BUILDING PHOTO FRAME FULL SIZE
BUILDING PHOTO FRAME PC
BUILDING PHOTO FRAME PROFESSIONAL

If you plan to build your own frame using these instructions, you will probably need to improvise from time to time. There are many ways to build a digital frame, and my design is only one of them.

BUILDING PHOTO FRAME PC

I decided that controlling the laptop wirelessly from my desktop PC would be the final configuration. Because the laptop is concealed, however, it is still awkward to work with. With my design, the laptop remains intact, and so easily supports installing new software, patching the operating system, adding photos to the unit, and changing the slideshow. Many had the keyboard mounted backwards behind the screen – not the most user friendly configuration. Typically, the laptops were disassembled, and had peripherals removed to reduce weight. This would allow me to do only vertical cable fishing.Ĭontrolling and configuring the device: Most of the laptop designs that I saw did not have great control systems. I decided to place the frame directly above our piano, so that I could conceal the laptop behind the piano. Running cables through the inside of a wall vertically is relatively straight forward (gravity does most of the work), but running them laterally through wall studs is complicated and messy. Power and cabling: A laptop and an LCD monitor require 2 electrical outlets, and a VGA cable to connect them, but exposed cabling was out of the question. I knew that a 5” thick digital frame was never going to pass my wife’s living room test, so I decided to separate the monitor from the laptop, and to connect them with an extended VGA cable. Obviously the frame was going to require internal bracing of some kind.Ī LCD monitor is thick – at least 2 ½” – and that does not include the laptop. The monitor would need to be mounted in the center of the frame, far enough from the sides to allow for a decent width of matte (3” at least on all sides).

BUILDING PHOTO FRAME FULL SIZE

My plan to use a full size desktop LCD monitor had several design issues that I needed to resolve:Ī desktop monitor is heavy – 10+ lbs and a laptop also weighs several pounds. I decided to use these as the base components for my digital frame.

I had recently upgraded my 17” LCD desktop monitor, and I also had a discarded laptop. My wife was skeptical about the project, and I knew that if the frame did not look great, it would be banished to the family room, instead of being mounted in a place of honor in the living room.

BUILDING PHOTO FRAME PROFESSIONAL

I also wanted professional quality matting and framing. The screens were also smaller than I wanted – equivalent to an 8”x12” photo, and varied considerably in contrast, brightness, and general image quality.įor my project, I wanted a desktop quality LCD screen of a size equivalent to an 11”x14” photograph. All of them involved taking the laptop apart completely and generally rendering it useless for any other activity. The laptop projects that I saw had a couple of common issues, however. The laptop based digital frames have larger screens (10” to 15”), and tend to be reasonably inexpensive to build (provided you own a discarded laptop). I also found a couple of large screen digital frames available online, but they are quite expensive ($800 to $1200) for basic frame and matte combinations.Ī quick search of the web turned up several do-it-yourself articles by photographers that had built their own digital frames – typically from discarded laptops. They range in price from about $100 to $300 (US). Most of them are not matted, and the frames are plastic, metal or simulated wood. They have small (5” to 7”) screens, and are designed to sit on desk tops.

Most of the commercially available digital frames don’t really meet my needs. Recently, I started investigating digital frames as a possible solution to my problem. Framing costs and available wall space limit the number of photos that I can display at any given time, however, and inertia limits the number of times I change my display prints. I have taken a lot of pictures over the years, and like many photographers, I am proud of my work and want to display my favorites on the walls of my home.

Building photo frame