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MegaTouch Replacement Monitor

post #1 of 16
1/6/07 at 11:11am
Thread Starter 
I'm a newbie here, but I feel I know my stuff pretty well or at least can adapt quickly. I had posted last night on a different thread about how I shipped a MegaTouch Game and it got destroyed in UPS's hands. So this-morning I finally decided to take a harder look into what was wrong. and after ripping out the guts of the machine and plugging in one piece at a time to see what went up in smoke, With my computer (non touch screen) VGA monitor plugged in and the hard drive and mother board sitting out on my dinning room table I have come to the conclusion that "lucky" the only thing that went out is the monitor, everything else seems to be running just fine.

With my little knowledge of this machine (and this is where i'm coming to you guys for) It seems like the monitor is just a monitor and their is a plat of "touchscreen" glass in front of the monitor. Am I right??
The touch screen is plugged into the motherboard in the COM1 port.

Now this is what I want to do and if anyone knows please lend me your knowledge. I was looking at touch screen flat screens on ebay. i'm guessing their newer then this machine and have USB for the touch screen port. Is their a way to use on of these touch screen flat panels with the current MegaTouch Motherboard? If so, what do I need to look for with the monitor? Are their any limitations to what I should look for in a new touch screen monitor? Dose anyone know any Monitor models that do work?

Thanks for any help you guys can give me.
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post #2 of 16
1/6/07 at 8:06pm
I don't know that I can answer your questions, but I will add what I know.

I recently had my Megatouch Vibe develop a bad touchscreen. (Luckily it was under warranty)
What kind of Megatouch is yours? XL? Emerald? (or other precious stone) Force (LCD or CRT based)? Ion?
I had to replace the touchscreen on mine when it went bad. Now the touch screen is different than the monitor as you mention. It is a thin piece of VERY fragile glass that goes over the monitor. It also has a controller which is separately purchased from the touchscreen (this looks like a black rectangular box and might be called a 3M microcontroller). The touchscreens can be a bit pricey.

I would go one step further by testing the touchscreen. Plug everything in except the vga. Plug in your working monitor. Test the touchscreen by "touching" the megatouch monitor to see if the original touchscreen works. If it works, I would look to just replace the monitor. Call Merit to see if their tech support will help you. I have found them to be very helpful. See what their tech person will tell you about replacing the monitor. They might be able to point you to a used model to look for. Also check with your local distibutor (Merit can tell you who they are) Call them to see if they have replacements. My distributor (Betson) carries the official Merit replacements and they also carry the same parts (touchscreens, Monitors, etc...) but not purchased from Merit which will be cheaper.
For example they carry the Merit touchscreen and they also carry the 3M touchscreen. The Merit touchscreen is the 3M touchscreen, but the 3M is cheaper since they buy it from 3M rather than Merit. (They usually use the Merit parts for warranty repairs)

If you are able to get a monitor and your touchscreen is good, you have to be VERY careful when removing the touchscreen. The Merit tech gave me a tip. Use dental floss at one corner to start "cutting" the old double sided tape off. Sorry to keep mentioning it but that touchscreen is very fragile.

I am going to guess that those eBay touchscreens won't work since the Megatouch won't have drivers for that particular touchscreen. It loads the drivers for the 3M touchscreens.

Dino
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post #3 of 16
1/7/07 at 12:31am
Thread Starter 
The monitor and touch screen glass is not recoverable. Cracked on the glass and the back bulb broken off.
Like I said everything is in working order except the touchscreen and monitor. And looking on ebay I did find TouchScreen Glass from the same machine going (currently) for $20. I'm wondering though, can I use a Microtouch flat screen or any other types of flat screen touch screen monitors? If they have the serial connection which i know a lot now have USB. Also with the ones that have USB is their a USB to Serial Adapter out their that would work.

But good point about the drivers, they could stop me from upgrading to a flatscreen...If there is a USB to serial We use the 3m Microtouch at work, I could see if that would work before buying one.
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post #4 of 16
3/26/07 at 6:39am
I have a force 2006 and I have a couple XL that are not functional properly. I've been thinking that the build my own megatouch. Meaning I will buy my 17" LCD screen from 3m and I buy a broken force. Do you think it can be easily converted?
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post #5 of 16
3/29/07 at 12:19pm
I saw someone on Ebay who was selling something that I was thinking of doing myself. I have an Emerald in the larger case. I talk to a guy on ebay that was basically transplanting everything into a normal PC case then buying touchscreen LCDs off of ebay and using them for the monitor by connecting the video and serial connections. This seemed to be working fine for him and it would allow you to hide the case and just have the small LCD on your bar.
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post #6 of 16
8/13/08 at 10:48pm
Thread Starter 
So about 2 years have past since this game went south thanks to UPS. Bored one day I went shopping on eBay and found a 3m Microtouch M150 15" LCD touch screen with Serial Connections. Wanting to try my luck I bought the monitor. Plugging the monitor into a normal computer VGA works fine. Attempted to plug the VGA and the serial into the megatouch pieces...Well actually it worked. I couldn't believe it either. Video came up and touchscreen was active and accurate.
But this all can't end in a happy ending, I am experiencing a weird flicker. Almost as if the monitor losses signal for a moment.
Now their are very specific times this happens.
It happens during the menu and game play(using the touchscreen or just letting it sit).
But it dose not happen, during boot up, during the video demo of games, and in setup mode.
Because it is not a constant occurrence I'm not sure where to start looking.
I've taken everything apart and re seated it all.
I've tried different VGA cables with the touch screen still same problem.
I've tried not plugging in the serial cable just the VGA cable.
And when I use a standard VGA monitor I do not receive this problem, which really makes everything screwy.

