**Upcycling an Old Laptop Screen: A DIY Project**

In this video, I'll show you how to breathe new life into an old laptop screen by transforming it into a fully portable external monitor. This project requires some basic electronics knowledge and a few inexpensive components.

First, we need to identify the necessary parts for this project. The first thing you'll notice is the controller board that comes with this panel. It has all the different controllers like your on/off button, LED indicator, select button, right left menu, and auto. I'm not sure if every one of these buttons will work for this board or how it will work, but this board is specifically made for this panel so everything on here should work pretty good.

On the back of this board, you'll find all the different display ports that you can use with this panel. You have HDMI in, DVI in, VGA in, PC audio in and out port. Let's go ahead and hook it all up and see how it works.

The first thing we want to do is hook this up to the back of the monitor itself. There is a little connector here that's very small and kind of difficult to get to once you get the hang of it, it's not that difficult to plug in. Now I don't know if it's very hard to see but I'll try to show it a little closer.

Next, we need to hook up the power and the HDMI signal. From my DC adapter, I'm going to go ahead and plug it straight into the power port here. And as you can see right away we've got a no signal on the device on the Panel LED showing that the power is on and the on and off should be able to work.

Now, let's plug in the HDMI signal from my computer. My computer has recognized the external device, and there we go! I have signal. So now I've basically taken an old laptop screen hooked it up to a couple of pretty inexpensive devices and I have a fully portable external monitor.

Let's take a look at the menu. As you can see, it has a pretty standard menu just like any other display. I can change the brightness, gamma, contrast, all the different options you would expect from an external monitor.

At this point in time, it's my choice or your choice if you decide to do this how you want to manage all this stuff. In this particular case, I'm going to end up double-sided taping it to the back of the monitor but you can come up with a pretty elaborate design on your own.

What I can also do is simply take something like this little phone mount put the monitor on there so I can go ahead and start to use it right away. Let's take a look at 1600 by 900 recommended, but 1920 by 1080 is supported. I'll go ahead and keep these changes.

There we go! 1920x1080 display monitor ready to be used at any point in time. So hopefully, that was helpful. All it took was a little bit of time to pull out the old monitor from my laptop pick something like this up on Amazon hook up a couple of wires and it works right away.

If you're interested in seeing me take this a little step farther and trying to find a nice way to kind of Mount this and mount this to a board so that I have a pretty stable device, let me know down in the comments. But for now, I just wanted to show you that that's something that's possible.

I always love taking something that's old and broken and refurbishing it in such a way that it becomes useful again. And if you're going to do this please share your results with me, I'd love to see it. If you found this helpful at least click like on the video, I'd really appreciate that.

