[GUIDE] Adding Touchscreen to the Acer Aspire One

Hi guys!

This is one we’ve ALL been waiting for I think, and today for your reading pleasure I have a tutorial which describes how to fit a touch-screen panel to your Acer Aspire One laptot!
OK, so first things first – we’ll be needing the following bits and pieces before we start. Let me just say that to do this install, you WILL need to solder some bits and pieces to the motherboard in some difficult places. If you aren’t comfortable with soldering, this may not be a procedure for you to undertake easily, so please give it thought before you commit to spending your money on the touch panel kit. Anyway, here’s the list of equipment:

- The touch-panel kit
- Soldering Iron
- Tin/Lead solder (preferably with a Flux Core)
- Digital Multimeter (aka. DMM)
- Wire Clippers (and Strippers if you’ve got some)
- Fine Tweezers
- De-solder braid (just in case!)
- A Pin
- Precision Screwdriver Set
- Double-Sided Tape
- A couple of hours spare time

If you have the following bits and pieces, they’ll be beneficial to you although they aren’t necessary:

- Solder Flux
- Flux Remover / Cleaner
- De-Solder Pump
- 30AWG Kynar (Wrapping) Wire
- A pair of Scissors

In the UK, Maplin or Farnell would be great places to get most of the above stuff. You don’t need professional tools, but be a little careful when ordering your Soldering Iron – don’t get anything too over-powerful. The Acer Aspire One is a delicate piece of equipment and we’ll be soldering directly to the motherboard components. A soldering iron with a rating of no more than 15W is ideal. I would say that 12W would be the minimum you would want to use.

So, now all you need is the Touch-Screen kit. I got mine from eBay seller “e_shophk” – my kit took just 4 days to get to the UK from Hong-Kong and he ships worldwide. Below, I have provided a link to his eBay shop. It is a high quality kit, easy to install and he comes highly recommended:
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/e_shophk

Finally, many of you will be wondering about whether this will work with Linux Drivers. The good news is if you use the kit I have provided a link to, there is a Linux driver available for the Touch Controller. The link to the driver page is as follows:
http://home.eeti.com.tw/web20/eg/drivers.htm

So, now we’ve got our equipment, touch-screen and our drivers sorted, we can begin with the installation!

Step 1 – Disassemble the case
The first thing we need to do is disassemble the case so we can get access to the motherboard. I advise you lay something on your desk to protect the case while we’re doing this - an old bit of newspaper would be ideal.

Flip the laptop over, and take out the three screws indicated below from the front of the machine. Then, carefully get a screwdriver underneath the rubber feet at the rear of the One and pry them up enough so you can grab hold of them and peel them off carefully by hand and remove the screws under these feet:



Next, remove the battery and undo the three screws indicated below. You can then flip the laptop back the right way up:



Now, lift the screen to reveal the keyboard. There are three tabs at the top of the keyboard by the screen we’ll need to depress first. They’re black in colour and are fairly easy to pop in. I recommend you go for the middle one first and then the ones on either side. They’re circled in the picture below. Once the three tabs are popped in, lift the edge of the keyboard (I went for the top right-hand side) and pull it forwards and upwards. It should release from the machine but be careful as it’s still connected via the data ribbon to the motherboard so don’t tug it too hard! If you find it’s hard to get off, there are two small tabs moulded into the case by the Enter and Caps lock keys (circled below). Just pull the edge of the case out slightly by one of these tabs while trying to lift the keyboard out again. You’ll find it gives you a bit more room to lift the keyboard out and it should just pop out. Don’t be afraid to give it a fair old tug – just make sure you’ve popped the three top tabs out and be careful of that data ribbon.



Once the keyboard is free, you’ll need to flip up the edge of the Keyboard ribbon connector on the motherboard (the side where it plugs in) to release the ribbon. Once you’ve flipped the connector, the ribbon should just slide out. You should also disconnect the mouse-pad ribbon in the same manner (just below the keyboard connector – also circled below). Now, undo the screws indicated and put them aside somewhere safe. Finally, we’ll need to lift the keyboard surround from the case. Get your nail under the recess in one corner (again I went for the bottom right-hand side (indicated)) and lift it carefully! Be patient and make sure you pop all the tabs holding the top half to the bottom half of the case. Once you’ve done it, it should simply lift off, exposing the motherboard:



Step 2 – We’re in! Now what?
Next we’ll need to release the screen. There is a small ribbon connector we’ll need to release first as seen in the picture below. You should find that it just slides out from its connector without much hassle. While you’re here, undo the two screws indicated below to aid the release of the screen when we’re ready:



Step 3 – Releasing the Wireless-G Card
Removing the WLAN card is easy! Unplug the two aerial leads from their connectors (they just pop off) as indicated and take out the screw from the edge of the card (again indicated). As you undo the screw, you’ll probably notice the card starts to lift at an angle. By the time the screw is fully removed, it’ll probably be sat at around 40-45® to the motherboard. Simply pull it free of the Mini PCI-E slot and place it to one side.



