Smaller - it’s actually for a project for a very unusual custom mini PC. It will be running this 14" stretched bar display: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001488852828.html
Nice. I think you might be the first person to use a different screen connected straight to the internal eDP.
First one to use a 30-pin I think. But not first for an alternative screen - someone used an Acer Spin 713 OLED here: Framework Laptop Alternative Screens - #30 by crazyideasinc
Not sure if they ever managed to get the touchscreen detached however.
Edit: Actually missed that they seemed to be mistaken - that spin 713 screen is the exact same screen but with a touch overlay… not OLED.
Sooo… maybe I am also the first third party screen. Although any BOE 40-pin (assuming the same pin layout, and BOE screens seem to reflect the VESA standard) should connect up directly I guess.
Here is my EasyEDA project: Framework Laptop 40-pin to 30-pin eDP monitor adapter - EasyEDA open source hardware lab
You should be able to use that to directly order from JLCPCB by following some basic “how-to” pages on how to get from an EasyEDA design to a JLCPCB order, JLCPCB will do the SMD components for you as well. 5 boards cost $20 delivered to the UK with one of their regular coupons.
You are obviously responsible for your own DIY adventures. If the pins and voltages match up you should be golden, but if you aren’t prepared to eat the cost of a dead board you probably shouldn’t be mucking around with DIY-ing such things.
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Yes, once the chipset drivers are installed I can adjust brightness using the Windows slider - I assume this is what the FW Keyboard would control if you were using that, but I can’t test that.
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@Dylan_Evans I am looking to try to use a 30pin monitor for my FW 13. Rather than a custom board, I have found this on aliexpress:
Would i be right to assume the 40p to 30p item here would do the same thing as your board did?
You can only answer that question by comparing data sheets between the screen you are using and the FW output.
But the likely hood of that adapter having the correct pinout for any display is exceptionally unlikely.
Here is a picture of the routing I used on my adapter:
As you can see, it is very far from just routing all of the connections off to one side.
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Hey Dylan, thank you for the reply. You are right - I hadn’t checked 2 lane 40 pin vs 4 lane 40pin as u/runoono mentioned. I’ve now checked the pinout of the board you designed - the pinout is the same as the one i want to get. I will likely try to get your board printed and use that as a test.
In the longer run will have to figure out if i can design and print one similar to the item i shared with you as i think a pcb is too thick to put behind the screen
Great, I hope it works for you - in regards to it being too thick - is there anywhere else you can store the ‘adapter’ and/or have you looked at the 0.6mm PCBs from the likes of JLCPCB? They also do ‘flexible PCBs’ which are very thin.
One alternative is to purchase a 30 pin edp cable (non fpc type) and splice it together with the FW 40-pin. Very fiddly though.
Hmm, i’m out of my depth here with designing my own pcb. Any suggestion on how i start with this or the best guide to start with?
So this kinda thing isn’t really PCB design in the classic sense (that is also out of my depth).
All this is really is linking up wires… think of it like splicing two cables together but doing so on a PCB.
Learning to do that is something you should be able to pick up relatively easily. I think I had designed one similar thing before making this adapter. As i note above, when you are screwing with this stuff you have to accept the possibility you will screw something up and end up with a dead mainboard - I got this adapter wrong like 3 times through being a bit dumb and every time I could have linked the wrong pins and burned something out. I don’t want to discourage you, just be clear that you should only tinker with this kinda stuff if you are prepared for the worst.
All that said, you can just get the PCB I have designed above manufactured by JLCPCB on a 0.6mm board (obviously it still have the height of the components) - but it is quite expensive.
If I was trying to fit a cable into an existing laptop chassis I would be tempted to splice together two cables so there was no PCB adapter to worry about. Would need careful soldering and double and triple checking what you are connecting up, but would do away with the potentially cumbersome PCB.
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Thanks - the 0.6 mm pcb is an option i’ll consider. I am also looking at getting a small volume of 4-lane 40-pin to 2-lane 30-pin edp adapter made if its not too expensive. I’ve dug in more and basically at this point I have bought an external edp driver to test out future screens so as not to brick my laptop. I am however increasingly confident that other than OLEDs, a lot of screens basically do follow the standard pinouts(will definitely have to verify one by one though prior to using such screen).
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Yea you are basically correct about that afaik. I think the standard is set by VESA. I’m unsure why OLED manufacturers chose to abandon the standard.
There isn’t really a standard for edp pinouts set by anyone, just a set de-facto standards. Vesa specifies how some parts work electrically, the rest is between the display manufacturer and the laptop manufacturers.
For oleds while inconvenient for us it does make some sense to change the pin-out. Since the actual oled panels are very thin compared to lcds it does make sense to offload some of the electronics to the main-board to be able to actually make use of that thinness (otherwise you’d have a thin panel with some not as thin electronics taped to it). Some oleds still have the electronics onboard and use the “standard” pin-outs, others expect you to do some or all the voltage conversion work on the mainboard and have a quite a lot weirder pin-out.
For our application since we are replacing a tick lcd we can just put the conversion electronics between the laptop and the display and either stick it behind the panel or somewhere else but for some panels it’ll need to be done if you don’t want magic smoke to escape somewhere.
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Do you think that this would work without modification to convert from the framework motherboard port to the cable on this screen model ?
I get that the site doesnt have pin-out so its not conclusive to say but am I at least understanding correctly that you solved a similar situation (with possibly different type 30pin 2lane eDP screen)
Hard to say.
Yes my above solution is similar in that it adapts the Frame work 40pin to a 30pin screen. But without knowing the pinout of the linked screen it’s impossible to be sure.
I can say the 30pin screen I used is fairly ‘standard’, but there are plenty of screens that stray from this standard.
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Hmm well might as well try and see not that there seems to be much other options
When I try to place an order through the editor at the project page it seems like the I-PEX 20455-040E-76 is out of stock? Is this Lian Xin Technology 20455-040E-66 equivalent component? It seems to look right in the placement window just swapping it through the part search screen but I havent ordered pcbs before so Im unsure does it need to be changed for the project files too?
Hi,
Yea it’s originally an IPEX connector, but equivalents are made by loads of other companies. The part I used - the Lian Xin is a compatible part.
It only needs to be changed at the pick and place stage, as the footprint is compatible.
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I should also note:
I screwed up the pcb a couple of times and connected the wrong pins and nothing bad happened.
But I have read other posts from people who have said they friend mainboards by connecting the wrong screen (it was an oled iirc, but still).
I think if you are going with the plug it in and hope approach you do have to be prepared for the worst.