New Samsung DeX Laptop / Lapdock

[kreal]

Album

http://imgur.com/gallery/NIeGc

See it in action!

https://youtu.be/HTemLWr4lqI

Lets use a MacBook Pro early 2008 for our little Samsung DeX laptop project.

Looks roomy inside. Lets make more!

Lots of space to play around with.

Now for the waiting period of this project. We need to find an LCD controller board for this particular monitor. ebay to the rescue!

LCD controller board and backlight inverter arrived. DHL Express used a private jet I think.

Now for the fun part, we need to make this keyboard and trackpad work via USB. Lets bring out our soldering iron.

The 4 wire USB cable will need to connect, Ground, 5V0, R2 and DP. Success, we now have a working keyboard with a USB connector.

Next up. Fitting some batteries. These batteries is of type lithium polymer and was from an old laptop. However they where already showing signs of decay. Better now use them in a closed enclosure...

So I purchased two Power banks of the same type, and crossed my fingers the production date of the batteries matched. And lo and behold, they did! Slap those bad boys in parallel. 20000mAh, and 74Wh, plenty for around 4-5 hours of screen time.

Time for the lcd controller board, screen buttons and inverter to be fitted. Looks OK, but final reversion is better.

Maybe they will fit this way. Nope lets try again. The black box is the C-FORCE CF003 by the way.

Now we are getting somewhere, this looks OK. Note that I had to desolder the DVI, VGA, DC power, Audio in and Audio out plug from the lcd controller board for the height to fit.

2x XL6009 Step-up Power Module DC-DC Converter fitted, one for 12v and the other for 5v for fans and charging the phone while plugged in. Also added the 1A 5V Micro USB TP4056 Lithium Battery Power Charger Board Module TE420 for charging the batteries. And what will become the external USB plug. The 12v DC-DC gets hot as f***, so we need to find a way to cool it. I am happy I used very thick wire, as the inverter needs 4amp.

To my luck the original MacBook fan fits perfectly to cool down the DC-DC converter. Its the gray one in the bottom right.

Lets put it all together and see if it fits. I reused the original power plug for turning on and off the screen from the power button on the MacBook keyboard.

Isn't it lovely? I also found a magnetic micro usb charger cable for the charge wire. Can hardly tell it apart from a real MacBook Pro.

Next project. I need to see if I can fit this USB to Ethernet from StarTech. Should be possible.

Album

http://imgur.com/gallery/NIeGc

See it in action!

https://youtu.be/HTemLWr4lqI

 

[kreal]

If anyone knows how to get the trackpad working in Android without root, let me know.

Apparently Apple doesn't follow proper HID standards. I'm hoping it will work in Android O

 

[Skidoo03]

To say I'm jealous is an understatement, great work! I'm all out of thanks for the day but it would be great to see someone produce and sell these!

 

[kreal]

To say I'm jealous is an understatement, great work! I'm all out of thanks for the day but it would be great to see someone produce and sell these!

Thanks.

There is the following already (Don't know if readily available):
Mirabook, https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-mirabook-turn-your-smartphone-into-a-laptop-mobile-android

Superbook, https://www.kickstarter.com/project...our-smartphone-into-a-laptop-f?ref=nav_search

But probably doesn't work with DeX.

 

[kelvingamer]

Thanks.

There is the following already (Don't know if readily available):
Mirabook, https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-mirabook-turn-your-smartphone-into-a-laptop-mobile-android

Superbook, https://www.kickstarter.com/project...our-smartphone-into-a-laptop-f?ref=nav_search

But probably doesn't work with DeX.

What resolution is your screen?

 

[Armin1997]

very nice, working on something simular. mind telling me what charge controller you're using?

 

[damiloveu]

It is the best personal project I've seen here in this forum.

 

[junjlo]

I am inspired by this work of awesomeness amazing job man! This is the cool DIY stuff I love seeing and the best part to me is it's a MacBook pro shell HAHAHA!! Classy!

 

[kreal]

What resolution is your screen?

On the specs it says, 1440 by 900 native resolution. But can easily run 1920x1080 with the new LCD driver board. No ill effects at all.

 

[kreal]

very nice, working on something simular. mind telling me what charge controller you're using?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121521256825

However I de-soldered the DVI and VGA port and a few other things to make it fit.

 

[fonix232]

Nice work!

You could probably shave off some more by using a smaller adapter, say, the 30$ MELOPOW M002 - which is considerably smaller than the C-Force one you're using.

I'm also planning something similar, but I'd use a dedicated QC2.0 compatible charging controller that supports pass-through charging (which I haven't been able to find so far), Type-C and is relatively cheap (say, a not too branded chinese power bank from AliExpress).

 

[andjohn]

Awesome!

Hey man,
If you switched to an eDP board and screen, you'd get over 30 hours of battery life, no joke. That video board you have is from 2005, which is why it's so power hungry. I have the same board and an eDP board in mine. I have a 56Whr battery in mine and eDP and it lasts so long that I've never drained it, I always tend to plug it in before it's even at 25% life.

Album

http://imgur.com/gallery/NIeGc

See it in action!

https://youtu.be/HTemLWr4lqI

Lets use a MacBook Pro early 2008 for our little Samsung DeX laptop project.

Looks roomy inside. Lets make more!

Lots of to play around with.

Now for the waiting period of this project. We need to find an LCD controller board for this particular monitor. ebay to the rescue!

LCD controller board and backlight inverter arrived. DHL Express used a private jet I think.