Let me know guys, I was really excited when this thing was working again and now this.
-cheers
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post #7 of 16
8/15/08 at 6:43pm
Thread Starter 
so I'm at work and can't test this idea right now but one of my fellow employees gave me a great though that it sounds like a power supply issue. It is just like merit to make everything work just enough so this sound resonable. What do you think, would going from a 13" CRT to a 15" LCD be that big of a power consumption to cause the sceen to go blank??
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post #8 of 16
8/20/08 at 4:50pm
Could it be that your LCD replacement is having a hard time syncing to the video signal when the signal is at a certain resolution?
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post #9 of 16
8/26/08 at 8:26pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cameron View Post

Could it be that your LCD replacement is having a hard time syncing to the video signal when the signal is at a certain resolution?

How would you fix something like that?
-I sent it in to a local shop to have it looked at, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet after a week, so I'm sure he hasn't got very far either.
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post #10 of 16
8/27/08 at 6:44pm
Well on the Megatouch, you can't change the analog video output frequency or resolution as far as I can remember. Therefore, I don't think it can be fixed.
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post #11 of 16
5/20/09 at 1:46pm
Naborneo,

Just curious.. were you ever able to get it working with that 3m microtouch lcd monitor? I have a friend w/ a Sapphire who's CRT died on him, and we're looking for a way to fix it. Anyone else have any info/etc on using a touchscreen lcd to replace a monitor for a megatouch system?
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post #12 of 16
7/16/09 at 2:55pm
Thread Starter 
No I had no luck with using the MicroTouch 3Mand the mega touch, right now I'm just using it as a second monitor for my computer, and the megatouch is collecting dust in the basement. The shop I took it too had no luck as well.

To summarize for any new comers in the last few years:
I had a MegaTouch that got damaged during shipment. The CRT and touchscreen were damaged beyond repair. I purchased a 3M MicroTouch LCD serial. The touch screen did respond, as well as the monitor. When a video was playing "demo video" everything worked fine. When it was in normal mode (i.e. the menus, or games) the monitor image would flick to black and then back to normal sporadically. Not one single known gesture or game caused this to happen. Using a standard LCD monitor, no flicker occurred. I'm guessing something with the refresh rate, but I'm not quite sure how I can fix that.
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post #13 of 16
11/6/11 at 4:08pm
Thread Starter 
So over four years ago I posed about my Megatouch issue, and a lot of hard work went into getting it back up and running. After doing some cleaning in the basement and coming across an ELO intellitouch monitor, the Megatouch XL and completely working. Why it worked with an ELO monitor and not a 3M monitor is beyond me but hey its up and working. So 844 days later we're all good. I have a video of it if anyone's interested, it's pretty boring, but you can see first hand that its working.

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post #14 of 16
11/7/11 at 8:59pm
I came across your post when I was looking to do the same thing. I have an elo that I am excited to try. It looks like you have 2 vga cables attached. Is that the case ? Any tips or is this just plug and play. The only problem is I was using this monitor for a digital touch jukebox in my basement. I guess i will have to get another one if this works.
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post #15 of 16
11/12/11 at 10:58pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by digisatj View Post

...It looks like you have 2 vga cables attached. Is that the case ? Any tips or is this just plug and play.

One is the VGA and the other is the COM port for the touch screen, but it was completely plug n play, no extra work went into it.
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post #16 of 16
4/25/12 at 12:58pm
Thanks for posting of all your hard work and success! Your post is motivating me to try and fix the MegaTouch XL I have in my basement collecting dust. The monitor stopped working after moving from my apartment a few years back, and I spent a few hours on a few occasions trying to repair it, but kept coming up empty. The touchscreen is fully functional, but no image on the screen (you can hear stuff as you're touching the screen with it booted up...machine seems to function fine). I considered an LCD, but I wasn't certain it would work.

My question to you:
Did your machine originally use a CRT monitor and you replace it with an LCD, or was it always LCD?

Thanks again!

-- Brian
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