Here's a quick answer for those who wants to use a laptop LCD for
display for their CarPC. I hope this will be helpful. And there's no more
excuse for crying "oh oh oh its not in the faq section."
A basic
LCD monitor you buy over the counter is already prepackaged with
everything you need to hook up to a common video input jacks such as VGA,
RCA, S-Video. The basic components are LCD screen, controller, and
backlight inverter. The controller has an input and output. The input
connections are either VGA, RCA, or S-Video. The output then connects to
the LCD screen. The backlight inverter takes low voltage power like 12v
and steps it up to a few hundred or thousand volts for the backlight to
light up the LCD. The higher the wattage, the brighter the screen for
daytime viewing. That's another story.
Laptop LCDs come with the LCD
screen and the backlight inverter and the backlight built in. It does not
have a controller. This is the part that most people dont understand why
they cant use a laptop LCD. You need a controller to convert standardized
VGA, RCA, S-video signal to non standardized LCD signal.
LCD screens
dont cost much. You can buy a laptop LCD screen for a few dollars on ebay
though they can get as high as $100-$300. The controller is what's gonna
cost you the most.
Here's a site that carries laptop LCD
controller.
http://www.aurora.se/controllers.htm The
pictures are from
http://www.earthlcd.com/ and from the link below, also a
good post to read about laptop LCDs
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=15602