Now for the fun part, we need to make this and trackpad work via USB. Lets bring out our soldering iron.

The 4 wire USB cable will need to connect, Ground, 5V0, R2 and DP. Success, we now have a working with a USB connector.

Next up. Fitting some batteries. These batteries is of type lithium polymer and was from an old laptop. However they where already showing signs of decay. Better now use them in a closed enclosure...

So I purchased two Power banks of the same type, and crossed my fingers the production date of the batteries matched. And lo and behold, they did! Slap those bad boys in parallel. 20000mAh, and 74Wh, plenty for around 4-5 hours of screen time.

Time for the lcd controller board, screen buttons and inverter to be fitted. Looks OK, but final reversion is better.

Maybe they will fit this way. Nope lets try again. The black box is the C- CF003 by the way.

Now we are getting somewhere, this looks OK. Note that I had to desolder the DVI, VGA, DC power, Audio in and Audio out plug from the lcd controller board for the height to fit.

2x XL6009 Step-up Power Module DC-DC Converter fitted, one for 12v and the other for 5v for fans and charging the phone while plugged in. Also added the 1A 5V Micro USB TP4056 Lithium Battery Power Charger Board Module TE420 for charging the batteries. And what will become the external USB plug. The 12v DC-DC gets hot as f***, so we need to find a way to cool it. I am happy I used very thick wire, as the inverter needs 4amp.

To my luck the original MacBook fan fits perfectly to cool down the DC-DC converter. Its the gray one in the bottom right.

Lets put it all together and see if it fits. I reused the original power plug for turning on and off the screen from the power button on the MacBook .

Isn't it lovely? I also found a magnetic micro usb charger cable for the charge wire. Can hardly tell it apart from a real MacBook Pro.

Next project. I need to see if I can fit this USB to Ethernet from StarTech. Should be possible.

Album

http://imgur.com/gallery/NIeGc

See it in action!

https://youtu.be/HTemLWr4lqI

 

[catsruul]

I tried something similar (OTG peripherals/WiFi display) a year or so ago, mixed up my power supplies for the display inverter and fried it. After burning a nice spot in my table I decided it wasn't really worth pursuing.

Great work though, very cool.

 

[jirkapas]

Where did you got that flat hdmi cable?

 

[pRo_lama]

You can buy it on Amazon.

 

[fonix232]

Hey man,
If you switched to an eDP board and screen, you'd get over 30 hours of battery life, no joke. That video board you have is from 2005, which is why it's so power hungry. I have the same board and an eDP board in mine. I have a 56Whr battery in mine and eDP and it lasts so long that I've never drained it, I always tend to plug it in before it's even at 25% life.

Cool!

Care to name some parts, maybe even show off your build?

 

[andjohn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh8m01oANfg

That's my prototype when I was making it a business.

 

[Silails]

Hi, that's an epic projet, when I saw the news of this project I was thinking "shoot, someone overshooted me" because I had the idea to do the same but for the Nintendo switch a month or so ago but didn't quite got the money to do that, and then I saw your amazing project and now I need your help (if you want to) to make the laptop keyboard a USB keyboard (I'm using an old Compaq 610 laptop) :fingers-crossed:

 

[fonix232]

Hi, that's an epic projet, when I saw the news of this project I was thinking "shoot, someone overshooted me" because I had the idea to do the same but for the Nintendo switch a month or so ago but didn't quite got the money to do that, and then I saw your amazing project and now I need your help (if you want to) to make the laptop keyboard a USB keyboard (I'm using an old Compaq 610 laptop) :fingers-crossed:

Most older laptops use onboard controllers for the touchpad and the keyboard (but at least for the keyboard). This is a problem especially if you want to convert it into a USB keyboard, because without the controller, the keyboard itself is nothing more but a 8x18 diode matrix with a 25-pin connector. And since most manufacturers wire their keyboards differently, if it isn't a well researched model, especially if it's a model where the controller is ON the motherboard and not separate, you'll be out of luck (unless you know how to write your own firmware for the USB HID device for a compatible microcontroller like a Teensy).

However there are tons of very small keyboards that more or less fit a generic laptop keyboard's size on AliExpress that are by default USB, and need only some minor changes to fit into your case.

There are also some laptops that have the keyboard and touchpad hooked up together with a controller, and the whole shebang connects to an internal USB header. With those laptops, the controller often has exposed pads or pins for the VCC, GND, RX and TX lanes that you can solder onto, essentially making a full USB keyboard.

 

[Silails]

Most older laptops use onboard controllers for the touchpad and the keyboard (but at least for the keyboard). This is a problem especially if you want to convert it into a USB keyboard, because without the controller, the keyboard itself is nothing more but a 8x18 diode matrix with a 25-pin connector. And since most manufacturers wire their keyboards differently, if it isn't a well researched model, especially if it's a model where the controller is ON the motherboard and not separate, you'll be out of luck (unless you know how to write your own firmware for the USB HID device for a compatible microcontroller like a Teensy).

However there are tons of very small keyboards that more or less fit a generic laptop keyboard's size on AliExpress that are by default USB, and need only some minor changes to fit into your case.

There are also some laptops that have the keyboard and touchpad hooked up together with a controller, and the whole shebang connects to an internal USB header. With those laptops, the controller often has exposed pads or pins for the VCC, GND, RX and TX lanes that you can solder onto, essentially making a full USB keyboard.

Thanks for the answer, I figured that out by searching on Internet but I had hope for a solution :s (forums were old) but I think I shold find a workaround with a small keyboard, thanks for the tips ^^