Cf-28 touchscreen installation?

I just purchased a cf-28 of ebay...hoping/praying it's not a p.o.s.
The model I purchased is not a touchscreen- so i'm wondering if i buy the touchscreen lcd, will it be as easy as swapping it out? Or would i need to buy additional components?

Thanks in advance

 

or for that matter is it a different motherboard and won't work at all?

 

I believe that somebody determined that you can swap it out with no problems.

 

go to the toughbook configurator, page and chck what options ur model came with if it says toughscreen then ur fine.............

 

thanks for the replies haven't got the the beotch yet. But i have ordered the screen. so we'll see how she goes.. hate waiting for shipping!!! yarg. i'll letcha know. But I'm sure i'll have more dumbass questions once she arrives

 

It will work. I believe that all the motherboards are the same (For the most part)... Yo ucan swap the screens with no problem as long as you load the driver and have it enabled.

 

I know its easy to remove the touch screen membrane. I replaced My touchscreen/Glass/mylar facade with a piece of polycarbonate and it looks terrific. The touchscreen circuit board is mounted on the back of the LCD. I think you have to have a Enable/Disable option in your Bios though. It might appear once you install the new Touchscreeen/LCD combo. Otherwise you will have to Flash the Bios or something.

 

Mythcell... Were you able to keep the touchscreen functionality? How thick was the polycarbonate?

 

Touchscreen functionality was lost. Its easy to go back because i left the circuit board attached. Its just one flexible cable. I was originally trying to remove the mylar protector because mine came(ebay) all scuffed up. When i removed the touchscreen to clean it I realized theres a brand NEW glossy LCD behind there. The touch screen is made of so many layers Mylar/glue/touchscreen 2 layers/glue/Glass/glue/reflective plastic. all those layers make the screen look not so great. Now its like a new glossy type screen with way brighter better colours and clarity!!!!. The whole stackup is about 1/8' so i bought a piece of plastic about that size and cut it to fit. Then i used doulbe sided foam tape to mount it to the bezel. The actual LCD screen has no protection at all. it could be cut with a fingernail so thats why its a good idea to use acrylic or polycarbonate or even thin glass.
I would suggest just taking the screen apart to see how good it looks by itself and try going back to a touchscreen.... just try.

 

Nahhh... I love the touchscreen function too much.

 

I just received the touchscreen and to my dismay it is way to small. Although it was stated to be a 13.3 inch display. Sooooo did they actually make 13.3" touch screens? or just 13.1" and 12.1" ? does anyone have a 13.3 " touchscreen on there toughbook?

 

I thought I did, but being honest I never checked my screen size physically. I just know my last 2 toughbooks had larger displays than my first. As far as Panasonic tells us, they only shipped them with either 12.1" or 13.3" screens.

I suppose I'm lucky in the regard that I've never had a laptop before my toughbook, so I'm not spoiled with a larger screen for it (Even though i've got this nice 21" CRT for my desktop).

 

Yup... 12.1" and 13.3"... I'd go back to the seller!

 

13.1, 13.3? is there a difference? i didn't know there was a 13.1. just 12.1 and 13.3. i thought those were standard LCD sizes. anyway, i've got several 13.3" touch panels so i know they exist

let me ask you guys this, do you really use the touchscreen? personally i think its overrated. might make sense for a custom app (like for fleet dispatching) where there are a number of buttons on the screen that are big enough to push.

my touchscreen is really an exercise in futility because i can't STAND the tap-to-click "feature" of the touchpad, i always turn that off, and then the touchscreen is only good for moving the mouse because you can't tap on that either.

 

I use my touchscreen all the time! So much so that when I try to use my other two laptops... Or even my desktop unit... I try to use the touchscreen... That isn't there... It takes getting used to when I go back to my other laptops. It's especially good when surfing the web... Looking for apps or items.... You name it. I don't use it for drawing or anything but I do use it quite a lot. I guess it's all in what you're used to!

