Make Your Own Digital Photo Frame

Usually, digital photo frames available in the market are either too small or too expensive. We will help you build a decent sized digital photo frame all by yourself and within a budget of only four or five thousand rupees. All you would need to make one at home are a few old, but working electronic gadgets which you might have lying around the house or which you can even buy secondhand from the local market.

We have built our example using old computer parts and a few wooden scraps which were lying around our office. You can improvise on our method using your technical and artistic skills to build one even better.

What you need?
To build your very own digital picture frame here is a small checklist.

• An old 15-inch LCD monitor—either you can upgrade your present LCD and use the older one here or buy a secondhand but working one. (Rs 2,000 – 2,500 approx)
• A DVD player which can handle DivX movie files and photo slideshows via USB storage. (Chinese -  Rs 900 – 1,000 approx)
• An external TV tuner box with VGA output—usually used to watch TV on a computer monitor. (Rs 1000 approx)
• A small speaker—can be ripped out from an old computer cabinet or a discarded desktop speaker set.
• A few planks of wood, plexiglass, or whatever material you want to build the body out of. (Rs 150 approx)
• A few lengths of shielded and two-core wires—for audio/video cabling and supplying power respectively.
• A USB pen drive to store and play your video or photos from. (Rs 1,000 approx)
• Tools to put the above together—this would include a soldering iron, solder flux, woodsaw, hammer, nails, screws, PCB spacers for mounting, a power connector, USB connector, sandpaper, wood file, paint, moulded wood strips ,and any decorative material of your choice.

Make sure you have a stretch of time available and nothing distracts you, since mistakes could cause damage to the circuits.

All set? Move on to step 1 on the next page.

Step 1: Getting ready

Get ready with all the necessary items required for the workshop. At this stage, you will require the LCD monitor, the TV tuner box and the DVD player. First, connect the DVD player's outputs and plug the monitor into the tuner with their regular wires to ensure they are all working properly—especially playing your digital photos, videos, etc.

Step 2: Take them apart

Once you have tested the equipment, it is time to disassemble each box. Let’s begin with the DVD player. Carefully unscrew the cover. Save all the screws that are extracted from the unit as they could come in handy at any time.

Step 3: Study the circuit

Study the circuitry carefully. Take photos of the insides of the box or draw the diagram on a piece of paper to remember the connections. This is crucial as you will need to reconnect them with their internal ribbon cables which will most probably be unmarked.

The DVD player contains three or four main stages for functioning. You will need to detach each one carefully. The first stage is the main decoder board which converts the digital data from a USB port or a DVD/CD into analog audio and video signals. The second stage is the power supply which provides all the necessary power to the unit. The third stage is the front panel which contains the playback controls. This circuit is not required as you can control the player via the remote. You will only have to extract the IR sensor from this circuit board.

Note: If you are not comfortable with dealing with electronic equipment or have very little knowledge of the same, we recommend contacting a trained friend or professional to help you with this workshop.

The fourth stage is the mechanical optical drive which handles the optical media. This can be dismantled and discarded completely as we will not be using it in our workshop (though you could find your own use for it). In some cases you will need to find the sensor switches which inform the unit when the drive tray is open or closed, and override them by short circuiting them, so that the codec panel will sense that the optical drive is empty (even though there won't be one in the final project). If the logic panel senses an error with the drive tray, it might not be able to function till that is addressed.

Step 4: Discard unnecessary bits

Once all the circuitry is carefully studied and separated, we will use only two stages—the decoder board and the power supply. A few more parts that will come in handy at a later stage are the power switch, a few wires, the amplifier unit and some connectors.

Step 5: The monitor

Time to separate the LCD monitor from its stand. In our case, we have just separated the main unit from the stand and kept the rest intact so we can reassemble the monitor and use it again if the photo frame is ever taken apart, but this will increase the depth of the picture frame by a few inches depending on the LCD monitor model. If you need, you can also extract the actual LCD panel itself from the monitor casing along with the necessary circuitry and power supply and discard the plastic shell to reduce the weight and size of the final product. Parts of an LCD monitor are very delicate; therefore we would recommend that you handle them with extreme care if you choose to do this.     

Step 6: The TV Tuner

Now disassemble the TV tuner box. Unscrew the plastic lid and a single circuit board will be visible. There is not much to worry about here as the connections are pretty straightforward. There is generally no internal wiring, only connectors.