Inspiron 1520 webcam upgrade?

Hi all,

I got an Inspiron 1520 used at a great price for a family member, but it needs a little minor work, so I'm taking care of that before passing it on.

While I'm doing that (mainly a palmrest/trackpad replacement, and I'm upgrading its wireless, maybe even the CPU for grins), I'm wondering something. This model does not have the built-in webcam. Is it possible to upgrade it by finding a bezel/webcam/mic assembly on Ebay, and just hooking it up, or are there other parts that I'd need?

I don't want to put too much into it, but if I can do it reasonably, I will. Doing the work isn't an issue; I do plenty of laptop repair. I figured someone here might have done it, or at least been inside their 1520's display housing.

Thanks for any info you can provide.

 

You can definitely install a webcam on a 1520 that doesn't have one, though I don't know exactly what parts you'll need. Definitely the webcam/mic assembly itself and a new display bezel, but like you may or may not need the cable down to the motherboard, etc.

Should all be fairly inexpensive, though. I'm pretty sure Dell's been using the same camera/mic assembly in a ton of laptops over the years.

 

Here's a reference image for what the wiring on the back (inside) on the display assembly on a 1520 with a Webcam looks like. I'm pretty sure that the webcam is what you can see not far to the right of the tab in the middle to which you hook in the cable on the back of the LCD (that tab being orange on the top). The picture blows up to 2189x1460. It's the best one I have for the webcam - I wasn't much concerned with the webcam when I disassembled my display, so I didn't focus much on it. But perhaps it will still help as a reference for how Dell does their wiring with webcams.

 

The "lid" has a few parts - the back (colored part), LCD, and the bezel (front part).

There was someone who modified a non-webcam bezel on a Insprion 1520 or Vostro 1500 (same thing) to fit a webcam. I would search for that.

 

This will be a big help, thanks!

I'm replacing the hinges anyway, since there's a bit of play on them. This will give me a chance to go in and compare the wiring. It does appear that the standard bezel has a mic (maybe even a stereo one) at least, so perhaps I don't have to do any wiring. I have seen the webcam module and the bezel listed on Ebay, but no cables so far.

 

UPDATE: This would have been sooner, but one of my vendors was remiss insending me the display bezel until gently reminded.

The Inspiron 1520 is upgradeable to webcam. It only requires two parts --the webcam board itself, and a new display bezel. You could theoretically drill two holes in your existing bezel (one tiny one for the blue LED on the camera board, and a larger one for the camera lens) but you're better off getting a new bezel, which will have a clear plastic "lens" to protect the camera.

Inspiron 1520 laptops that do not have the camera when bought still have a microphone board where the camera board would go. It is the same size, and more importantly, the cable that goes into it will go into the webcam/mic board and work just fine (apparently there are some unused signalling lines when connected to the mic board that get put into use when the webcam/mic board is connected).

It is best to remove the LCD screen from the plastic housing to connect the cable to the new webcam/mic board, but if you're used to opening systems up, it's not too bad. In my case, I also needed to remove the display housing from the laptop, since I was replacing the hinges.

The laptop now has the following upgrades:

Intel 4965AGN wireless card
Pioneer DVD+/-RW drive (up from a combo drive)
Intel C2D T8100 Penryn CPU (up from a Merom T5250)
New hinges, and new palmrest/trackpad assembly (old one had broken trackpad) and new rubber bumpers on the display bezel
Webcam

I'm very happy with it --now it goes to my parents.