Step 4 – Preparing to remove the screen
Now we’ll need to remove a few components to enable us to get access to the last couple of screws we’ll need to remove the screen. Firstly, slide the antennae cables out of the two clips moulded into the case (as shown) and remove the sticker holding the cables to the case (also shown). Finally, remove the two screws indicated on the daughterboard and lift it upwards and outwards to remove it. If you find it difficult to remove, try and slide it towards the screen a little as one of the USB Ports can catch on the case making it difficult to dislodge. With the daughterboard free, we can begin to remove the screen.



Step 5 – Removing the screen
Simply undo the two screws indicated below to detach the screen hinge assembly from the main chassis of the One. Once the two screws are removed, simply pull the screen upwards and it should come free from the laptop...



Step 6 – Preparing the Touch-Screen Controller
We’ll need to make a few modifications to the touch-screen controller before we can situate the PCB inside the Aspire One. Technically, the Touch Screen kit isn’t built for the Acer Aspire One, so it isn’t going to be a straight fit into the machine. There are small connector ports soldered to the PCB, which will accept the connectors joined onto the wiring harnesses provided. The problem however, is that you’ll find it tricky to situate the board inside the AAO with these connector ports still joined to the controller PCB so they’ll have to be removed. The best way to do this is to bend the controller so it points upwards and then slide the plastic cover off over the top of the pins. This will make it much easier for us to remove the pins which remain joined to the controller board.

In order to remove these now-bare pins, turn the controller board upside down and melt the solder at the back of the pins. As it begins to melt, use the tip of your iron to push the pins through the PCB. You should find that the pin drops out of its hole and onto your desk. Do this for both connectors on the controller PCB, and then add a little bit of solder to the holes which the connector pins used to be stuck through. This will convert these holes into little solder ‘pads’ which we can very easily solder our wires to for a solid, reliable connection.

Below, we see that one of the connectors (the one of the right) has been removed and the pins extracted. The black one on the left is still there (for the time being) and will also need to be removed:



Below, we see that both connectors have been removed, the pins extracted and the right-hand side connector pin holes have been converted into little solder pads. The ones on the left still need to be done as can be seen in the picture below:



Step 7 – Choosing a location for the Touch-Screen Controller
Now we’ve prepared the controller board, we can find somewhere to put it. I have the AAO A150L (which I have installed XP Pro on), so I decided to mount the controller board on top of the Hard Drive. This is a nice place to have it as it’s easily accessible as it allows us to make our wires nice and short as can be seen in the photo below. This location should be similarly available inside the A110’s too so you shouldn’t have much of a problem there.



In order to mount the controller board, place some Insulation tape on the backside of it to prevent shorts on either your Hard Drive or SSD, and finally place a little Double-Sided tape on the top of the Insulation tape. Now, press your controller board into place as can be seen below:



A quick thing to note, is that you would be sensible to place some insulation tape on the backside of your WLAN card just to make sure that there is absolutely no contact between the controller board and surrounding devices – it’s always better to be safe than sorry!

Step 8 – Making Connections 1: Connecting the Controller to USB
Now the serious stuff begins! We’re going to be connecting the controller to the USB connections provided by the Mini PCI-Express slot which the WLAN card slots into. By using these connections, we will still be able to use our WLAN card as it doesn’t utilise these USB lines, meaning we’ll still have all our USB Ports available and our webcam will also remain fully functional - The downside? These connections are VERY small. The pins are extremely fine-pitch meaning the chances of bridging them with your iron are very high if you’re not careful! This is why I recommend having a bit of de-solder braid on hand in case of accidents as its always better to be safe than sorry! Never use a soldering-iron bit bigger than 0.5mm as it’s a struggle even with that! You could always use a standard USB Connector to solder your wires to, but be advised that you’ll lose the functionality of that USB Port, but you’ll have much larger connections to solder to – so the choice is yours. Here though, we will use the Mini PCI-E port.

