Dis-assembly and testing

I was given a damaged Acer Aspire One 722 Netbook. The screen was cracked and the hard drive was damaged after someone stepped on it. The specs were decent (for a netbook);

• AMD Dual-core C-60 APU (1.33GHz)
• Radeon HD 6290 video (256MB dedicated)
• 1 GB DDR3 memory (needs to be upgraded)
• VGA, HDMI, 3 USB, ethernet, speaker, & mic ports
• Webcam, speakers, & microphone
• Built-in wireless, SD card reader
• 6 cell battery (holds a 5+ hour charge)

I quickly put together in my head that, with a little work, this could be the backbone for a decent Windows 7 (or Windows 8, Ubuntu, etc) tablet. I would need to somehow remove the screen, keyboard and mouse, and fit a new LED screen and touch panel kit in where the keyboard was (with some modifications of course). I have never modded anything before, so I thought that this free and already 'broken' netbook would be a perfect place to start. I didn't take a picture before I started tearing it apart, but it looked something like this:

I wont talk about specific details because I would imagine this can be done with most netbooks (and laptops for that matter). There are many videos on Youtube that will show you how to take apart almost any netbook and some that will even walk you through the touch screen kit modification.

First I removed the screen by removing the screen bezel, keyboard, and entire lid to the netbook hardware. I unplugged the screen and webcam and unscrewed the hinge screws to remove the screen. I was left with the bottom of the netbook and its hardware, as well as the battery. This was all I needed to power it up and test it out on an external monitor. After successful tests, I installed a spare Seagate 100GB hard drive and then a fresh copy of Windows 7.

So far the system has been running fine. Now to plan out how I am going to fit the new screen and touch screen. I am planning on using a 10.1" LED. It originally had a 11.6" but not only is it too big for the casing, but 10.1" screens are cheaper 10.1" touch kits are much easier to find too. I plan to add a USB 10.1" resistive touch screen kit, so the touch screen will occupy one of the three USB ports when in use (until I figure out how and where to solder).

I want to try to fit all of this inside of the top of the netbook hardware, where the keyboard was. I will need to buy a rotary saw and cut out almost the entire palm rest to get the screen to fit but it should fit nicely with some space on the sides (which I will need to fill some how). I removed the mouse touch pad but left the light indicators. I will also try to arrange the mic and webcam to be usable... probably toward the bottom, where the mouse buttons are.

Hope this works!

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