And if you're so inclined feel free to subscribe, I'd love to see you back. But for now, this is Carl from Techful Goodies, and I'm out!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: endid you know that you can take an old broken-down laptop and make an external monitor from it well it's true this is an old laptop that my kids used to use and from years of abuse and neglect and a lot of water spilled on it it became completely unfunctional so I got to thinking I know the screen is still good what can I do with it so I found out that you can take the screen out of an old laptop like this and make it into a portable external monitor on the cheap so let's do it hey guys this is Carl from techful goodies and this is the monitor that I took out of that old laptop it wasn't that difficult to do all I had to do was pull off the external plastic bezel and then there was just a couple of screws holding it in as well as a small connector on the back here so after a little bit of research I actually found that once you get the monitor out and you know it's working all you actually have to do in order to use this as an external monitor or an external portable monitor is to take a look on the back of each one of the monitor devices and you can see that there is a ltn number in this particular case ltn140 kt07 and you actually have to take that number go into something like Amazon I'll show it up here on the screen type that number in and what you'll end up finding is a converter board that allows you to plug into the back of this Salvage display board and it basically turns it into an HDMI device so that's what I've got here so as you can see I've got the small device here as as well as a 12 volt to 4 amp adapter and this just basically provides power to the screen and to the controller board so let's take a little closer look at this board it basically comes all connected like this as you see here you have your cable that goes directly to the monitor itself on the back you'll have to plug this in and then you have a controller board this has all your different controllers like your on off your LED indicator your select button your right left menu and auto now I don't know if every one of these buttons is going to work for this board or how it will work but this board is specifically made for this panel so everything on here should work pretty good on the back of this board it has all the different display ports that you can use with this panel you have HDMI in DVI in VGA in a PC audio in and out Port so let's go ahead and hook it all up and see how it works the first thing you want to do is hook this up to the back of the monitor itself as you can see there is a little connector here it's very small and kind of difficult to get to once you get the hang of it it's not that difficult to plug it in now I don't know if it's very hard to see but I'll try to show it a little closer basically you just slide the little connector right under the small piece of metal make sure that the contact points are pointed down towards the board and make sure you have a nice firm connection when you're ready to make this permanent you can put some tape on here to make sure that it stays in place so now the last two things we have to do is hook up the power and the HDMI signal so from my DC adapter I'm going to go ahead and plug it straight in to the power port here and as you can see right away we've got a no signal on the device on the Panel LED showing that the power is on and the on and off should be able to work yep that's working green is showing that it's starting up no signal and then red when it detects no signal so let's go ahead and plug a signal in so I'm going to plug the HDMI in from my computer so my computer has recognized the external device and there we go I have signal so now I've basically taken an old laptop screen hooked it up to a couple of pretty inexpensive devices and I have a fully portable external monitor now I can use this for whatever I want let's take a look at the menu so as you can see it has a pretty standard menu just like any other display I can change the brightness gamma contrast all the different options you would expect from an external monitor now at this point in time it's my choice or your choice if you decide to do this how you want to manage all this stuff right here in this particular case I'm going to end up double-sided taping it to the back of the monitor but you can come up with a pretty elaborate design on your own but for me just a utility of having this little extra monitor from something that was garbage is awesome so what I can also do is simply take something like this little phone mount put the monitor on there so I can go ahead and start to use it right away let's take a look at 1600 by 900 recommended but 1920 by 1080 is supported I'll go ahead and keep these changes and there we go 1920x1080 display monitor ready to be used at any point in time so hopefully that was helpful all it took was a little bit of time to pull out the old monitor from my laptop pick something like this up on Amazon hook up a couple wires and it works right away if you're interested in seeing me take this a little step farther and trying to find a nice way to kind of Mount this and mount this to a board so that I have a pretty stable device let me know down in the comments but for now I just wanted to show you that that's something that's possible and I always love taking something that's old and broken and refurbishing it in such a way that it becomes useful again and if you're going to do this please share your results with me I'd love to see it and if you found this helpful at least click like on the video I'd really appreciate that and if you're so inclined feel free to subscribe I'd love to see you back but for now this is Carl from techful goodies and I'm out foreign thank you foreigndid you know that you can take an old broken-down laptop and make an external monitor from it well it's true this is an old laptop that my kids used to use and from years of abuse and neglect and a lot of water spilled on it it became completely unfunctional so I got to thinking I know the screen is still good what can I do with it so I found out that you can take the screen out of an old laptop like this and make it into a portable external monitor on the cheap so let's do it hey guys this is Carl from techful goodies and this is the monitor that I took out of that old laptop it wasn't that difficult to do all I had to do was pull off the external plastic bezel and then there was just a couple of screws holding it in as well as a small connector on the back here so after a little bit of research I actually found that once you get the monitor out and you know it's working all you actually have to do in order to use this as an external monitor or an external portable monitor is to take a look on the back of each one of the monitor devices and you can see that there is a ltn number in this particular case ltn140 kt07 and you actually have to take that number go into something like Amazon I'll show it up here on the screen type that number in and what you'll end up finding is a converter board that allows you to plug into the back of this Salvage display board and it basically turns it into an HDMI device so that's what I've got here so as you can see I've got the small device here as as well as a 12 volt to 4 amp adapter and this just basically provides power to the screen and to the controller board so let's take a little closer look at this board it basically comes all connected like this as you see here you have your cable that goes directly to the monitor itself on the back you'll have to plug this in and then you have a controller board this has all your different controllers like your on off your LED indicator your select button your right left menu and auto now I don't know if every one of these buttons is going to work for this board or how it will work but this board is specifically made for this panel so everything on here should work pretty good on the back of this board it has all the different display ports that you can use with this panel you have HDMI in DVI in VGA in a PC audio in and out Port so let's go ahead and hook it all up and see how it works the first thing you want to do is hook this up to the back of the monitor itself as you can see there is a little connector here it's very small and kind of difficult to get to once you get the hang of it it's not that difficult to plug it in now I don't know if it's very hard to see but I'll try to show it a little closer basically you just slide the little connector right under the small piece of metal make sure that the contact points are pointed down towards the board and make sure you have a nice firm connection when you're ready to make this permanent you can put some tape on here to make sure that it stays in place so now the last two things we have to do is hook up the power and the HDMI signal so from my DC adapter I'm going to go ahead and plug it straight in to the power port here and as you can see right away we've got a no signal on the device on the Panel LED showing that the power is on and the on and off should be able to work yep that's working green is showing that it's starting up no signal and then red when it detects no signal so let's go ahead and plug a signal in so I'm going to plug the HDMI in from my computer so my computer has recognized the external device and there we go I have signal so now I've basically taken an old laptop screen hooked it up to a couple of pretty inexpensive devices and I have a fully portable external monitor now I can use this for whatever I want let's take a look at the menu so as you can see it has a pretty standard menu just like any other display I can change the brightness gamma contrast all the different options you would expect from an external monitor now at this point in time it's my choice or your choice if you decide to do this how you want to manage all this stuff right here in this particular case I'm going to end up double-sided taping it to the back of the monitor but you can come up with a pretty elaborate design on your own but for me just a utility of having this little extra monitor from something that was garbage is awesome so what I can also do is simply take something like this little phone mount put the monitor on there so I can go ahead and start to use it right away let's take a look at 1600 by 900 recommended but 1920 by 1080 is supported I'll go ahead and keep these changes and there we go 1920x1080 display monitor ready to be used at any point in time so hopefully that was helpful all it took was a little bit of time to pull out the old monitor from my laptop pick something like this up on Amazon hook up a couple wires and it works right away if you're interested in seeing me take this a little step farther and trying to find a nice way to kind of Mount this and mount this to a board so that I have a pretty stable device let me know down in the comments but for now I just wanted to show you that that's something that's possible and I always love taking something that's old and broken and refurbishing it in such a way that it becomes useful again and if you're going to do this please share your results with me I'd love to see it and if you found this helpful at least click like on the video I'd really appreciate that and if you're so inclined feel free to subscribe I'd love to see you back but for now this is Carl from techful goodies and I'm out foreign thank you foreign