 

i do perfer a touchscreen,
i use a tablet with my main pc to draw....etc....
and also same with the toughbook, but mainly for the gps,
using gps of touchscreen makes it like the same thing........
GRR GRR GREAT!!!!!!!!!

 

Does anybody actually have the Pen that is "supposed" to be used with the touchscreen? It does make it a lot easier to use...
Now that I have mine working in both Win2K & in XP....my Palm Pen works great.. also you don't get all those annoying "fingerprints" all over the screen..lol

 

I don't have the proper pen, and until a couple of weeks ago I never used anything.

I found a nice pen that I rounded off a little, and it works pretty nice. Looks ugly, and I keep it at home, but does the trick.

 

Well.. a Palm Pilot Pen lays nicely by the spacebar when the lid is closed to keep track of it.....

 

Any stylus for touchscreens will work... I'll eventually fab up something to work with the CF-28 and fab up a "holster" for it on the handle or something.

I'm out of town this week with limited Internet availability... I'll be back in my shop next week for sure.

 

I have another query...
Is the Anti-glare part of the touchscreen..or is that a separate piece?? My question is.....Do I have to replace the whole touchscreen? Mine is really wore off in places.....

 

From what I have seen (and someone can correct me if I am wrong) the anti-glare is a coating that comes off. Using your fingers, as many do, will rub it off in places. When I get a CF-28 that has a really worn coating... I just use some Windex and rub the coating all off. That way it looks MUCH better.

 

From what I have seen.. the anti-glare doesn't really help in direct sunlight....at least on mine it doesn't

 

For some reference, I've taken my whole screen apart. The touch screen is just a translucent panel that covers the LCD. if you hold it about 6" or more from the screen, you can't see anything through it. Not sure if that's all the anti-glare coating, or if that's the nature of the touch screen.

 

Modly... The touchscreen covers are like that too. Hold them a few inches away and you can't see a thing. BUT... Put them up next to the screen and they look great. (Some of them anyway!)

 

It wont be as easy as swapping out, youll need 3 additional components. the touchscreen board, the ts12 or ts13 board, and the touchscreen extension cable.

 

would a touchscreen not come with these things?

 

I think he's referring to the components that are contained in the "lid" of a touchscreen 28. From what I can tell, if you've got a touchscreen you get the touch overlay itself (duh..), a little adapter board (that does nothing but change from one connector style to another), a short wiring harness, and the touch controller board. All of which are contained in the lid. Its been my observation that the main harness that connects the lid to the motherboard is the same whether you have touch or not. If you don't have touch, then there's some unused wiring, that's all. (the red wires if you're keeping track One other thing to beware of is the harness is DIFFERENT for a 600 MHz system than for an 800/1000. That is because the 600 has the two connector locations swapped from where they are on the 800 & 1000, and the harness has NO slack to plug them in opposite. (well.. if you unwrap it and separate the two back up into the lid, you might be able to make it stretch)

 

I am not aware of an anti-glare coating which could be rubbed off, provided on any of the ToughBooks from the factory (someone please correct me if this is wrong). They often come with a Protective film sheet which I don't think any amount of wiping would be able to remove.

I do see a few toughbooks that have quite a bit of smoke residue built up on the screen that makes it look like some type of coating. It usually takes quite a bit of windex/soft paper towels + elbow greese to get the screen clean in that case but, we have to do it all the time. We aren't allowed to leave a single streak on the screen in order to pass a QC inspection and be shipped back to a customer.

 

Any they do have a Panasonic stylus available for that model. Let me know if you are interested and I will get you the part number. Any stylus will work though as Toughbook already mentioned.

 

Does the stylus just hang from a lanyard then????? I would like it in a slot or someplace to keep track of it....

 

I think it is the CF-30 is the one that has the holster in the handle that holds the stylus. I think THAT would be pretty cool! I'm sure one could be fabbed up.

 

Hi, I just bought a cf-28 with touchscreen available and its on in the bios but it doesnt work. can someone link me to the driver or tell me what to do because i cannot figure this out at all

 

Very simple, just read The CF-28 F.A.Q. and follow the directions exactly as they are written.

Bob