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Portable USB? monitor 7-10"
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Portable USB? monitor 7-10"

I am looking for something like the screens that are sold with some rasperry / orange / banana pis (not necesseraly touch) that I can plug to a pc with usb or any other sane (noob-friendly) method.

Normal portable screens sold in say amazon / ebay are way too expensive, while there are tablets that go for $50...

Any chance for something like that?

Comments

  • I'm looking lcd too. With hdmi interface but below 50usd

  • HDMI licensing alone is like 5$, shipping to US/EU another 5$, leaving 40$ for HW - for 7" in digital (meaning 800x600+)....

    You CAN get this - IF you are willing (and able to) to run your own controller with an iPhone/Samsung repair display and have no case. With case/controller as fully made solution this ain't going to happen in digital, only analog.

    http://www.dx.com/c/car-accessories-799/car-video-systems-718/car-monitors-731

    Thanked by 2netomx vimalware
  • Probably better off to buy some old Laptop LCDs and then use a controller for it to get hdmi/vga/dvi inputs depending what you need. Controllers are not per se cheap, but if you have some old laptops laying around with working screens.. this could work out well for you.

    my 2 cents.

    Cheers!

  • Seems controllers are specific per the display and atleast 25 euro. Also it requires having meters to check if you have connected the cables the correct way.

    I 'll keep that in mind but doesn't seem like a solution for right now.

    One of the screens in the site @William linked has vga / hdmi but it's 72 euro :/

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran
    edited November 2015

    What do you want to display on it? Will it be a primary monitor, or a secondary one? If latter, then just get a cheap Android tablet and then there's quite a lot of options to make it useful as a secondary monitor for things like always-on IM/IRC, weather forecast, systems monitoring, etc. You could also run Synergy and control it with your main computer's mouse and keyboard. Or you could run VNC on it to connect to a "real" desktop OS and display apps from there (that's what I do with mine).
    I see quad core tablets today start from about $41 shipped http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Newest-iRulu-7-Tablet-PCs-Dual-Core-Allwinner-Android-4-2-Tablet-PC-1-5GHz-ROM/2053056548.html
    You will not find a bare screen, let alone with circuitry needed to drive it from HDMI or USB for cheaper than that.

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • NihimNihim Member
    edited November 2015

    Second Secondary... monitor :P prolly will have some status things always open.

    The thing with tablets is I am afraid if I keep the chinese tablet 24/7/365 on power the battery may well explode / implode / catch fire (I have a 140 euro chinese tablet and it gets extremelly hot when it's charging). Dunno if it's possible to open it up and remove the battery, if it will work with just DC?

    Could you expand on the VNC part. Is it possible with windows, will the host machine consider it like a monitor so you can put multiple stuff in?

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran
    edited November 2015

    Nihim said: Could you expand on the VNC part.

    The way I do this, is I just connect to a separate user's VNC session on my Debian home server. That user has a VNC server running in a 1024x580 resolution with an Xfce4 desktop, and that desktop is displayed on my tablet. So what I get is "a tablet running Debian", as over local WiFi VNC is very fast.

    Is it possible with windows, will the host machine consider it like a monitor so you can put multiple stuff in?

    With Windows it seems like you can create a virtual second monitor, which will only be visible to a VNC client: http://virtualmonitor.github.io/

    if I keep the chinese tablet 24/7/365 on power the battery may well explode / implode / catch fire (I have a 140 euro chinese tablet and it gets extremelly hot when it's charging)

    The one I currently have (EKEN GC10X) is smart enough to stop charging when it's plugged in and the battery is at 100%, as it does not heat up any more at all. But yeah, some time ago I had a tablet which was not this smart and just charged all the time. I guess this is indeed one concern to have.

    Nihim said: Dunno if it's possible to open it up and remove the battery, if it will work with just DC?

    It might just work after removing the battery, or this might require some soldering.
    https://classic.startpage.com/do/search?cat=web&cmd=process_search&language=english&engine0=v1all&query=run+tablet+without+battery
    it seems to be a quite popular question.

    Thanked by 1drazilox
  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider

    Something like this for ~$50, maybe?

