New in the Maker Shed: Hackable Pixel Qi displays

Well, I finally get to let the cat out of the bag. We’ve got Pixel Qi screens available in the Maker Shed as of today. If you’re unfamiliar with Pixel Qi (pronounced “chee”) and their amazing 3Qi transflective display technology, here’s a bit about them from the announcement:

These screens look like standard LCD screens in ordinary room light, but take them outside in the sunlight, and see the difference! The Pixel Qi screens are bright and easy to see, even in direct sunlight. Like standard LCD displays, Pixel Qi displays show quality full-color images, full-motion video, and high screen brightness. Each pixel in the Pixel Qi screen is mainly reflective, but still has about the same efficiency as a standard LCD when backlit, enabling the user to experience a crisp image with excellent contrast and *brightness* in any light. The Pixel Qi screens consume 80% less power in the reflective mode making them a great choice for “green” applications.

Indeed, this is exciting news for anyone interested in modding their netbook or building a DIY tablet computer. Regarding the announcement, Mary Lou Jepsen, Pixel Qi’s Founder and CEO said “We hope that by working with MAKE and the DIY community, we collectively will spur innovation in ways we can’t ourselves imagine yet.”

About carrying the Pixel Qi screen in the Maker Shed, Dan Woods (GM of MAKE Ecommerce) said “We’re seeing a lot of interest in making and modding tablets, netbooks, and e-readers within the maker community, and we’re always looking for new ways to help inspire and support DIY enthusiasts to take on new challenges. Getting a brand new technology like Pixel Qi’s screen into the hands of developers and makers who will do something unusual, compelling, and unexpected which is really exciting to us. MAKE is not only uniquely positioned to inspire widespread experimentation within the global maker community, from educators to artists, software developers to hardware hackers, but also to organize conversations around resulting projects.”

I shot a quick installation video of a Pixel Qi display going into one of my netbooks. It’s an Acer Aspire One, which is physically compatible with the screen, but isn’t an officially recommended netbook.

Changing the screen is easy, the process takes about 5-10 minutes using a small screwdriver. 2-4 screws have to be removed to allow unsnapping of the front plastic bezel. Once that step is done, removal of another few screws allows the screen to be unlatched and its cable disconnected. Next, the Pixel Qi screen is plugged in, screwed in, and the bezel snapped back in place. That’s it.

Head on over to the Maker Shed for more information or to order yours today.

Subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube.

20 Responses to New in the Maker Shed: Hackable Pixel Qi displays

mzungu54 on July 1st, 2010 at 2:43 am said:

Cool, I want one, but….

How do you change the display mode to ePaper?

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- g-clef on July 1st, 2010 at 7:02 am said:
  
  I’d love to have that info as well…plus any info on how it interfaces to generic devices. I think it would be neat to use this with something like a gumstick or beagleboard to get a cool portable DIY system…but I’d like to know whether/how it interacts with regular video interfaces first.
  
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- Jesse on July 1st, 2010 at 7:16 am said:
  
  @mzungu54, you just turn off the backlight. It couldn’t be simpler.
  
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- Adam Flaherty on July 1st, 2010 at 9:44 am said:
  
  @Jesse is right. How this is accomplished depends on the system you connect it to. For my Acer Aspire One, Fn-F6 will turn off the backlight. Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that a number of netbooks at the local big box store have appeared with a similar key combination.
  
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  mookiemu on July 2nd, 2010 at 11:48 pm said:
  
  Does the keyboard backlight shortcut work with linux?
  Is there a way to make a dedicated switch to turn off the backlight?
  
  I noticed the the DYIer in the video doesn’t reconnect the camera. Is that an oversight or is it on purpose?
  
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  mzungu54 on July 3rd, 2010 at 2:56 am said:
  
  “Fn+F6″ does work and it does switch off the back-light, but if you press any keys again, the back-light will go back on again.
  
  Using the touch-pad and mouse to scroll through a document is fine, but apparently no typing in reflective/ePaper mode.
  
  I wonder if there is a Window setting that fixes this…?
  
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RocketGuy on July 1st, 2010 at 9:46 am said:

Attempts to go to the maker shed page result in:

An error has occurred. Please try your request again, or contact customer service for assistance. Thank you.
Please provide Reference #17314716 if contacting customer service.

Let us know when it’s fixed, looking forward to investigating the screen further.

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- RocketGuy on July 1st, 2010 at 12:26 pm said:
  
  But now they’re sold out.
  
