Hacking project: Replace lcd with third party displays.

[holycow]

HI guys.

I searched the forums, online and youtube and I am not finding any guidance on what might be plausibly doable for my use case.  I hope it is okay to ask these questions here, if not please let me know and I will hapily more or remove the post.

PROJECT:  I am looking to hack up an old used Pinephone and replace the LCD display panel with a smaller square'ish sized one.  Something similar to attaching a Waveshare panel to a Raspberry pi, as per example:  https://www.waveshare.com/product/2.8inch-dpi-lcd.htm

REASON: I want to re-purpose the guts of the Pinephone project + software, change the display to a lower resolution panel and then try to figure out how to build a hardware keyboard in a new form factor.

Building a usb thumb keyboard is straight forward, I would like to now enter into dremel hell and see what can be done playing around with form factors and hardware hopefully without having to write drivers and just letting the onboard gpu do the driving at whatever resolution is supported by an appropriately "compatible" panel display.

Questions:

1)  Can anyone with an understanding of hardware comment on the plausibility of find and using lcd panels with the Pinephone?  Is it doable at all? 

2) If theoretically doable, what is the likelyhood of a display panel existing that is compatible with the Pinephone in various form factors such as the ones available via vendors like Waveshare?

3) If it is unlikely that a drop in compatible panels exist for the Pinephone, what might the reverse engineering of getting one to work with a Pinephone look like?  Only a brief description is necessary, I can google the rest of the information.

Any information would be helpful.  I don't need an end to end explanation, just enough to google up the rest of information and get going.

Thank you kindly.

[barray]

Is the intention to build a PDA or something the equivalent of a Blackberry? If a PDA, let me know, I am working on a side-project for this and there would be some overlap.

[holycow]

Is the intention to build a PDA or something the equivalent of a Blackberry? If a PDA, let me know, I am working on a side-project for this and there would be some overlap.

Hi, thanks for the follow up.  I am indeed.  I used to be able to type really fast when Blackberries were a thing and then got an Android and have never been able to recover any typing speed at all.

I have wanted to test out and play with keyboard layouts and we are now at a place where others have figured out the packaging and software pieces that it seems like it might be time to try and figure out if I can move a few pieces around and dremel into a case an ugly attempt to see how well a thumb keyboard might actually work on a fully converged device.

I have a ton of research to complete and a bunch of iterations to go through as time allows but would love to hear what you might be working on, for sure.  Feel free to post here or message me any time.

Appreciate the mods approving this thread, thanks!

EDIT: I missed the PDA vs Blackberry qualifier. I am looking more for a blackberry style input option rather than a pda in the sense of Palmpilot or similar. I would like to solve the issue of speed + accuracy of text input on a mobile devices for my usecase.

[barray]

Hi, thanks for the follow up.  I am indeed.  I used to be able to type really fast when Blackberries were a thing and then got an Android and have never been able to recover any typing speed at all.

I hear you. That keyboard is quite hard to replicate nicely though. You might find yourself spending quite some time just investigating different switches for the right feel.

I have wanted to test out and play with keyboard layouts and we are now at a place where others have figured out the packaging and software pieces that it seems like it might be time to try and figure out if I can move a few pieces around and dremel into a case an ugly attempt to see how well a thumb keyboard might actually work on a fully converged device.

I don't think you will easily replace the screen on a PinePhone. The tolerances are ultra-tight.

I would suggest to build an expansion board for a module instead: https://www.pine64.org/sopine/

You can then also get the baseboard (note the LiPo battery support): https://www.pine64.org/baseboard/

I imagine you could find a nice LCD hat and then look to build a custom complimentary PCB that connects via the header/USB port, having your keyboard iterations. Initially you could 3D print the case too. This would give you something feasible to work on top of.

You could then eventually build out your own baseboard with the keyboard already added. If you drop the Ethernet, eMMC, IR, GPIO, camera and HDMI you would have a lot of space to work with.

I have a ton of research to complete and a bunch of iterations to go through as time allows but would love to hear what you might be working on, for sure.  Feel free to post here or message me any time.

EDIT: I missed the PDA vs Blackberry qualifier. I am looking more for a blackberry style input option rather than a pda in the sense of Palmpilot or similar. I would like to solve the issue of speed + accuracy of text input on a mobile devices for my usecase.

I am working towards a PDA, a process I have so far documented here: https://coffeespace.org.uk/projects/linu...art-3.html

It's based on an ESP32. I did look at adapting the PineCube, but it was too much of a pain. I am currently looking to avoid having to deal with hardware as I don't have time for it - and want something working out of the box to develop useful software. It might end up being useful for the PineDio project.

