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DIY 5k Monitor - success :-)
- Thread starter fiatlux
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As Regulus67 says, horrific.
I should test it before trying to rectify the damage, so the seller can't accuse you of damaging it...
Did you buy it from Hajing Cool's AliExpress website?
As far as I can see it says "Service: 90-day Buyer Protection."
My R1811 arrived in a much more structurally sound cardboard box, with no customs intervention. I was lucky
But my seller (on eBay UK) had 100% positive reviews, compared to Hajing Cool's overall site's 4.5 Below Average for Shipping.
A pity as its the only source of T18/T19 boards AFAIK.
I hope everything functions OK. Once its inside the case it won't show
I should test it before trying to rectify the damage, so the seller can't accuse you of damaging it...
Did you buy it from Hajing Cool's AliExpress website?
As far as I can see it says "Service: 90-day Buyer Protection."
My R1811 arrived in a much more structurally sound cardboard box, with no customs intervention. I was lucky
But my seller (on eBay UK) had 100% positive reviews, compared to Hajing Cool's overall site's 4.5 Below Average for Shipping.
A pity as its the only source of T18/T19 boards AFAIK.
I hope everything functions OK. Once its inside the case it won't show
I see. In any case, the package should not have been damaged. I feel sorry for you. And I hope that the card will work properly.
Otherwise you can probably contact them by sending a message through AliExpress. That's what I did, when I had a problem.
The shop I bought from is Worldwidehuntoon.
I just checked, and they have only 10 1811 cards left atm.
Otherwise you can probably contact them by sending a message through AliExpress. That's what I did, when I had a problem.
The shop I bought from is Worldwidehuntoon.
I just checked, and they have only 10 1811 cards left atm.
Hi! Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but that part of the board is for grounding, and no important traces can be found there, so it should still work.
If you post some details of both sides, you give people a chance to check.
If the entire PCB was bent, it is likely that some ceramic capacitors cracked or some solder joints broke.
However, it seems the PCB "only" got knocked on the corner, so chances are high the card still works.
OK everyone I think I've got away with it - just did a quick test plugging it in to power and it came to life straight away. I did hear a couple of little clicks when I powered the display on and that worried me a bit though they stopped quickly. Is that normal?
Amazing really given the state of the packaging and the board itself and also the fact that I literally dropped the display on a hard wood floor after removing it from the iMac. You'd never know as there's not a mark on it. I must be lucky today. As you can see in the second pic I'm gonna copy 3quid and mount it using the two screw posts that line up and I also robbed the idea of cutting out a couple of the grill lines to mount the controls on the back. Works pretty well!
I need to get some strong gaffa tape (though thinking about super glueing the control board into place...) and I'm wondering if using something to isolate the board from the back of the iMac case is necessary? Not really sure what to get that would be cheap to pick up to be honest or what material I should use so any help on that would be great.
That aside the power lead to the brick isn't very long so thinking about where to mount the brick and I'll need to get some stickyback tape to reseal the display to the iMac case as well. Not yet sure where to get that but I guess I can use the gaffa tape in the mean time - it's just not a very professional look!
Once it's all sealed up I'll have to make sure everything is working just fine. 5K display with P3... come on!
Amazing really given the state of the packaging and the board itself and also the fact that I literally dropped the display on a hard wood floor after removing it from the iMac. You'd never know as there's not a mark on it. I must be lucky today. As you can see in the second pic I'm gonna copy 3quid and mount it using the two screw posts that line up and I also robbed the idea of cutting out a couple of the grill lines to mount the controls on the back. Works pretty well!
I need to get some strong gaffa tape (though thinking about super glueing the control board into place...) and I'm wondering if using something to isolate the board from the back of the iMac case is necessary? Not really sure what to get that would be cheap to pick up to be honest or what material I should use so any help on that would be great.
That aside the power lead to the brick isn't very long so thinking about where to mount the brick and I'll need to get some stickyback tape to reseal the display to the iMac case as well. Not yet sure where to get that but I guess I can use the gaffa tape in the mean time - it's just not a very professional look!
Once it's all sealed up I'll have to make sure everything is working just fine. 5K display with P3... come on!
Its a shame there is no legal way to pay somebody to do this for me (I don't have the time, or the expertise); what a waste of a good panel.