We have also chosen to use a switched +5v source so that the controller will consume NO power when the device is powered off. Again, by taking the power from the USB Ports, your Touch-Screen controller will be using power even when your AAO is switched off – so you’ll always be draining your battery even when the device isn’t on! Although the connection points you need to solder are bigger and more robust, I really would recommend going for the alternate location I will show you below.

I’ll give brief explanations of the wiring involved as we go through, but for more detailed pictures please see the wiring diagram provided in the link right at the end of this post.

So, first we’ll connect ground (earth) to our controller. Ground can be connected to many places on the board, although I personally used an Earth ring around the edge of a screw hole. It was an easily accessed place, allowed for a short lead and gives a nice, solid earth for our controller. I personally clipped a little of the black wire from one of the connectors in the kit, stripped one end of the wire and soldered it to the earth ring in the picture below (the middle ring in the picture). I then ran this back to the controller, super-gluing the lead down along the way and finally soldering the connector to the necessary controller board pad (the third one from the left as seen in the picture below).

Secondly, we’ll connect Power (+5v) to our controller. If you look at the front of your AAO, you’ll see two chips just to the left of the Mini PCI-E slot. If you see the image below, there is a small component on the motherboard which I have circled (the one on the very left). There are two pins on the edge nearest the front and one on the back. Connect the +5v lead to the right-hand pin on this component. Soldering to these types of component is made much easier if you give the pin a good coating in flux first, as it gives the solder a nice clean surface to stick to, giving us a solid power signal to our controller board. I personally used some red 30AWG Kynar wire for this connection, but you could just snip a bit of wire from one of the supplied wiring harnesses in the kit – the choice is yours. The +5v lead connects to the 2nd pad from the left on the controller board as seen in the pictures.

Finally, we’ll need to add the USB+ and USB- wires to the Mini PCI-E port. The two main words for this process are be careful! It’s far too easy to bridge these pins and doing so will give you a real headache as you’ll have to make sure all the pins are totally free of any solder bridges before you test your AAO – failure to check this could result in major and irreversible damage to your AAO laptop.
The USB+ and USB- wires go to two pins directly next to each other. USB+ connects to Pin 38 and USB- connects to Pin 36. If you have the front of your AAO facing you, Pin 38 is on the right-hand side of the Mini PCI-E port and is the 8th pin up. Pin 36 is the 9th pin up on the right hand side (the one directly above Pin 38). Again, once connected route the wires back, gluing them down along the way and connect them back to the controller. USB+ connects to the 4th pad from the left whilst USB- connects to the pad on the very right (5th on the left) on the controller PCB. Once finished, you should have something which looks like this:



Before proceeding, check all your wires are flat to the motherboard and are neat, check the connections are well made by giving them a firm but gentle tug and ensure that you haven’t bridged any pins on the Mini PCI-E port with your DMM by checking adjacent pins around where you connected the USB lines to. If you hear a beep when doing this between two adjacent pins, or the display on your DMM shows 0, then you have a short and you’ll have to go back and tidy the connections up. You may find you get a reading between adjacent pins, such as ‘543’ or ’240’ or some other number – this is fine and normal so don’t panic. Once you’ve verified your connections are good, you can move on to the next stage...

Step 9 (Optional) – Testing
I wouldn’t normally recommend you do this as it’s all too easy to short something out, but if you want verification that your controller install is good, and then reconnect the screen and battery and power on the device. If you see that a ‘New Hardware Device’ has been detected (it should be known as “USB Touch Controller”) then you can continue to shut down the laptop, disconnect the battery and screen and continue with the next stage of the install. If you don’t see anything, then go back over your connections one more time to make sure everything is perfect and try again. If you see something like this, you’re in business:



Step 10 – Disassembling the screen
Disassembling the screen is not as complicated as it would seem. There are six screws you’ll need to remove first and there are indicated below. The screws are covered by little caps which are stuck on with double-sided tape. They simply peel off revealing the screws you’ll have to take out. Four are hidden by little rubber caps at the top of the screen, and the last two are hidden behind little “shield” shaped plastic covers at the bottom. Again, these covers are stuck on with double-sided tape.



