- Joined
- Sep 15, 2015
- Messages
- 13
- Motherboard
- H87TN
- CPU
- 4670T
- Graphics
- HD4600
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
SinoNeptune’s iMac G4 Mod with reproduced screen and Android system
Hello everyone, I’m an architect and MOD amateur from China. It’s really great pleasure to find this site which so many wonderful mod work of iMac G4. I study a lot here and also did one by my own. I’d like to share it with friends here, and hope you like it.
First, please forgive my poor English. I will try my best to make it easy to understand. If any mistake in translation, I hope you can understand or ask me via email. If you can read Chinese, please see the Chinese version of this article in Chiphell.com:
http://www.chiphell.com/thread-1442149-1-1.html
I’d like to thanks following friends’ work, they give me a lot of inspiration. I can’t list all post I studied. Thanks to everyone’s mod works. Really all great works!
Wingworm:
A new iMac G4 Mod with up-to-date hardware and unchanged appearance including pro speakers
MacTester57:
MacTester57's HemiMac G4
Ersterhernd:
Ersterhernd's NUCiMac G4
Nickjf20: iMac G4 15" [Nickjf20]
(Although it’s not completed, but the Pro Speaker modify was great reference)
1. Concept of my mod
My first problem is how to get an iMac G4 with good quality. I brought a 17’ one from American eBay. Sadly, the neck of G4 was broken after such a long trip. I had no choice but buy an iMac in China with poor quality, just for the neck.
The second problem is the screen. As you know, the resolution of 17’ iMac is only 1440*900, it’s really too old for today. The color of CFFL LCD is also not in good condition after such a long time.
So, my first decision is to reproduce the screen part, not using the old one, and achieve more functions such as touch control.
After that, I got my first concept of system framework:
The shortcoming of this framework is the DC power brick need to put outside of G4, this will reduce the beauty of G4. After I study Wingworm’s work, I found using Thin-ITX motherboard can make it possible to put DC power inside or even use the original power supply of G4. So I got second concept of system framework:
The benefit of this framework is I don’t need display driver board for the LCD panel because Thin-ITX motherboard support LVDS signal output.
Is that enough? Occasionally I find some new designed monitor integrated Android system inside for simple use such as listening music or watching movie. That’s what I want! I brought a Philips S221C3 monitor, which has Android system inside, only to take the display driver board for my mod. So I get the third concept of system framework and make it final one:
2. Hardware selection
After I got final concept, I brought all the hardware needed for my mod. This is hardware list of my mod, most of them are common. I’ll introduce some important ones.
This is the connection of all hardware:
(1) Display driver board
The display driver board was taken form Philips S221C3. This monitor have 4 USB down link jacks and one USB up link jack. When using S221C3 as a monitor, all the hardware plugged to the USB down link ports can be used in computer (with a USB line connect the USB up link jack to computer). When using S221C3 as a big Android pad, all the hardware plugged to the USB down link ports can be used in Android system. This character makes Android system can share all hardware with PC system easily.
This is the main-board of S221C3 (there are some traces of mod):
Hello everyone, I’m an architect and MOD amateur from China. It’s really great pleasure to find this site which so many wonderful mod work of iMac G4. I study a lot here and also did one by my own. I’d like to share it with friends here, and hope you like it.
First, please forgive my poor English. I will try my best to make it easy to understand. If any mistake in translation, I hope you can understand or ask me via email. If you can read Chinese, please see the Chinese version of this article in Chiphell.com:
http://www.chiphell.com/thread-1442149-1-1.html
I’d like to thanks following friends’ work, they give me a lot of inspiration. I can’t list all post I studied. Thanks to everyone’s mod works. Really all great works!
Wingworm:
A new iMac G4 Mod with up-to-date hardware and unchanged appearance including pro speakers
MacTester57:
MacTester57's HemiMac G4
Ersterhernd:
Ersterhernd's NUCiMac G4
Nickjf20: iMac G4 15" [Nickjf20]
(Although it’s not completed, but the Pro Speaker modify was great reference)
1. Concept of my mod
My first problem is how to get an iMac G4 with good quality. I brought a 17’ one from American eBay. Sadly, the neck of G4 was broken after such a long trip. I had no choice but buy an iMac in China with poor quality, just for the neck.
The second problem is the screen. As you know, the resolution of 17’ iMac is only 1440*900, it’s really too old for today. The color of CFFL LCD is also not in good condition after such a long time.
So, my first decision is to reproduce the screen part, not using the old one, and achieve more functions such as touch control.
After that, I got my first concept of system framework:
The shortcoming of this framework is the DC power brick need to put outside of G4, this will reduce the beauty of G4. After I study Wingworm’s work, I found using Thin-ITX motherboard can make it possible to put DC power inside or even use the original power supply of G4. So I got second concept of system framework:
The benefit of this framework is I don’t need display driver board for the LCD panel because Thin-ITX motherboard support LVDS signal output.
Is that enough? Occasionally I find some new designed monitor integrated Android system inside for simple use such as listening music or watching movie. That’s what I want! I brought a Philips S221C3 monitor, which has Android system inside, only to take the display driver board for my mod. So I get the third concept of system framework and make it final one:
2. Hardware selection
After I got final concept, I brought all the hardware needed for my mod. This is hardware list of my mod, most of them are common. I’ll introduce some important ones.
This is the connection of all hardware:
(1) Display driver board
The display driver board was taken form Philips S221C3. This monitor have 4 USB down link jacks and one USB up link jack. When using S221C3 as a monitor, all the hardware plugged to the USB down link ports can be used in computer (with a USB line connect the USB up link jack to computer). When using S221C3 as a big Android pad, all the hardware plugged to the USB down link ports can be used in Android system. This character makes Android system can share all hardware with PC system easily.
This is the main-board of S221C3 (there are some traces of mod):