I recently acquired yet another Intuos 2 12x18 (yeah - finally, one of those bargains that seem to happen only to others - 50 bucks with shipping).
This monitor represents yet another move toward sparing material, on LG part... the back of the LCD panel also acts as back case of the whole monitor, and the tiny VGA adapter is hosted inside a cover attached to its bottom that also hold the - as usual, not removible - stand pivot. It is kept by three screws on the back, nothing more.
More important for the ones like us, the front plastic frame is - too - already part of the panel, being THE front frame for the panel... removing it was simpler than I expected and already exposed the lcd an the flexible connectors from the TCON to the LCD, 3 of them that they are (I didn't expect it, so I started from that and I found myself with the LCD wanting to fall out in a moment I had my hands otherwise occupied).
As I expected, though, the 30 pin - 1mm pitch - FFC connector between the VGA and the TCOn is long maybe 10 cm (I doubt it), so sourcing a longer connector is in order, for me, before trying more stuff.
The LED strip is at the bottom of the screen (with the TCON board) and it is connected wih three individial cables of the same kind used in the LG IPS224v that I used in my last re-build, i.e half the number.
In all, if the EMI are of the order of the ones from its bigger brother, this build should be all but virtually done.
Given the very smal footprint of this monitor VGA, its reduced thickness , and the fact that I already have a void case lying around, I think that I will build this one inside the Intuos 2 case.
Update: I acquired a new FFC with a connector, however I forgot to check and ordered a "same side" FFC, when the one needed was - really - a flip-side. Nothing major - cut, then take a cutter's blade and scrape the plastic on the side that need to be uncovered.
Which was good and well, as the guy that sold it to me had placed the connector on a tip with the blue stripe - it was too thick to actually enter in the LCD panel receptacle.
So, dismount it, and glue on the other tip that I had cut (removing the blue strip) and scraped bare... It works, so who cares that it is not too elegant.
I have prepared the bottom of the case, modded the screen and finally joined the Intuos 2 and the LG... and so I discovered that the Tcon-board is very "noisy"on the right side of the screen (about 1/3rd is lost to false clicks, pressure blots and crazy jitter).
I need to build a sizeable RF case for it, but I am still confident that the build can be done. ... by simply raysing the thing up a bit, the interferences fell very noticeably, to what I'd call normal levels.
How to count pins, the lazy way - take a photo and mark them out.
To case or not to case... here an untouched Intuos 2 and the UBiQ in its current form... as you can see, the UBiQ has the same size, even if it has a 14 mm (1/2 inch) thick perimeter frame in plywood.
The most "tranquil" way to cut a thick sheet of metal... drill holes.
Checking where to place stuff, the safe way... paper cut and tape.
The final arrangement is good enough - in the end, I only had to add the grounding between the intuos and LCD tcon_Board.
Alas, I soon realized that my toil wasn't over.
Then it will be time to measure stuff, cut some other, and buy a glass.
This time, it sits just glued to the 0.5 mm acerylic shets that I use as "Intuos-protectors" (it worries me....).
The cage improves thing, but the panel is still much more recalcitrant than the IPS224v, and gives jitter, false clicks and pressure blots in the last four to five cm to the right, as well as a more "normal" jitter on the left two-three.
The LED strip is at the bottom, and heats a lot less than the one in the 224, being much less power over a wider space.
Sure, it looks much sleeker than my usual boxy plywood things, but it all feels so... flimsy!
I added my habitual common mode chokes on the USB and power cables, and moved the thing to its final location/computer.
This has usefully reduced a bit the false clicks on the 2nd button (now they are just some, and only on the lower right border of the screen).
A "smart" repartition of GUI elements (i.e. on the right, I left only things that are "click and choose"... anything that needs move sliders would require far better precision) made it pretty usable.
As a final touch, I placed a 3mm thick glass, with margins spray-painted in black, on top of it.
A drawing done with it.
Note: setting the refresh rate at 75hz improved things yet a bit.
Find out that at 75 Hz refresh rate, the jitter goes down and - a bit - the false click on the lower right corner of the screen, too.
I tried to take a video of it working, to show the end result (with the weak and strong points of this build).
I built a pivoting arm to hold the thing (yes, I am a wood lover).
I also added a wireless numeric pad as shortcuts (note: this pad model is somewhat buggy, with keys prone to double-clicking; The MC Saite SK-51AG that I use with UBiQ 2 is much more reliable).
With this, I hereby declare the build finished (till the next update).
P.S. I re/confirm that the refresh rate set at 75 hz improves things noticeably.
With the arm, I use a 3.0 mt long VGA cable, that runs along the usb line and the power line.
I noticed that when the pen is retrieved recognized by the tablet, a slight disturb affects the screen.
As I wrote, it is pretty slight, so I am not sure that it was not present even with the shorter cable and and the power and USB going each one its different way. However, if it is cross-talk between the USB cable and the VGA, it is yet another reason to prefer monitor with digital connections over ones with VGA.
I love it, a giant embedded intuos 2 diy Cintiq! has that been done before, I'm not sure. You're becoming a pioneer of the massive diy Cintiq.
Looks like the build works pretty well too, do you think there will be a UbiQ 4 in the future?
It only has issues around a relatively massive inductance that is on the T-Con board, at about three cm from the screen border, that interferes with the vertical antennas that read the X position in the 10 cm to the right of the screen and also adds plenty of false clicks.
(the one that I made is of 0.5 mm thick low-carbon iron, from the carved-out back of the IPS224-v in the UBiQ2. It is true that I suspect that replacing it with one wider, so that the "closure" of its magnetic field happens beyond the active area, could improve things... if only had I thought it before cutting the RF cage sheet metal).
In the middle of the screen, jitter is down to a pixel, so a smart disposition of the GUI elements makes it very usable.
In reality, the main difference with the "2" (that is more jittery, in the middle) is that the swinging arm support is a bit too good at moving around, whereas "2" is now part of a whole drawing table and doesn't move at all.
On one side, drawing sketches on the sofa while listening to the television is pretty relaxing.
On the other, the screen position is just too wobbly to do the kind of fine, sweeping arm movements that "2" allows and, as a result, when drawing on the "3" I tend to use thicker lines.
Alas, I think that the only ways "up" would be passing to the Intuos 3, to cover a whole 21.5" (if the board has a size comparable to the Intuos 2, then I could simply swap one for the other in the "2"), or going for higher resolution screens.
For the time being, both are beyond my budget and my needs.
Eventually, I could try to "restore" the "Cabinetiq" replacing the AUO with a Retina screen, but... I really like to draw big - it is one of the reasons why I placed the "Mini-q" on the side of the "2", so that all of the no-jittery area was free for drawing, and finicky GUI elements were in the stablest of my builds -.
"UBiQ 3" 's 19.5" (with no "secondary") is really the minimum, for me.
On the other side, going for a bigger screen with a multi-digitizer set-up... doesn't look too interesting.
It can be done, but the "dead areas" to be left would be pretty annoying.
To change the name of the tablet, I landed on the tablet's main property dialog (Click on the icon of your tablet to modify in the topmost list window, it opens name and mode).
I completely forgot about the mode parameter; I tried the other values, beyond "standard" - i.e. "recognition mode" and "simple mode".
Together with setting the refresh rate of the screen to 85 Hz, "recognition mode" seems to produce the best results, nboth for pen stability and the interferences picked up by the screen (though, I suspect that it may be cross-talk, as the VGA and USB cable run together for a couple of metres.).