Now, all you have to do is get the two halves of the screen shell apart. The process is the same as getting the two halves of the case apart earlier. Simply get your nail in the recess in one of the corners, and pry the two halves apart. There are clips around the edges which you’ll need to pry apart but they come apart easily so don’t worry. Once they’re all unclipped the front of the screen should lift away exposing the inside of the screen.





Step 11 – Preparing to install the Touch Screen Panel
Next we’ll need to install the Touch-Screen panel on top of the AAO’s LCD Panel. Now we’ve got access to the screen we need to give it a proper clean. The best thing to do this with is a glasses cloth which can be obtained from any opticians as it is lint free and won’t scratch the screen. It is very good for removing dust, dirt and fingerprints. We’ll need the screen to be absolutely clean as any debris under the panel will be there permanently once we mount it.



Once we’ve got the panel clean, we need to add some double-sided sticky tape to the edge of the LCD Screen frame so we can mount the panel solidly to the front of the display. I’d recommend using small squares as it means the screen is easily adjusted if necessary and can be easily removed to clean any dirt we have left on the panel. If anything, mine in the picture are too big – you want tiny squares in each corner as removing the panel in future could result in it cracking by using large amounts of tape (especially if it is particularly strong!)



Test fit it by offering the panel up to the TFT and centralising it. The panel should have its small ribbon cable facing the right hand side of the screen if you have the same kit as me. When fitting, if the panel is a few millimetres out don’t worry – you will have to calibrate the screen later anyway. Once you’ve found the ideal position, remove the protective plastic from the TFT side of the panel and lower it carefully onto the tape, centralise it and press down gently to stick it in position. Take care not to get prints on the TFT-Side of the panel as you’ll not be able to get them off once the screen is stuck down! Go carefully and slowly when laying the panel in place as to avoid getting air pockets between the panel and TFT as it’ll look awful if you’re not careful! When everything is in place, remove the front protective plastic cover.



Step 12 – Routing the cable out of the screen
Pop the hinge up off its mounting so you can run the ribbon cable underneath it with the Wi-Fi antennae, and then push it back on its mounting point:



Finally, you can replace the screw you removed (as indicated) below and route the cable through the recess in the hinge as shown in the picture below:



Step 13 – Reassembling the screen
Now the touch panel is installed, we can start reassembling the screen. Simply get the surround and start to push the clips back together. Be careful not to trap or pinch the touch panels ribbon in the case. Once complete, put the screws back in and put the screw covers back in place. Finally, ensure that the leads haven’t been trapped or pinched in the case once more. Once complete, you should have something which looks like this:



Step 14 – Preparing the Controller > Touch Panel Wiring Connector
In your touch panel kit, you will get a small, black connector which accepts a 4-pin ribbon cable. It has 4 pins stuck straight out of the back in a ‘staggered’ arrangement – two at the top and two at the bottom. Looking directly at the rear of the connector, the top two pins (from left-to-right) are Pins 1 & 3. On the bottom, we have (again from left-to-right) Pins 2 & 4. Connect a wire to each of the pins, insulate each wire using insulation tape to prevent shorts occurring and finally wrap the back end of the connector with insulation tape to keep everything neat, tidy and securely insulated. Once you’re done, you should have something which looks similar to this:



I used wires which were the same colour, but I taped them into a sort of IDE ribbon-style arrangement so I could keep track of which wire was which – I would recommend you use a different colour wire for each pin from the kit provided.

Step 15 – Installing the Touch-Panel Wiring Connector
Nearly complete, one of the final jobs is to complete the soldering tasks by joining the above connector to the controller. Firstly if you haven’t already, tin the five connection points at the top of the controller PCB (the five holes behind where the big black connector used to be) so they become little solder-pads as you did earlier with the USB Connection points. In the previous step, we built the harness we’ll use to connect the screen to the controller. Look at the picture below and connect wires 1, 2, 3 and 4 from that harness we built in the last step to the corresponding numbered point in the diagram below.



Just to clarify, Wire 2 goes to the left hand pad, Wire 1 to the 2nd pad from the left, the third (middle) pad is unused, Wire 3 goes to the 4th pad from the left and Wire 4 goes to the fifth pad from the left (or the right-hand pad).

Step 16 – Reinstalling the screen
Here is where my digital camera batteries died so the final few pictures are missing for the time being, but I will get them up at the earliest opportunity – we’re on reassembly now anyway so it’s basically just putting things back as you found them. As a temporary measure, I have included the pictures from my Wireless-N Install tutorial as they are practically identical to what you’ll see and need to do from here on in anyway. Stay tuned for the updated pictures soon!

