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Cell Phone Displays are cheap and have high-resolution and touch sense, but use varied specialized inputs via ribbon cable. So, has the DIY community made any controllers to input HDMI? What about the touch sensor?

Recently, I only know of one solution, which is exactly that. It is open source and a great accomplishment, however, it does not support touch, yet still is not cheap, which defeats the purpose. https://hackaday.io/project/364-mipi-dsi-display-shieldhdmi-adapter

The single-board PC market has a selection of cheap, low resolution, touch screens. They input HDMI, and output USB.

This is an update to the old question Is it possible to wire up a cellphone screen to work with a different device?

This question isn't necessarily seeking consumer products as much as home-made devices.

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HTDE
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  • In what sense is the linked solution "not cheap" considering what it has to do? –  May 04 '16 at 20:23
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    You may be right. Compared to what I've seen in the market, displays are cheap, even ones that come with controllers. I can get an e980 touchscreen and all for ~$13 shipped. So a $99 board that only converts the video signal makes it useless to me. That's what I meant. Apparently, you're saying the overhead to do so, MIPI DSI->HDMI, is necessarily expensive. I'm just assuming it's not that bad, and the price had to do with not being manufactured in bulk. – HTDE May 04 '16 at 20:52
  • I'm afraid the only consistency you'll get is the other question being closed. Your post underscores why we don't allow product recommendations - they go out-of-date relatively quickly. – W5VO May 04 '16 at 20:52
  • I think the problem here is that the actual question in the body of your post was not the same question that's in the title, and Dmitry and Nick were reacting to the question in the title, which was off-topic. – Dave Tweed May 04 '16 at 20:52
  • You guys are right. Thank you for taking the time to address it. It's just I don't know where else to go. And SE frequently gets a lot of my searches with good info. that's off-topic. – HTDE May 04 '16 at 20:55
  • Here's the other one I had in mine. It had 10 upvotes. http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/1504/easily-controlled-color-lcd-for-hobby-projects?lq=1 So, I understand the dilemma here. We have a supply-and-demand for information that often times ends up here for lack of other venues. – HTDE May 04 '16 at 20:59
  • Wow, thanks for amending the question! It was worth a shot. Hope this makes everybody happy. – HTDE May 04 '16 at 21:06

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Interfacing to random LCD panels is still in the "Wild West" phase. It may take a lot of hacking and going through solutions that won't work. There are US$20 boards from China that claim to be able to interface to a variety of raw LCD panels. They come with all the "TV receiver" functionality including an off-air TV tuner and HDMI input and even composite and RGB (or component) input. It is pretty much a gamble whether any of them will work for any particular display panel and it's not even a good bet at this point in history (May, 2016). Good luck.

Richard Crowley
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  • It's only a gamble if you hook things up blindly. If you read the specification for the LCD you want to use (or failing that, what it came out of), then you know what kind of signals and timing you need to drive it. – Chris Stratton May 04 '16 at 21:48
  • That is very true. But we are talking specifically about a random display out of an unidentified cell phone here. There is a very low chance that EITHER the display itself, or the interface or driver chip etc in the phone that talked to it are documented anywhere that is accessible to any of us. That is why I made such a doubtful response. – Richard Crowley May 04 '16 at 21:58
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    Thank you both. I have never hooked up an LCD the way the makers do. I know there are datasheets available for some. I was hoping somebody in the wild west had chartered that territory successfully with any known components. – HTDE May 04 '16 at 22:54
  • Here is a video by Ben Heck which directly address your question. Recommended: https://youtu.be/Cl7rshPe-x4 – Richard Crowley May 07 '16 at 06:05