OK so I'm up and running and the screen looks as beautiful as ever. I am though wondering if there is a small issue. Thankfully it does work but within a minute of turning on it glitches the screen for a moment and I hear two click noises coming from the board. This happened the first time I used it to check it worked and again when I turned it on to start using it on my desk. It seems quite unusual... Can anyone advise what might be happening here? Could this be dangerous in some way? I'm quite a nervous person when it comes to things like this so constantly live in fear that everything is going to catch fire or something and I often just need a little reassurance!
I've also noticed there is a slight hum coming from the display which is a little annoying but can be alleviated by simply touching the board of it so I guess that's a vibration somewhere... EDIT: for some reason it just stopped... Weird.
Anyway, presuming that's just a quirk rather than a massive problem... here it is! I don't see any issues with the screen at all. Though if anyone here could advise on their mac settings for this I would appreciate it. I know my DP cable can output 5K and I had presumed it was doing so but system settings reports it's being used as '2560x1440' which is of course half of the 5K. If I set it to '5120x2880' then everything becomes unreadably small. I know mac's scale displays so am I right in thinking the resolution is in fact 5K but it's showing text/folders as half that or is the mac only requesting 2.5K from the card? I can't work it out.
Also the color profile is set automatically to 'DP' - could/should I change this to P3 or since the display is capable of that am I already getting P3 color? Does this setting need to be changed?
Finally does this card (T18) support things like true tone and night shift?
I don't think I'm going to seal it up properly, I quite like the industrial look of the black duct tape now it's on and I like the idea that I can get into it when/if I need to.
Build cost: £223 for a used Late 2015 27" iMac
£205 for the Haijing T18 (inc. £37 Customs Charge)
£33 Silkland USB C to DisplayPort 1.4 Cable & 24V 6A Power Supply Adapter from Amazon UK
£2 Black Duct Tape
Total: £463 - paid for by selling the motherboard for £123 and getting £175 for a bank switch. So total cost to me was... £165. If the board continues to work then that would be a real bargain. Still, I have plenty of questions and a couple of things to work on but so far it's looking pretty good.
I've also noticed there is a slight hum coming from the display which is a little annoying but can be alleviated by simply touching the board of it so I guess that's a vibration somewhere... EDIT: for some reason it just stopped... Weird.
Anyway, presuming that's just a quirk rather than a massive problem... here it is! I don't see any issues with the screen at all. Though if anyone here could advise on their mac settings for this I would appreciate it. I know my DP cable can output 5K and I had presumed it was doing so but system settings reports it's being used as '2560x1440' which is of course half of the 5K. If I set it to '5120x2880' then everything becomes unreadably small. I know mac's scale displays so am I right in thinking the resolution is in fact 5K but it's showing text/folders as half that or is the mac only requesting 2.5K from the card? I can't work it out.
Also the color profile is set automatically to 'DP' - could/should I change this to P3 or since the display is capable of that am I already getting P3 color? Does this setting need to be changed?
Finally does this card (T18) support things like true tone and night shift?
I don't think I'm going to seal it up properly, I quite like the industrial look of the black duct tape now it's on and I like the idea that I can get into it when/if I need to.
Build cost: £223 for a used Late 2015 27" iMac
£205 for the Haijing T18 (inc. £37 Customs Charge)
£33 Silkland USB C to DisplayPort 1.4 Cable & 24V 6A Power Supply Adapter from Amazon UK
£2 Black Duct Tape
Total: £463 - paid for by selling the motherboard for £123 and getting £175 for a bank switch. So total cost to me was... £165. If the board continues to work then that would be a real bargain. Still, I have plenty of questions and a couple of things to work on but so far it's looking pretty good.
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Perhaps a stupid question but how necessary was the neoprene backing? Inspired by this I basically used my duct tape on the iMac back behind the board to replicate your neoprene backing but now I'm wondering if this is a mistake - does the board get so hot it could burn the tape? Maybe if the board doesn't need isolating at all I should just remove the duct tape altogether. I wish there were some guides on installing these things!
Hi, glad its looking good
The way Apple does 'Retina' is to make the pixels tiny (5K) and the set a 'Default' resolution to use 4 of the tiny screen pixels to make 1 display pixel that your eyes see. They call it HiDPI.
So what you see at the Default resolution is normal.
True Tone probably needs Apple-specific sensors in the screen, so not available AFAIK.
Night Shift is dealt with by the Mac, so the button you show in your System Settings should work.
It does on my DIY monitor.
Choose the best looking colour setting for your screen - i.e match it to look the same as your iPad, which will have a good screen colour accuracy.
