Thinkpads Forum

I have an older Thinkpad that I don't use any more, and so would like to modify. Not electronically, but cosmetically.
Part of this alteration is extending the LCD about three feet. Looking at the connector, obviously using grounded ribbon cable would be a challenge, considering the numerous connections on this itty-bitty LCD cable.

There are a few things that might get in the way of the LCD working, even if a suitable cable and connector could be found. First, wouldn't the high frequency signals degrade or wash together over a one to two meter length? How tightly are the timing specs held, so would a 4 meter round trip per signal take too long?

So, I'm looking for your genious thoughts on extending an LCD:)

By the way, this is for a 760E, but I think the LCD connectors and protocols are common to many Thinkpads.

Given that you figure out how to extend the wireing and that you use good quality wireing and that the connections at each end are rock solid, you should be able to pull this off without quality loss, or at least have quality loss at a minimum. You'll probably spend a lot of time trying to get the cable extended though.

AlphaKilo470 wrote:probably spend a lot of time trying to get the cable extended though.

Hmmm, yes, that's my feeling too. Does IBM sell the LCD connectors seperately for different Thinkpads? The density of the current connectors are very high for manual wiring. And I'm sure if the connector type is known, then there might exist adaptors to standard IDC connectors, for example. Then it is a simple matter to proceed...but first I need the connectors!

I'm really not sure of the connector type, but if you download the hardware maintenance manual from IBM, that might have some info, but I'm not entirely sure.

AlphaKilo470 wrote:I'm really not sure of the connector type, but if you download the hardware maintenance manual from IBM, that might have some info, but I'm not entirely sure.

Dang, well, the HWare manual does not list the connector type...

Anyone have ideas on how to find out what it is?

I want to do this as well - have you had any luck?

My thinking is to use lengths of cat5 cable - if it can do 100 Mbps over 100m, it should be ok for ~2m. Having dismantled my LCD panel (from a T21), looks like you need to take the two power wires from the inverter (I'll leave the inverter connected to the existing cable). Then, I have a 20 pin ribbon cable to my panel, so I'm thinking of soldering wires from the cat5 directly to the connector on the LCD panel (1mm pitch connector, not too bad), then sticking the other end into the ribbon cable connector directly. I'm not convinced that there's a 'round trip' issue on the data. I would guess it just sends parallel data maybe with a clock, so this should be OK to do.

But I've been wrong before.