  Man, that was quick!
  
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  Gareth Branwyn on July 1st, 2010 at 4:00 pm said:
  
  We knew they’d be hot, but yeah… (the first order was placed within a half-hour of the piece going live last night).
  
  The Shed will have more in-stock by mid next week and are taking orders. Thanks for your patience.
  
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tonyv on July 1st, 2010 at 5:39 pm said:

Where is the interface documentation?

I would have ordered one if there was any technical info about it at all, but I could find nothing useful on either the pixelqi site or this one.

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mzungu54 on July 1st, 2010 at 8:54 pm said:

Now is time for me to look for a cheap netbook with a broken screen on eBay.

But for this screen to be a true maker’s tool, you really need some documentation. Is there one?

Pixel Qi seems to offer a developmet kit on request….

What I like to know is what the power consumption of this display is in various modes: LCD,ePaper, ePaper+high refresh rates(video)?

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- Adam Flaherty on July 2nd, 2010 at 7:14 pm said:
  
  Here’s a link to the documentation…
  http://cdn.makezine.com/make/pdf/pixel_qi_nantasket_spec_pub1_0.pdf
  
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  mzungu54 on July 3rd, 2010 at 2:08 am said:
  
  Wow, fairly detailed. Have to be more careful what I ask next time.
  
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lowteg on July 3rd, 2010 at 5:48 pm said:

As mzungu54 has said, my biggest concern is that there seems to be no definite way to keep the backlight off when taking advantage of the 64-bit grayscale mode. This is unfortunate, as the epaper-like option of the Qi display is for me its most appealing feature. Any insights or remedies from the DIY community?

Also, the PixelQi website advertised their screen as having 3 modes- standard transmissive (regular backlight), transflective (some backlight), and grayscale (no backlight). The descriptions for the screens released in the DIY kits mention that there are 2 modes, not 3. Are they referring to the transmissive and transflective modes only? How does one switch between modes; or does the fact that the pixels are reflective imply that one switches between “modes” not in a polar fashion but on a sliding scale depending on the level of backlight that they chose?

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- lowteg on July 6th, 2010 at 10:10 am said:
  
  Figured it out.
  
  ** The reason that only 2 models (lenovo s10-2 and samsung) are listed as “compatible”, despite most all netbooks having the same 40-pin LCD connector, is in regards to the backlight settings. ** On most netbooks, hitting Fn+F6 or whatever the backlight key is will turn the backlight off, BUT, hitting anything (mousepad, keyboard, etc) afterwards will cause it to turn right back on. This completely negates the epaper-like, backlight-free capabilities of the Pixel Qi screen. In the case of the two models listed (and likely their own sister models), the backlight will stay off no matter what, until the system is actually shut down and rebooted. This is not a Windows issue, but a manufacturer-specific hardware issue.
  
  So while you will be able to connect the Qi screen to most any netbook, only a chosen few will allow you to keep the backlight off for ALL of your activities in order to actually utilize the epaper setting of the screen. This may change as DIY’ers figure out advanced windows or linux tweaking, but for now I’m picking up a used S10-2 to avoid the headache.
  
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mzungu54 on July 6th, 2010 at 12:52 am said:

Anyone know if is possible to safely install an physical switch to turn the back light on or off on a laptop?

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mookiemu on July 6th, 2010 at 1:52 pm said:

I would like to find out if this is possible (using a physical switch to turn off the backlight), too because my idea is to get a netbook motherboard, put a touchscreen overlay on it and design my own case for it in Maya, have it printed in 3d and then turn it into a tablet. So you see a physical switch is important.

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Robgoren on July 7th, 2010 at 12:31 pm said:

I have 13.3″ and 14.1″ laptops. I hope Pixel Qi makes its screen available in other, more mainstream sizes through Maker Shed.

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cat55 on July 23rd, 2010 at 6:03 am said:

I have finished installation of pixel qi screen to my Samsung N150 netbook. Installation was simple and the screen fits perfectly to the netbook. Backlight could be turned off until reboot by pressing Fn F5.

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imno007 on August 7th, 2010 at 6:32 pm said:

I’d love to have one of these for my Nook! Don’t know how feasible it would be, since I’ve no idea how difficult it would be to change out the screens, but it’s a nice dream.

I just looked for the two recommended netbooks on Newegg and found both to be completely sold out. Coincidence, or a mad rush to do some Pixel Qi modding?

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