When you have a modern resolution monitor that doesn’t work, but is in otherwise good physical condition, do you throw it away as e-waste? Not us, one of our members was in this situation, and after some searching online, found a replacement controller board, and now had a completely working computer screen ready to do something cool.
Another of our members took the screen and built a timber frame from it from old scrap timber that was acquired from someone online who was dismantling some pelmets from their apartment. This timber was covered in old paint which was removed with a heat gun, leaving a distressed timber look. With a few cuts for the frame and some mitre cuts for the fascia, a frame resembling a picture frame was built.
Given this device will have a solid backing, and thus won’t have the normal passive cooling of a computer screen, some active cooling was made with a 40mm dual blade set counter rotating fan that normally has to overcome lots of back pressure from the old server it was taken from. Also being a picture frame, this device will be wall mounted, so wiring will need to be simple, this whole structure runs from 12V and consumes about 20W. A Raspberry pi powers this display and is installed inside.