    Alternatively, this thread lists some suggestions for case-less panels, and I'm sure DX has more options as well - such as this or this panel.

  • Ole_JuulOle_Juul Member
    edited November 2015

    I see 7" TFT rear view monitors for as low as $35 on eBay. (5" even cheaper) It's the USB specification that's a problem. What OS/program can stream video to USB?

  • NihimNihim Member
    edited November 2015

    @rm_

    Sadly that's limited to w7 32x (64x needs signed drivers).

    Will try to search a bit around for a similar solution & aswell for the battery removal. If I get a new tablet I could use my old without the battery since some of my stuff can be viewed through a browser.

    @joepie91

    44 euro is inside the budget, though I have this feeling the panel of that screen is gonna be incredible shitty even compared to a 50 euro tablet :P

    For the 7" monitor bundle depends I guess on how hard / what it requires to make it work like meters to know if you connected the wires in the right order etc or prior knowledge. I would love to try it out but since there are quite some stuff I am interested in buying have to play it safe.

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran
    edited November 2015

    Nihim said: 64x needs signed drivers

    x64 can load unsigned drivers when you run it in the "Test Mode". Which I do all the time (applied with the DSEO tool), don't even remember why anymore, likely to try some unsigned driver in the past. There are also many other ways:
    https://www.raymond.cc/blog/loading-unsigned-drivers-in-windows-7-and-vista-64-bit-x64/view-all/

    Nihim said: search a bit around for a similar solution

    Here's another link that I came across: http://superuser.com/a/152219

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • lontonglontong Member
    edited November 2015

    I used to be like you, searching for the most cost-efficient display for my Raspberry & Orange Pi just for displaying my IoT app (mostly chart). I gave up and bought Lenovo Tab 2 A7-10 for just $44 :)

  • the thing is finding some way to make it work!

    which I think I found through the links @rm_ provided.

    Check this out: spacedesk.ph/features/

    works on any windows, for tablets / phones other pcs. Looks promising, I might just try it out

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • @Nihim I'm sitll curious about USB video. Have you ever seen such a thing?

  • @Ole_Juul said:
    Nihim I'm sitll curious about USB video. Have you ever seen such a thing?

    If you mean tablet connected through OTG usb to the pc yea I think I saw a couple of software that worked that way but I didn't check them out.

    As far for the spacedesk on my notebook it doesn't fully work, the mouse pointer shows up on the tablet and it's very fluid and responsive but everything else is a black background no matter if I move a window to that virtual monitor.

    But that might be due to my notebooks nvidia ION LE graphics.

  • Ole_Juul said: I'm sitll curious about USB video. Have you ever seen such a thing?

    Yes, i have a few USB to VGA/DVI adapters - an old USB 2.0 VGA one that does only like 1400x900 and 2 USB 3.0 one with DVI that do FullHD fine, the newest IIRC even do 4k over DP or new HDMI. Since USB 3 this got actually pretty good for a display with only text and alike, obviously useless for gaming.

    Driver support usually only given for Windows, OSX often supported as the largest (almost sole) chipmaker for such chipsets provides them.

    Thanked by 1Ole_Juul
  • @William that doesn't help if you want to use something else than a normal monitor as an extra screen right?

    Or is it to use for when you have run out of vga / hdmi ports on your pc and you want to use another screen?

    I am asking cause I saw atleast one software that supposedly uses usb (OTG) to connect a tablet to a pc and use the tablet as an extra monitor.

  • After quite some searching splashtop did the trick, supports touch and all.

    You just have to go through control panel to create a dummy extra display and put splashtop to just use that.

  • Nihim said: Or is it to use for when you have run out of vga / hdmi ports on your pc and you want to use another screen?

    This. I bought it when i had a Mac Pro that did only support a single AMD card (at the time) with 3 screens so i added a Nvidia that only had 2 ports (OSX has no VGA) - For the last i bought a USB 3.0 PCIe card and a USB 3.0->DVI adapter. Worked fine as if it was a normal GPU, video also, you could however see some latency (like 15-25ms).

  • @William

    Interesting, though atleast for what I am looking to do (tablet as monitor) I would still need some software for the usb to X connection.

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