recycler in your town that would let you have some. Nate's just happy to see things get reused rather than just thrown away so he gives them to me for free.
How is this upcycling if you're taking something usable and making it into junk?
I love how she pronounces that "tsss"
I love how Felix is just doing his thing in the background.
4:08 Battletoads' infamous Pause tune from RARE.
at 15:14 Felix was in the back like he was lost and ended up in a weird place