CF-18 touchscreen to digitizer?

Hello all. Nice little toughbook niche you have carved out in the internet.
Anyways, I still use a modified CF-25 toughbook for work (I hacked out the top PCMCIA slot and connected in a naked Lucent WaveLAN card and then connected it to the old onboard antenna as well as crammed a 233mhz MMX processor in it) and recently I got hold of two much nicer CF-18's

...the main thing was that they were both totally dismantled but after doing an inventory, everything but a bunch of the top and bottom screws were all accounted for.
Both boards work too. One is a 900mhz unit with 256mb of onboard DDR, the other is a much nicer 1.2ghz unit with 512mb of onboard DDR2.
One of the LCD's are the penless touchscreen, the other is the Wacom digitizer and yes, I do have the pen.

Can't really see what the specs were for both units however. The model sticker is present on one of the two units (and the one that's still there tells me it's "CF-18KHHZXBM"). Another issue is that one of the two panels have a cracked LCD but that is easy enough to swap.
Anyways, my issue is that I want to install the much nicer digitizer in the better spec unit which originally had the touchscreen. The harness and panel swap is a piece of cake (as well as taking out the serial port as the digitizer models didn't have one as they needed it for the Wacom controller) but when it comes to connecting the digitizer, I have a problem.
Both boards have the connection for the touchscreen but only the 900mhz unit has the physical connector for the digitizer. the 1.2 only has the unpopulated solder pads.



Hmm, I would of assumed that because Panasonic made their units so customizable, all the option connectors would be installed. I guess not.
Is the solution to just desolder and transplant the connector over to the other board or am I missing additional SMT components here?
I'm poking the pads and the serial port for anything as they should in theory be directly connected together but I'm not really finding anything (there were at least two or three pads that gave at least a +-1500 ohm reading but I don't know if I can call those sure connections) and I'm not seeing the pads terminate at any SMT pads. They all just kind of vanish into the board.
Is that all there is to it or am I stuck with a touchscreen?

 

For sure most of the smt components for digitizer option on the touchscreen model are missing. Best bet for you is to gather more information. I mean you need an schematic diagram to trace those misssing components or you may trace it up on the other unit with digitizer option. It happened to me one time that one of my unit has a dead mbo. 1.2ghz and luckily its only on the supply line, a few transistor. I harvested all nessary smt component on 900mhz unit and it works perfectly after the operation. As I said you need a guide on doing that an shematic diagram and hot air(reflow) station. But I'm sure there must have been changes on both mbo. designed from DDR to DDR2. Maybe its not posible.

ohlip

 

I'm having a tough time seeing what additional logic would be needed. The chip is serial and it can be assumed that because the digitizer model lacks the serial port, the serial lines are being routed internally. To do that, you don't even need line buffers so it should just be a straight trace.

 

It is a multilayer board thats why it is hard to trace up.


ohlip

 

I have an advert in the buy sell and trade forum for a 1.1ghz Digitizer Motherboard as I have pretty much the same problem as you just the other end of the scale, I bought the wrong motherboard for my touchscreen CF-18, I really need a serial port and a touchscreen would be more use to me than a digitizer. Perhaps we could do some sort of trade? I`d need the top chassis from the 1.2 as they have a beefier heatsink set-up but I could send you the top chassis and motherboard from my 1.1. If your interested let me know

Edit: The motherboard I have has 512mb onboard ddr1 and I`d also throw in an extra 512mb ddr1 stick that works perfectly with it (I`m currently using the CF-18 minus the touchscreen and serial functionality, mobo works perfect)

 

Oh, what luck! Sure.
The whole heatsink assembly comes off the top assembly on mine (and yours should too unless they are vastly different) so I'll swap you the board (and just the bord) and the heatsink assembly for your board (and again, just the board), that stick of ram and heatsink assembly. It would also cut down on shipping to the far side of the planet.
Shoot me a PM as I can't seem to figure out how the private messaging system on this forum works yet.

Also, does your board have the connector for the SD card reader?

 

I cant PM you as you have less than 20 posts, drop me an email on [email protected] and we can sort out a deal

 

Ah, that's why I can't PM.
Okay, I'll discuss the finer details to you on a letter.