Earlier in this long thread there was a description of someone who destroyed a chip on their board by not having insulation behind the board so a sticking up piece of metal shorted out the board.
That is why everyone takes care to have a layer of insulation behind their board.
Your T18 shows a lot more resolution options than my R1811....
The way Apple does 'Retina' is to make the pixels tiny (5K) and the set a 'Default' resolution to use 4 of the tiny screen pixels to make 1 display pixel that your eyes see. They call it HiDPI.
So what you see at the Default resolution is normal.
True Tone probably needs Apple-specific sensors in the screen, so not available AFAIK.
Night Shift is dealt with by the Mac, so the button you show in your System Settings should work.
It does on my DIY monitor.
Choose the best looking colour setting for your screen - i.e match it to look the same as your iPad, which will have a good screen colour accuracy.
Earlier in this long thread there was a description of someone who destroyed a chip on their board by not having insulation behind the board so a sticking up piece of metal shorted out the board.
That is why everyone takes care to have a layer of insulation behind their board.
Your T18 shows a lot more resolution options than my R1811....
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It does look great, michaelsft
As for the tick noice. I have not heard it on my card. But you have a different card.
If there is a hum from vibration. I guess that is because it is only screwed on in the two lower corners? With the upper part free.
It sounds to me like you made a good call with your card. If some hum annoys you.
My R1811 has a fan running. I can hear it, slightly louder than my iMac Pro's fan.
As for the tick noice. I have not heard it on my card. But you have a different card.
If there is a hum from vibration. I guess that is because it is only screwed on in the two lower corners? With the upper part free.
It sounds to me like you made a good call with your card. If some hum annoys you.
My R1811 has a fan running. I can hear it, slightly louder than my iMac Pro's fan.
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Thanks for the information, it seems to be working just fine so I'll just go with the flow. I haven't changed any colour settings using the boards controls at all yet - it looks really nice already so I'll probably just leave it until I start doing some things that need colour accuracy - that might push me into looking into it further.Hi, glad its looking good
The way Apple does 'Retina' is to make the pixels tiny (5K) and the set a 'Default' resolution to use 4 of the tiny screen pixels to make 1 display pixel that your eyes see. The call it HiDPI.
So what you see at the Default resolution is normal.
True Tone probably needs Apple-specific sensors in the screen, so not available AFAIK.
Night Shift is dealt with by the Mac, so the button you show in your System Settings should work.
It does on my DIY monitor.
In system report I get this information which looks 100% correct to me.
This is the only thing that looks weird in settings - why it suggests it's 13.9" I have no idea. Any thoughts anyone?
Hello all,
After reading several stories, I also went for the T18 board and ordered it.
Installation was easy and without much effort in my iMac late 2015.
The screen is super nice, you don't notice any difference with the original iMac
I want to do some more testing later.
I also want to see which speakers and the original on/off button will be used
Ben
After reading several stories, I also went for the T18 board and ordered it.
Installation was easy and without much effort in my iMac late 2015.
The screen is super nice, you don't notice any difference with the original iMac
I want to do some more testing later.
I also want to see which speakers and the original on/off button will be used
Ben
I would encourage you to give it a go, I have no expertise at all but was able to muddle through quite easily. I thought it would be complex but it really wasn't. Main tips are to get a little cutter wheel tool to separate the screen from the iMac and to be really careful with the screen and also really careful around the iMac power supply as that could be dangerous if you're not. That aside it's pretty simply really. Gut the iMac, screw the new display board inside and connect it up.
Not sure what you mean by "legal way"… there is nothing illegal about this process. You could pay a local technician to do the work; it's just that Apple Authorized Service Providers may NOT do it, due to contractual limitations imposed by Apple on the kind of work they are/are not allowed to do. But that doesn't make this kind of project "illegal"; you own the iMac, you or anyone you contract with (sans AASPs) are free to do with its guts as you see fit, even transplant 3rd-party parts.
(Which, yes, I feel such limitations should not be "legal" for Apple to impose on its 3rd party technicians, it isn't "fair" to limit the scope of their business… however that's contract law for you. My understanding is that AASPs are not even allowed to permit non-AASP-certified technicians employed at the business to work on Apple equipment at all, to do this kind of thing; they'd lose their AASP status. Which is gross. There is a world of difference between fraudulently having non-certified techs doing work and saying it is "Apple official repair", and having non-certified techs doing non-Apple-approved work on Apple gear that the customer requests. My local AASP won't even install non-Apple parts—SSDs—into Vintage and Obsolete iMacs; they will, however, open and subsequently close an iMac, "officially". But folks like Louis Rossmann could absolutely make a side-hustle out of retro-fitting used 5K iMacs should they choose.)
