Hope this is posted to the correct section....
I have a high degree of electronics background, and work with computers as a part of my job. I'm a DIY'er for the simple fact that many things that you purchase aren't worth the $'s they ask for it. Take for example my latest project...connecting my laptop to my SHARP Aquous (1080p) screen... the cable I've located, delivered, would run my $65.00 CAD. For a hunk of wire that doesn't do any converting, that's pretty dear. Also, the fact that I live in rural Ontario means I don't have 52 different sources for this kind of stuff, most store employees look at me with that deer-in-the-headlights look when I ask for something specific. Go Fig...
I gave the cable a shot today, since I had a spare (or several) VGA cable kicking about and more than enough wobby-pops to see me through the afternoon. I also have an endless supply of RCA-terminated audio cables to sacrifice as well. After checking continuity and verifiying pinout for DB15 connector, I got to cutting and soldering. Once again verified no shorts and continuity where I wanted it. Not the prettiest job, but heck it's just a "rough draft" - should it work I can tidy it up.
Verified laptop was able to display picture on external monitor and then hooked up my franken-cable. 1st go didn't produce a picture, and laptop didn't recognize the presence of an external screen. That of course makes sense since I haven't wired in a connection for the screen to "talk" to the laptop. Using an a/b/c box I kept switching between known working sources and the franke-cable, still nothing. I realized that I didn't have and sync going to the screen, which it might need. From my days with an A/V company, I know to fallback to sync-on-green. So I started experimenting (due to laziness at this point) with the "extra" leads poking out of the end of the cable I hacked up. Eventually I managed to get an "UNKNOW" monitor detected by connecting the brown wire to the green video lead. Still didnt get a picture. I'm not sure if this is due to hardware incompatibility or some s/w issue I haven't fully covered yet.
Oh the other kink in this whole thing...the laptop ( an ACER ASPIRE 5100 - ATI video adapter / AMD CPU)... is runing Ubuntu 9.04. Which might make using the "powerstrip" s/w I keep reading about next to difficult.
Thanks for the read, look forward to input ( literally!!)
Steve
I have a high degree of electronics background, and work with computers as a part of my job. I'm a DIY'er for the simple fact that many things that you purchase aren't worth the $'s they ask for it. Take for example my latest project...connecting my laptop to my SHARP Aquous (1080p) screen... the cable I've located, delivered, would run my $65.00 CAD. For a hunk of wire that doesn't do any converting, that's pretty dear. Also, the fact that I live in rural Ontario means I don't have 52 different sources for this kind of stuff, most store employees look at me with that deer-in-the-headlights look when I ask for something specific. Go Fig...
I gave the cable a shot today, since I had a spare (or several) VGA cable kicking about and more than enough wobby-pops to see me through the afternoon. I also have an endless supply of RCA-terminated audio cables to sacrifice as well. After checking continuity and verifiying pinout for DB15 connector, I got to cutting and soldering. Once again verified no shorts and continuity where I wanted it. Not the prettiest job, but heck it's just a "rough draft" - should it work I can tidy it up.
Verified laptop was able to display picture on external monitor and then hooked up my franken-cable. 1st go didn't produce a picture, and laptop didn't recognize the presence of an external screen. That of course makes sense since I haven't wired in a connection for the screen to "talk" to the laptop. Using an a/b/c box I kept switching between known working sources and the franke-cable, still nothing. I realized that I didn't have and sync going to the screen, which it might need. From my days with an A/V company, I know to fallback to sync-on-green. So I started experimenting (due to laziness at this point) with the "extra" leads poking out of the end of the cable I hacked up. Eventually I managed to get an "UNKNOW" monitor detected by connecting the brown wire to the green video lead. Still didnt get a picture. I'm not sure if this is due to hardware incompatibility or some s/w issue I haven't fully covered yet.
Oh the other kink in this whole thing...the laptop ( an ACER ASPIRE 5100 - ATI video adapter / AMD CPU)... is runing Ubuntu 9.04. Which might make using the "powerstrip" s/w I keep reading about next to difficult.
Thanks for the read, look forward to input ( literally!!)
Steve