Now you can get the screen back and reinstall it. Ensure the Wi-Fi antenna leads and ribbon run through the hole in the bracket provided for it as seen below and then you can begin to replace the screen. Start with the right hand bracket first. You’ll notice a lug on the right hand side of the case which the screen hinge locates inside. Slide the bracket inside this lug and the screen should square up with its mounting points. Now, push the screen down so the screw holes on the bracket line up with the screw holes in the case. You can now replace the two screws indicated and run the antenna leads back through the cable tidying clips moulded into the case as indicated below. Connect the ribbon from the screen to the connector we just installed and tuck it neatly down the side of the case. It’s a very tight fit by the time the daughter-board is back in place so be careful when locating it!



Step 17 – Reinstalling the daughterboard
Installing the daughterboard is the opposite of removal. Align the ports with the holes in the case, hold it up at an angle and slide the daughterboard into position. Push the back of the daughterboard down and ensure that the Wi-Fi switch on the motherboard engages with the plastic toggle switch on the front of the case. Replace the two screws removed earlier as indicated and route the Wi-Fi Antennae back into their original position. Now, we can start to reinstall the wireless card.



Step 18 – Reinstalling the WLAN Card
Slide the card into the Mini PCI-E connector via the contacts. You’ll find the card will sit up at an angle. Push it down gently so it lays parallel with the motherboard and reinstall the securing screw removed earlier as indicated. Finally, push the antennae leads onto the terminals on the Wi-Fi card. The black lead goes onto the first socket (left) and the white antenna clips into the second socket (right). Finally, make sure everything sits flush to the motherboard, make sure everything is neat and orderly and you can begin reassembly of the case which is the reverse of removal (in true Haynes Manual fashion ). Once reassembled, we can begin with the driver installation and calibration.



Step 19 – Installing Drivers and Performing the Calibration
Once your new prized possession is back in one piece, replace the battery and fire it up. Providing everything went well, the machine should POST successfully and boot into Windows. Once booted, the Add New Hardware Wizard will appear. Now personally, I stuck the driver CD in my external DVD-RW and used the wizard to install the driver for the panel off the CD. This worked perfectly and my panel controller was displayed under ‘Mice and Other Pointing Devices’ in Windows Device Manager. Inside the folder on the install CD, was the device configuration utility. By double-clicking this with the mouse-pad I was able to navigate to the ‘Calibration’ screen and I was able to calibrate the screen with my stylus (which I bought separately earlier this afternoon). If, like me everything went fine, you should have something which looks like the following:





Wiring Schematic
If you’re still a little unsure, take a look at this more detailed wiring diagram attached below which should give you some really good ideas as to where things go etc (.doc 97-2003 format):

Wiring Schematic

Final Thoughts
I hope you found this guide useful to you, and I’d look forward to reading your comments and answering your questions!
As stated above, the final few photos will be done once my digital camera batteries are back to their best and I get a few hours after work at some point in the next week or so. The ones attached for now should be more than enough to give you an idea in the mean time of where things go back etc...

Anyway - Cheers guys (and ENJOY!),
Andy aka. LUFCfan.

 

Re: Adding Touchscreen to the Acer Aspire One

How much for you to install one for me.

 

Re: Adding Touchscreen to the Acer Aspire One

what a tutorial wow!!!! congratulation!

just a question, Kenshin who did the same mod said that there is tiny slight bulge caused by the touch-screen. What about yours? Is it a problem?

 

Re: Adding Touchscreen to the Acer Aspire One

what is the touchscreen model number/brand? And how sensitive is the touchscreen (does it require pressure to the screen or it's the hovering type of screen)?

(edited questions..)

 

Re: Adding Touchscreen to the Acer Aspire One

Great tutorial! But i don't think I have the courage to pull this one off.... :mrgreen:

 

Re: Adding Touchscreen to the Acer Aspire One

Hi guys!
It's good to see that you find the tutorial an interesting and useful read! To follow up on a few quick questions:

Answer: Unfortunately, with my work and University commitments, I don't really have the time required to perform this service for others - sorry.

Answer: Because I removed the extra connectors and situated the controller inside the body of the AAO where I did, there is no bulge in the case whatsoever - so it isn't a problem providing you're comfortable removing those old connectors.

