I finally got my broken-hinges-and-displayless TiBook back together with newly acquired LCD. Here's what I've got so far . . .
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/macdan/tibook.html
Cables were easily long enough to wrap the LCD to the back (bottom) of the 'Book. It's just taped together for now, but as a proof-of-concept I'm very satisfied.
The entire package takes up the same volume as any closed TiBook, and it's a very compact and 'clean' shape with which to work. It could be hung, stood, cased, or with whatever one's imagination creates. All in all, a very good starting point for a very 'special' Mac.
Dan K
brilliant, excellent work on the mock up. it would be great in acrylic and even better in aluminum.
another option would be to mount one of those adjustable legs from a cinema display.
if my Ti ever breaks a hinge it will get this treatment. :coolmac:
I was thinking the same thing. Aluminum would be awesome for the stand. You could use the cardboard design as a simple template.
shane
i got a funky idea, make the screen detachable, and fold it over the keyboard (facing out) add a touchscreen kit, and instant apple tablet! cool thing is that you can just then put it into your stand and its now a desktop. im also wondering why you have the keyboard side facing out? (besides power button which could be relocated or just lift the screen to turn it on.)
you could put the keyboard back in so its still useable as a laptop (if you can find a way to fix the hinge)
Excellent design. I wanted to do something similar with a battery-less 520 book, but one part of the design process I'd never figured out (aside from not having an AC adapter for it):
I'm really picky about monitor position and would want to tilt the monitor.
Your design looks perfect for adding this capability. If you made your final stand in two pieces - keeping the back half-circle as a separate piece and attached it to the main piece with something like These, you'd have a good range of tilt control.
I really look forward to seeing the finished product - tilting or otherwise
looks good ... if you made the base out of aluminium and moved the power button to the front it would rock
because thats the easiest way to do the monitor cables ... having the screen on the keyboard side would require a longer cable as the cable would have to twist ...
TOM
davefriesen wrote:
>it would be great in acrylic and even better in aluminum.
Since something such as this can be made of any thin rigid flatstock there many choices for material. I've decided I'm not too keen on the G5-look style trend at Apple, too appliance-like for my head. Hard to fall in love with something that looks so 'cold', unlike the previous G3/G4 shape which I always thought was pretty darn 'sexy'. Macs _should_ be 'sexy' IMHO. Maybe I could make this from pottery clay . . .
simon_C wrote:
>got a funky idea, make the screen detachable
I'm not sure how you'd go about detaching the screen, though I'm guessing you just mean leaving the screen free to move. Because of the way the delicate cables thread through the original hinges, once the hinges break it's really tough to make the screen usably movable without just actually fixing the hinges. Now that's very doable, but that makes the whole thing back into a usable PB.
I did think about ways to replace the hinges with a design which would enable the screen to fold both ways (to the front _and_ the back) but it would require a double-jointed configuration, rather beyond my current interest level in this project.
eeun wrote:
>I'm really picky about monitor position and would want to tilt the monitor.
>Your design looks perfect for adding this capability
I pondered long and hard over tilting, and I figger the simplest, most elegant solution would be to set the default tilt at the desired maximum rearward rake, then use a foot at the back to raise the hoop to a desired height, tilting the entire assembly forward.
One possible solution would be to have the foot a simple rectangle with edge slots to engage the hoop, the rectangle's different length sides corresponding to a pair of tilt angles. Or instead of a rectangle, how about a pair of disks sandwiching a smaller internal spiral, turn the disk assembly and it raises/lowers the rear hoop. Hmm, I just might have something there . . .
I was concerned pivots at each side might be problematic, if loosened the whole assembly might flop out of control. Of course there are many ways to prevent that from happening, but I'm trying to pare the complete design down to an elegant minimum, easily produced with a minimum of parts, costs and complications.
BTW, it would be easy enough to add a complete face to my basic stand, just continue/enlarge the piece across the lower front edge to form a frame around the LCD. The frame could be styled any way desired, from minimal to elaborate, from serious to whimsical.
I'm not sure about the dimensions but maybe finding a broken Apple LCD and somehow inserting the Titanium into the frame? Just thinking out loud.
I added a couple of pics:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/macdan/tibook.html#facia
with a face, and a variation on the stand itself that allows for a simple angle adjustment. There's so many possible permutations on this basic design I have to stop myself lest I spend forever trying out different ideas.
Dan K
how about integrating the the PSU into the base somehow :?
TOM
how about puting the whole lot in a 15" studio display case it would look like one of those imac fp mock ups.
this post was brought to you by a combination of Guinness and caffeine
the 15" studio display LCD is a differnet shape the one in the tibook ... its a standard dimension 15" monitor ... the tibook is a 15" widescreen
TOM
damn you apple
would have been cool though
mabey if you could scrapthe ti book lcd switch it for a standerd size one then do it now that would be impressive
this post was brought to you by a combination of Guinness and caffeine
and pointless ... and expensive
...
TOM
First of all I have to say you have excellent taste, with the greatest keyboard/mouse combo. I love the ikey and the hockey puck.
It's great that your design could go straight from something tweedy to something mod just by switching the stand.
So if you don't want something aluminum/acrylic what are you going to use, wood? A lazy person's shortcut might be to use a music stand. There are all sorts of those: wood, metal, plastic, tabletop and floor-standing. Since you are using an external keyboard, you might also use a floor-standing music stand with a gooseneck and reclaim your desk space, plus have an "iMac G4" effect.