Anyone have a wacom tablet and a laptop that they can test..

[Dark Savant0]

for me? I have an idea and here is the gist:

Wacom tablet's use active digitizer's to simulate where a mouse could be based upon the movements of a pen that emits electromagnetic signals. Many laptops use this and place an active digitizer behind the LCD in order to do the grunt work and then connect the digitizer to the laptop.

My idea would be the same, essentially taking a Wacom tablet and two laptops, sticking the tablet behind the LCD and then retro-fitting the laptop into the case of a larger laptop. This would also give me room for other things with a large enough laptop case, but the main thing would be to fit the Wacom tablet inside the LCD panel.

Here is where you, owner of a Wacom tablet and laptop. Anyone feeling especially adventurous can take apart the backing of the laptop LCD and stick the Wacom tablet on the back of the LCD, connect the Wacom tablet to the laptop, and attempt to write with it. If it works, then I will continue with my plan. If not, I will look for some other solution.

If you don't think you can handle taking apart your baby (I have 6 laptops (4 work fully), so I don't have this problem), then just place the Wacom tablet behind the panel and attempt to write with the backing of the LCD panel still on.

In theory, it should still work because there is hovering allowed for the Wacom tablet. Of course, a quarter inch thinkness might be too great for even this to hold with something in between, but one can hope.

If anyone can help me with this, I would greatly appreciate it. SO GO FORTH AND TEST FOR ME MY PRETTIES!

[bicostp]

I have a plastic lens from an overhead projector, it's about the same thickness as an LCD I think... The cursor is really jumpy unless you've got the stylus pressed onto the plastic.

You'll need to put some acrylic in front of the screen, or else you'll wind up with a *crack!* sound when you use extra pressure. Not cool.

A while back on Engadget, they showed a homemade Wacom touchscreen. They used a Dell LCD monitor, but the basic idea is the same. Here's the build link:
http://www.bongofish.co.uk/wacom/wacom_pt1.html

[Dark Savant0]

I checked your link, and subsequently the forums there, and apparently someone else did similar here. Someone else is also attempting one here, but with an Aiptek tablet.

Both raise some interesting points about magnetic fields, so does anyone know of how shielding works and what would be a good cheap way of shielding a laptop?