Answer: The Touchscreen is made by EETI and it is fairly sensitive. You don't have to apply much pressure at all, but you also don't find its over sensitive. It's a nice balance really. To give you an idea, over at jkkmobile.com, he has fitted the same panel to an EEEPc 901 and shows it in action which should give you some idea. The panel is a Resistive 4-wire type so it requires pressure - but the hard plastic panel protects the TFT from any physical pressure.

Answer: It's not easy to do, and it's better to be safe that going in over your head if you're not comfortable - although do bare in mind I went through the installation in the difficult manner - you can always use the standard USB Points as explained above which are really easy to solder to - it's just a question as to whether you can live with the drawbacks of using those points.

Anyway, hope those few answers help guys...
Andy, aka. LUFCfan

 

Re: Adding Touchscreen to the Acer Aspire One

I think the bulge question is not about the controller but more about the touchscreen itself. It adds about 1mm thickness to the LCD, so when you put the bezel back on, it's a tighter fit, and yes, there's a bit of a bulge (on mine anyway) once everything is clipped back together. To the OP, do you notice the same?

 

Re: Adding Touchscreen to the Acer Aspire One

To be honest, I don't see much (if any) difference in the 'bulge' of the screen between having the touch panel in now and not having it in before... so I can't say I notice the same effects...

 

Hi LUFCfan,

Thank you for the guide you have provided on the website.
Many ppls from eeeuser forum complain the touch panel crack problem:
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=40496&p=1
Is this something we should worry about?
Also, may I have the dimension of your touch panel, especially the height of it.

Cheers!
Tong

 

Hmm... That seems an interesting post, but tbh Idon't see it being a problem with the one for a few reasons:

1. The bezel around the screen of the One is very thin and flexible - so it shouldn't (and doesn't seem to) put a lot of strain or pressure on the TS when in place... In fact, on the post you link to, they mention using a bit of insulation tape along the edges to fix it in place as opposed to using the double-sided tape and there seems to be less problems with those people so there could be something to that... defo a watch this space on that one.

2. The clips are right at the edges of the bezel and are fairly "light-weight" to say the least and don't exact a lot of pressure - they seemed to go back together just fine without any force just as they did before I mounted my TS to the TFT... As I say, this could be due to the fact that the AAO clips don't exert much pressure, or due to the fact that the bezels clips are right on the edges of the recess and so are much easier to lock into position than those on the EEE - afterall, a few do say it takes a fair bit of pressure to lock the EEE bezel back into place.

Taking that last thought into consideration, it could be possible they're cracking the panel at the edges due to the force necessary to get the EEE bezel back on, and over a short period of opening / closing the screen its giving enough pressure at the edges of the panel to spred the crack ever so slightly each time which is why it seems to go after a few weeks / days of use... I guess time will tell but everything looks OK to me so far with the AAO - I'll keep you posted!

As far as the dimensions go, I didn't take measurements of the TS panel before I installed it however I have my Bluetooth module to install this weekend so if I think on, i'll take the screen back off while I'm there and get you some measurements...

Hope that helps...
Andy, aka. LUFCfan

 

Hi,

1. Thanks for the tutorial.
2. It looked so good that I just ordered a 8.9" touch screen kit from the user e_shophk on ebay. I let you know the results
3. Is there someone who already tried to get the usb touchscreen controller of EETI running under the Linux version of the Aspire One?
(http://home.eeti.com.tw/web20/TouchKitD ... Driver.htm)

added to post: I figured it out myself. See post below

 

Just added, DealExtreme now carries it $60.50 free shipping

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.15611

 

Hi

I was just wondering if it would be possible to do this touchscreen mod as well as this bluetooth mod :

http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/ ... bluetooth/

as I noticed that they both involve soldering to the mini pcie slot.

Thanks

 

HI lufcfan

I saw this Solderless 8.9" touch screen for epc 901 on ebay, it has a Solderless Hub, and seems easier to install, since you've opened the AAO, may be you can tell me if that one is gonna fit or not? THnaks

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/8-9-SOLDERLESS-Ee ... 286.c0.m14

biger pics
http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=283433

 

Got the touchscreen (was sold as for the asus eee 901 900) and got the drivers running under linux.

BAD NEWS: I cracked the screen when peeling of the plastic cover!

