It was time to start today. The first task was to remove the head from the machine. Since the computer had already been removed this was going to be eazy right?? Think again. DAMN that thing is heavy and akward. More awkward really. I got it on my workbench and proceeded to remove all of the wires. That was a pretty simple job. I took the bulb out of the mount so it wouldn't break if I dropped the monitor (the buld would have been the least of my worries.) There are four main bolts holding the monitor in. I removed the top two and then the bottom left one. If you set the head upright you can remove the last screw and the monitor doesn't move. I then carefully lifted the monitor out and set it on the floor.

Pictures:







Next I took measurements of the opening in the head and measured the actual viewing space on the monitor.

Dimensions:



Just as I thought a 19" lcd won't cut it since they really only have an 18" viewable area. I'm going to look for a 21" 4:3 monitor. They are fairly cheap and the extra .5" would let me compensate for possible projected viewing angle (since the original monitor is curved.)

Next update will come when I find a good monitor candidate.

Today I looked online for a lcd that would fit. Almost everyone has stopped making 4:3 monitors :p I found a couple new and they were nearly 400 bucks. Since I've spent too much money on pinball lately I decided to check my inventory. I gave my son an old monitor that was on my wife's pc before she got her new widescreen. It was a 20.1" samsung. PERFECT! The monitor actually fits nicely in swe1 head where the crt used to be. I decided the best way to mount it would be to build a custom wooden frame that would mount on the front side of the pb2k head. It won't be obstrusive and I can remove it later if I want to throw a crt back in. Next step is to buy the wood at menards and make the frame.

Chuck wrote:Today I looked online for a lcd that would fit. Almost everyone has stopped making 4:3 monitors :p I found a couple new and they were nearly 400 bucks. Since I've blown way too much money on this project already I decided to check my inventory. I gave my son an old monitor that was on my wife's pc before she got her new widescreen. It was a 20.1" samsung. PERFECT! The monitor actually fits nicely in swe1 head where the crt used to be. I decided the best way to mount it would be to build a custom wooden frame that would mount on the front side of the pb2k head. It won't be obstrusive and I can remove it later if I want to throw a crt back in. Next step is to buy the wood at menards and make the frame.

Yes, I believe I had mentioned some time ago nobody seems to make 4:3 of anything anymore.. It's truly annoying! May put a big damper on people trying to upgrade to lcd on their pb2k machines, unless you can get a widescreen that fits and can be shrunk to fit.

http://www.happcontrols.com/monitors/49260310.htm

I am sure with some negotiation we could get the LCD's for less than the $300 listed on the site if we did a group buy.

I thought I posted an update but haven't. I tried all sorts of tricks to mount the monitor without heavily modifying the original head and didn't like any of them. I'm going to take a look for some retail plasma/lcd mounts at best buy and circuit city this weekend.

Wish me luck or please suggest any ideas you might have.

What is the part number of the 20" Samsung that you gathered up from your son? I think that I found one for $271.

Thanks,

Hank

I'll try to remember to post it later.

Wouldn't it be fairly easy to screw a few small wood strips down to "frame in" the LCD and then screw a couple of clips to those to hold it in place?

Hank,

Syncmaster 912n

Kenbo,

Thats what I originally thought It's not quite that easy though. Unfortunately I don't have a house full of wood working equipment or it would be easier. But I think I have an idea how to do it now. We'll see if it's better than my original idea.

Chuck, sounds like you've got a handle on it. If you decide differently any good hardware store (ACE is my personal favorite around here) will have a good selection of small strips of wood in various dimensions. These are usually three feet long. I'm pretty sure you could find something there that would work by simply cutting to length. Well, you'd need to predrill the screw holes and maybe countersink them for a "professional" look but countersink bits are cheap.

SUCCESS!

I bought a lcd tv mount from circuit city for 100 bucks and it worked great. Had to add a few pieces of wood here and there. The good news is I didn't have to modify the original head at all. So if I want to remove all of this later there will only be a few screw holes that will be easily covered.

I'm going to play with it for a bit and once I get it tweaked I'll shoot some video.

[original post deleted]

I posted what I thought of the lcd here. Something was bugging me though. I went back to the machine and the gi-plug came loose and I had no GI! With the GI back on things looked pretty good (for anyone who read my previous post)

I'm just going to shoot a video and let people see it.

Also, I'm thinking that a widescreen might actually look better than I intially thought. I'll explain why after I try one. The mount I used should work for any monitor and it should be relatively easy (couple of hours) to swap a new one in.

More to come...

So I went out and measured 22" widescreen monitors today. I think that will be the sweet spot for this application. I ordered one from dell's clearance center tonight and should have it in a few days.

Another update when it's mounted.

Is the LCD mounted being on the outside of the cabinet and held in place with the mount? Any way of mounting it inside the cabinet? I was expecting the whole display to be mounted inside the cabinet where gravity could do most of the work holding it in place (not that you'd leave it that way of course, but it makes it easy to fiddle with).

I wonder what one of these would look like if the LCD case was removed? It might look good if the LCD panel itself was mounted flush with the cabinet frame but there's probably no way to do that without sawing away at the cabinet itself. It might be interesting to build a new head with an LCD display in mind. I wonder if there would be a market for that sort of thing?

I think building a custom head would definately be the way to go. Mounting the lcd on the inside would have cut off some of the picture. I also didnt want to take the lcd out of the case because they are very fragile and I didn't want to screw it up.

Interesting aside, Wells Gardner has 19" digital monitors that run around 150 bucks new. I'm sure a brand new digital monitor would look great too. May buy one for my rfm sometime in the future.