This is interesting - thanks!
To michaelsft - with two very young kids at home in a two income household there are just so many other things on the endless to do list that there isn't really bandwidth for this admittedly fun-sounding experiment.
Well in Australia I don’t think the reusing of the iMac power socket would be legal because we have strict laws/regulations around mains electricity. I’ll post my conversion when I get a chance but yeah I just ran power out the RAM hatch.
Question, I have read through the forum but I haven't figured it out yet.
My T18 in late 2015 iMac runs like a charm and I am very happy with it
Does anyone have an example of how to install the original or other internal speaker and possibly camera and microphone on the T18 driver board?
My T18 in late 2015 iMac runs like a charm and I am very happy with it
Does anyone have an example of how to install the original or other internal speaker and possibly camera and microphone on the T18 driver board?
I'm pricing out a conversion, and it looks like it might be easier to get a deal on a Late 2014 iMac over a Late 2015. How much of a difference is there between the two screens in practice? The main use case is web development and casual photo editing.
It seems like I might not get much when I go to resell the logic board unless the machine is top spec, although the Late 2015 is at least Intel Skylake, so I would expect it to be a bit easier to sell than the 2014 which is Haswell. Everything else being equal, how much of a discount should I place on the Late 2014/Mid 2015 iMacs vs the Late 2015?
It seems like I might not get much when I go to resell the logic board unless the machine is top spec, although the Late 2015 is at least Intel Skylake, so I would expect it to be a bit easier to sell than the 2014 which is Haswell. Everything else being equal, how much of a discount should I place on the Late 2014/Mid 2015 iMacs vs the Late 2015?
"The new 27in iMac (Late 2015) has a display that might sound the same on paper to the 5K display in the preceding models, but it actually has a wider colour gamut. The newer models have a wider P3 colour gamut and will deliver 25 percent more colours than the previous one"
www.macworld.com
This will probably be important for photo editing?
Review of the 2015 27-inch Retina Mac 5K range
We take a look at the three new 27in iMacs, all of which now have a 5K Retina display, along with better Skylake processors.
www.macworld.com
This will probably be important for photo editing?
The most important thing Ive just learnt from experience is the condition of the panel. Unfortunately as I purchased my 2015 iMac on eBay I did not get to test the panel first. My panel, unfortunately, has the pink around the edges issue. The issue is quite well documented (there's threads on MacRumors - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2015-27-imac-has-pink-edges-anyone-else.2178372/ and https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2015-27-imac-pink-edges.2382083/ for example) but I'd never heard of it until I experienced it.
For those wanting to update to MacOS Sonoma, maybe wait a bit.
After updating to macOS Sonoma, my screen is acting strange. I have a r1811 v4, with a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip.
Connecting it via HDMI is no problem, but when connecting it with USB - C it recognises it and after 1 second it disconnects and then connects again. During this connecting and disconnecting, nothing is shown on the 27 inch display and it keeps on doing this without showing anything. The Macbook screen is flickering every time it connects/disconnects.
So no 5k screen for me, but 4k (since HDMI only supports 4k) with Sonoma.
Anyone else having the same issues?
After updating to macOS Sonoma, my screen is acting strange. I have a r1811 v4, with a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip.
Connecting it via HDMI is no problem, but when connecting it with USB - C it recognises it and after 1 second it disconnects and then connects again. During this connecting and disconnecting, nothing is shown on the 27 inch display and it keeps on doing this without showing anything. The Macbook screen is flickering every time it connects/disconnects.
So no 5k screen for me, but 4k (since HDMI only supports 4k) with Sonoma.
Anyone else having the same issues?
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Update: turning DSC off seems to have solved the problem.
However, I don't know the implications of turning this setting off. Can someone smarter than me explain what could be the effect of turning DSC off?
However, I don't know the implications of turning this setting off. Can someone smarter than me explain what could be the effect of turning DSC off?
Will the LM270QQ1 panel fit in an older A1312 chassis? Someone in my area is selling a 2009 27" chassis for $20. Looks like there is no ram access door, but other than that is the display compatible?