LCD panel and battery pack questions.

[cjp87]

I wasn't really sure where to put this, so I figured that "general" might be applicable. It does have to do with gaming, but I wasn't really sure that the questions herein would be best suited for that section.

I just ordered a Raspberry Pi, and one of my ideas for a build was to build a miniature (and I mean miniature) MAME cabinet. The fine folks working in Raspbian distro compiling have gotten quite a bit of video game/arcade emulation working, and I think a super small and battery-operated single-player cabinet would be a fun and interesting way to dive straight into tinkering with the little computer.

I'll put this up front: I have little to no experience in in-depth hardware builds. I have built several desktop computers, but that doesn't involve anything so complex as trying to ensure a battery can power both the computer and the display, or even how to hook the display up to the computer itself.

And those are probably my two biggest questions: What will I have to do to get a display working with the Pi, and what will I have to do to get a rechargeable battery pack to power the system.

For the display, I was thinking something like a replacement netbook display. Ebay has an Acer 8.9" LCD @ 1024x600 for a reasonable $40, but that's panel only with no controller. I've looked for controllers, but I don't really know what I'm looking for.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-8-9-WSVGA-L ... 0946739296?

For the battery, I'm at a bit of a loss. I've found some cell phone external batteries and the like on Amazon and eBay, and they seem to offer okay capacities, but since the whole purpose of this is for me to learn something about hardware while making something fun, I wouldn't be opposed to trying to make a battery pack with rechargeable cells, so long as that's not cost-prohibitive. It would need to 1) power the Pi + Display for several hours and 2) output power via micro USB.

I feel like I could figure most things out outside of those two pieces. As I said before, I'm pretty inexperienced here, but I'm very willing to learn.

Thanks!

[JeremyF]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/7-TFT-INNOLUX-A ... 3f1a8111e9

Screen panel with DVI-D controller board (thus it also supports HDMI)

[cjp87]

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I'm leaning towards the 8.9" or 10" size of display simply because those seem to be the most accessible with a 1024x600 resolution. I've found some nice kits on eBay that include the controller board (with HDMI), an inverter board, and cables. So I think I can at least source the parts now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HDMI-VGA-2AV-Dr ... 0914019214, for example.

My big concern now is how to a) power the system, and b) get the power to both the Pi and the display. The display needs power through both the LVDS cable and the inverter board if I understand correctly, but I don't know how I would get that from the battery pack to there. I think from looking around I should be able to use a Lithium Polymer battery for RC vehicles or something similar to power the Pi (by attaching a micro USB cable to the power out cables from the battery). But that battery needs to power the Pi and the display, so would I need something to split it?

Sorry for all the wiring newbie questions, but that's definitely what I am.

[markscamilleri]

I would like to know if there are any displays (touchscreen of course) that I can use with the DSI port.