[ypd]

You might have seen where user mil was working on something sort of similar where his plan was not to use the bottom of the existing display.

[holycow]

I would suggest to build an expansion board for a module instead: https://www.pine64.org/sopine/

You can then also get the baseboard (note the LiPo battery support): https://www.pine64.org/baseboard/

I imagine you could find a nice LCD hat and then look to build a custom complimentary PCB that connects via the header/USB port, having your keyboard iterations. Initially you could 3D print the case too. This would give you something feasible to work on top of.

You could then eventually build out your own baseboard with the keyboard already added. If you drop the Ethernet, eMMC, IR, GPIO, camera and HDMI you would have a lot of space to work with.

Apologies for the late reply.  Thank you very kindly for the suggestions.

Question #1: Is the baseboard + 3g/4g addon module the same as the Pinephone?  Meaning, will the various os options work out of the box and allow for data connections over 3g/4g/whatever is currently becoming available?

If the answer is no, yeah, I mean that is an option and the Raspberry Pi people have all the modules available as well.  Like you, I am looking to get access to the existing software stack  + a known working hardware design hence my attention focusing in on the Pinephone.  I do like the Lipo support on the Pine64 baseboard but I really just want an existing reference design that is ready to go.

Question #2: Let's assume the Pinephone case is thrown away, are any screens actually compatible with the design?  If I wanted to source a screen compatible with the Pine64, what might I be searching for?  Any suggestions for vendors?

I am working towards a PDA, a process I have so far documented here: https://coffeespace.org.uk/projects/linu...art-3.html

It's based on an ESP32. I did look at adapting the PineCube, but it was too much of a pain. I am currently looking to avoid having to deal with hardware as I don't have time for it - and want something working out of the box to develop useful software. It might end up being useful for the PineDio project.

Okay, this is a very cool project.  Greatly appreciate you documenting it, I am very interested in following your progress.  As for my keyboard question, I mostly expect it to fail for the reasons that you are pointing at.  It is mostly a compulsion that I cannot get rid of and I will need to try all the available switches.  I have looked at all the options and most of them look awful honestly, they all look like they will tire my fingers if used for anything but the bare minimum usecase.  There are a few people that have built their own keyboards, here is probably the most talented and most reasonable approach of the bunch:

https://www.tindie.com/products/bobriciu...-keyboard/

That engineer has made quite a few permutations of various keyboard layouts + even screens for gameboy like devices and such.  Bobricius is quite talented and has made some very beautiful designs, I just have to try and make something like that my self.

If anyone has information on HOW to look for or choose a screen that would be compatible with the Pine64 I am really interested in learning what options might be available if any. 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

---

You might have seen where user mil was working on something sort of similar where his plan was not to use the bottom of the existing display.

Thank you very kindly for the link!  No, I actually searched this forum and on google and totally missed that.  This helps.

[barray]

Question #1: Is the baseboard + 3g/4g addon module the same as the Pinephone? Meaning, will the various os options work out of the box and allow for data connections over 3g/4g/whatever is currently becoming available?

Looking at it - I don't think so. I think they are missing a trick not selling a hat for it.

One option could be to add a USB 3G/4G modem that is compatible with Linux, but I suspect most of the current Linux distros are highly coupled to the current hardware. For example, I had to explicitly ask that a USB WiFi driver be compiled for the PineTab kernel, despite it having a USB port that should technically be able to support anything.

Question #2: Let's assume the Pinephone case is thrown away, are any screens actually compatible with the design? If I wanted to source a screen compatible with the Pine64, what might I be searching for? Any suggestions for vendors?

No idea. One thing to be careful about is that the A64 might not support higher resolutions, from memory there was some issue with 1080 resolution. You also might not get touch support.

Okay, this is a very cool project. Greatly appreciate you documenting it, I am very interested in following your progress.

It's far from done yet

As for my keyboard question, I mostly expect it to fail for the reasons that you are pointing at. It is mostly a compulsion that I cannot get rid of and I will need to try all the available switches. I have looked at all the options and most of them look awful honestly, they all look like they will tire my fingers if used for anything but the bare minimum usecase. There are a few people that have built their own keyboards, here is probably the most talented and most reasonable approach of the bunch:

I would suggest to keep your initial experimentation simple - try and find buttons you like, ideally from open source projects. Might also be worth your time checking out the PinePhone keyboard case!