 

About Linux driver:

Tips:

a. compile the kernel module tkusb.ko for the aspire one.
(as descibed in the pdf delivered with the linux driver (see main post for link). See http://the.taoofmac.com/media/Acer/Aspi ... notes.html for how to obtain the kernel sources for the Aspire one and prepare for compiling a kernel module. Works great.
(The compiled module is attached to the post)[attachment=0:2wsm5au6]tkusb.zip[/attachment:2wsm5au6]

b. install the kernel module as described in the pdf delivered with the linux driver. Also install in rc.local as deescribed. Testing module installed with 'lsmod' and look for tkusb.ko

c. run the setup.sh script. This will fail. Edit the script to look for the tkusb.ko when testing for kernel modules.

d. run the setup.sh script again. This will write /etc/X11/xorg.conf

e. edit the xorg.conf.
e1. Comment out the mouse parts and
e2. specify the device for the panel /dev/tkpanel0 (instead of 'usbauto')

resulting /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Code:

# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display
Section "ServerFlags"
        Option "DontZap" "yes"
        Option "DontVTSwitch" "yes"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
        InputDevice     "EETI" "SendCoreEvents"
        Identifier     "Default Layout"
        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
#       InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Synaptics Mouse" "AlwaysCore"
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Keyboard0"
        Driver      "kbd"
        Option      "XkbModel" "pc105"
        Option      "XkbLayout" "us(euro)"
        Option      "XkbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier "Synaptics Mouse"
        Driver     "synaptics"
        Option     "Device" "/dev/psaux"
        Option     "Protocol" "auto-dev"
        Option     "LeftEdge"  "1700"
        Option  "RightEdge"     "5300"
        Option  "TopEdge"       "1700"
        Option  "BottomEdge"    "4200"
        Option  "FingerLow"     "25"
        Option  "FingerHigh"    "30"
        Option  "MaxTapTime"    "180"
        Option  "MaxTapMove"    "220"
        Option  "VertScrollDelta" "100"
        Option  "MinSpeed"      "0.09"
        Option  "MaxSpeed"      "0.18"
        Option  "AccelFactor"   "0.0015"
        Option  "SHMConfig"     "on"
EndSection

#Section "InputDevice"
#       Identifier  "Mouse0"
#       Driver      "mouse"
#       Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
#       Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
#       Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
#       Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
#EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier  "Monitor0"
        Modeline  "1024x600" 48.96 1024 1064 1168 1312 600 601 604 622 -HSync +VSync
#       Option  "Above" "Monitor1"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "intel"
#       Option      "monitor-LVDS" "Monitor0"
#       Option      "monitor-VGA" "Monitor1"
        Option      "Clone" "true"
        Option  "MonitorLayout" "LVDS,VGA"
        BusID   "PCI:0:2:0"
#       Screen  0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "Videocard0"
        Monitor     "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
                Modes    "1024x600" "800x600" "640x480"
         Virtual 1024 768
        EndSubSection
EndSection

### Touch Configuration Begin ###
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier "EETI"
        Driver "egalax"
        Option "Device" "/dev/tkpanel0"
        Option "Parameters" "/var/lib/eeti.param"
        Option "ScreenNo" "0"
EndSection
### Touch Configuration End ###

f. remove the usbhid kernel module (rmmod usbhid.ko). Check with lsmod. You may have to add the removal of usbhid to rc.local
(step e1 and f are to prevent the mousedriver to use/read from the touchpanel device. If you have everything working by my guest to fix this properly, but why need a mouse when you have a touchscreen and the touchpad.


g. reboot

h. Callibrate with the TKCal utility. Don't forget to state the device (/dev/tkpanel0) on the command line.

good luck and try not to crack your panel when installing....

 

Dude that sucks. Are u gonna buy another one?

 

Created a little diagram of the controller to see what goes where.

 

Hi rgarjr,

First your diagam looks great .

About buying a new one: The ebay seller told me that the touchscreen panel is the most expensive part of the kit and that I have to buy almost(?) a new kit . The price he quoted me for a new one was (USD93.45) which is similar or even more then the original one (65$+25$ shipping) :shock: . Add to that that I don't know the new quoted price included shipping and a new the controller (which I don't need) :? .

So thats the end of the ebay route. Instead I ordered a new kit from deal extreme (60$ including shipping which sounds as a good deal).

The Deal Extreme kit seems to be more complete. There is an USB cable and the cabling between screen and controller is already in place so you can connect it very fast for a test run and you already know for all connections where they should go.

gtx

 

I really wanted to do the touchscreen mod, too bad it required soldering
I'll do almost any mod as long as it doesn't require soldering. Is there no way to do this mod without soldering?