Just wondering if anybody knows if there's a way to use the older 7" screen from the Udoo Dual/Quad board on the new x86 board? I'm wanting to use the x86 to build a telepresence robot and was hoping I could reuse the screen from my Udoo Quad for it.
The UDOO Quad 7 inch screen you are referring to is an LVDS (Low Voltage Differential Signal) LCD. UDOO X86 does NOT have a LVDS interface anywhere on the board. Data sheet for LCD http://udoo.org/download/files/datasheets/datasheet7.pdf Data sheet for UDOO X86 http://download.udoo.org/files/UDOO_X86/Doc/UDOO_X86_MANUAL_Rel.1.0.pdf The only way I can imagine this working is you must buy an HDMI to LVDS controller that specifically supports that LCD. By the time you figure that out and buy what you need let alone get it to work, you could have bought 2 standard HDMI enabled 7 inch screens. In fact, here is the same resolution HDMI screen with capacitive touch for under $50 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IH8ANCQ Seriously, don't bother with the older LVDS screen. Just get a modern HDMI enabled screen, there are tons out there and cheaper than your time and effort is worth trying to reuse what is really the wrong and incompatible screen for this board. Not to mention- get touch while at it.
In fact, slightly higher resolution 1024x600 is not much more expensive https://www.amazon.com/Eleduino-Raspberry-1024x600-Capacitive-Touchscreen/dp/B06W5GJV3Y
Most of these HDMI enabled screens actually host a LCD panels with a parallel or LVDS interface. The panel contains a converter IC which converts from HDMI to parallel/LVDS, the main problem with the cheaper displays is the limited (and low) resolutions supported by the converter IC which sometimes effects the quality of the output. You need a HDMI-LVDS convert board like this and would need to create a custom cable that maps the LVDS output to the 7" display.
It's not that I don't agree with you and absolutely everything you said is true, but neither of those is non-trivial. Making the cable correctly as it also has touch in it specific to that implementation and must be broken out as it should not connect to the board you linked. Then, even if you got the cable right, this is now an external board and all associated power and signal wiring, and finally, it still has to be programmed specific to that LCD. So the price of this of ~$10 is misleading. It's not "everything" you need for operation. With the LCDs I linked, they have both the HDMI and USB cable, it's powered via the USB cable, and would be more or less plug and play. Literally, you could take the ~$47 or higher res ~$65 LCD out of the box, plug it in, and at worst in Windows 10 have it detect and load the USB driver for the touch function. Again, for all the work to make the original screen work, it's still only an 800x480 screen. It was meant and designed to connect specifically to the UDOO Quad. Yes, given enough time, enough staring at schematics, enough testing and reverse engineering, you can create the right cable set, program a converter board and use it. But, even then, it's an external board. It's not some tiny connector adapter. That board also requires power since it becomes the power source of the LCD. You would have to break out the touch lines, maybe even level shift them to work with the UDOO X86 or use the Intel Curie and program it as the HID device. I'm not saying it cannot be done, but it's far, far, far from a simple plug-n-play solution.
Again, what I'm getting at is 2 wrongs don't make it a right. The UDOO screen is custom made to interface the older series boards directly that supported LVDS. For $125, it's not exactly a good deal given today's pricing on 7 inch 800x480 screens. In my mind, the cost and the resolution are the 2 wrongs compared to current "what you can buy today easily" products by comparison. So yes, on one hand, could absolutely understand a user wanting to recover the money spent on a $125 screen by using an adapter. But, let's also understand why the screen was made that way and why it was bought in the first place. It's a directly connected type screen with no board interface in the middle. It was made specifically to directly attach. If you are building a custom project and space is tight and you wanted to do no adapting and programming, buying the UDOO specific screen that mated to your board, included the custom cables, and required nothing extra saves you space, wiring and headache in your custom project. That's why it was so expensive- the customization to make it plug-n-play with the UDOO Quad. Given that you likely still have the UDOO Quad and specifically bought that screen as a pair- keep them together as a pair or sell the screen to another UDOO Quad user to recoup the cost. When you go to adapt that same screen to work with the UDOO X86, you shoot yourself in the foot on the original aspects. It now requires an external board, custom wiring, and other components. You are spending money to make an incompatible screen partially compatible. Getting the screen to display is just half the battle, getting the touch to also work is your next battle.
Not sure what the rant is about? I made 2 points: 1. Most cheap screen panel natively hosts LVDS or a Parallel interface and require conversion for the HDMI support. 2. An option for the OP if they want to use their existing display. Having made numerous contributions to the UDOO forums I would argue that under taking the challenge of interfacing a display is great way improving one technical understanding of display technology. Also bear in mind the 1024x600 is a non standard its not a valid CEA or DMT mode.
Not a big deal... I was just hoping I could make use of something I already had laying around (I have both the 7 and the 15" from the older Quad...) I'll probably end up going with something that I can power over the USB3.0 ports... planning out a telepresence robot so a nice lightweight screen that I can mount is needed. I have an older USB 2.0 based display but it's small, horribly slow and a pain to get working on Linux.
