the status of a mini-laptop ;)

nope, didn't forget about, or gave up on it. Are you kidding me? I love this project, albeit a nervewrecking one ;).

I recently realized I've never made a setup with the laptopparts so far, which are the parts that have been ready for a few years now, but so here it is. And although it's all loose and (especially the bottompart) needs some important things besides glueing it all together, it gives a nice idea. Of course this is the off-view, the laptop will have a normal screen that you've seen before for when it's lit. This is an insert for a dark screen, we have to keep it realistic right? :D

I was so thrilled that a few months ago I finally got a chance to once again tackle one of the most difficult parts: the screenlight. Yes, still that ;). This time I try to make a customized backlight, which is solution/option #6, I think. To get the screen lit realistically and I really hope this is the 'system' that will work and I'll get it to work! But knowing myself a little bit: I probably won't give up until I do! :D

And at that time I did succeed in what was needed at this point: I was SO happy, 'cause although you can't tell: that was no breeze! Not because of what needed to be done in itself, but simply because of the delicacy of the leds & wiringconnections. The connections of the micro-leds I need to use (think the size of the crumbs in your eyes when you wake up), are so extremely fragile that the wires loosen very very easy from the leds and it's almost impossible to do anything that I need to do without that happening. But phew, got it! I planned to show this progress when getting it as far for it to be installed, but as that might take a while, I just show this already.

I'm not out of the woods yet, but this part was an essential start and the first difficult hurdle I've passed in this new screenlightingsystem, woehoe! For almost all the steps in this mini-laptop goes that they don't take a lot of time in itself, but are mostly 'just' a bit difficult to do and/or to get right or without accidentally messing up a part.

UPDATE: thanks to Troy I realize it may be nice for you to know where I got these tiny leds. They're from Modeltrain Software. And the ones I used are the pico (you have chip, nano and pico, pico being the very smallest smd-led they have). They have lot's more led types next to the smd-type ones, the regular ones (5mm, 3mm, 1,8mm), also flashing ones and switches etc. The smd/chip-leds, that include the nano and pico, are all wired already. It's worth to take a look.

Next step is to get this finished further, hoping that the way I'm making the backlight will do what an actual one does... they have a special layer, deviding the light, that I hope my substitute resembles enought to work in that way (since an actual backlight is way too thick and big to be able to use). Then to connect the light to the rest of the wiring (that I have to fix first... sigh, see text at photo's at the top) and actually installing it in the parts of the screen.

So I thought I'd do a little update now on that mini-laptop, for anyone wondering if that's still on my radar and/or to-do-list: yup, it absolutely IS! :D.

I'm eager to be able to take the next step(s), hopefully soon!