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“Ben: Greetings my friends, you are here because you are interested in the unknown - the unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now for the first time ever, we bring you the full story of how to build a see-through portal t-shirt right here on The Ben Heck Show.”
In the year 2000, Ben Heckendorn built his first mod.
“Ben: We can rebuild it smaller, better, portable.”
Since then, he has continued his work - helping those in need with creating new projects. If you’ve got an idea you would like to see built, why not send it to The Ben Heck Show.
“Ben: Hello and welcome back to The Ben Heck Show. On today’s episode, we are going to... hold on - getting a call. Hello.”
“Jason: Hey man, it’s your friend Jason Jones. Are you still doing that show?”
“Ben: Yeah, actually I am recording it right now.”
“Jason: Sweet, hey - I was thinking, you should do a see-through portal shirt based off the classic game also called Portal. You know the one with the cake that lies.”
“Ben: You know that actually sounds like a pretty cool idea, it would be great for a Halloween costume or maybe something to wear to game convention.”
“Jason: Nice, well I will let you get to it then.”
“Ben: Oh no, you are coming over here and helping.”
“Jason: Noooooooooooooooooooooo!”
A little background - Portal was a video game created by Valve in 2007, the premise of the game was your character shot these portals, or doors, through materials and she could travel through them to solve puzzles. Our idea is to create a t-shirt/costume that will replicate this idea in a fun and exciting way.”
“Ben: Okay, let’s take a look at the theory of operation for this project. Okay, here is our subject - they have got on a white t-shirt, I picked white because it will kind of look like the environment in Portal. There is going to be a portal here in the center, and what we are going to do is we will be able to see through the shirt. So if there are some mountains, or bar-goers, or festival-goers, or whatever behind this person - you will see it through the shirt.
Okay, here is a side view of the person’s torso. The plan is to have an LCD screen here, the largest we can get and still have it be something that you can fit on your chest. It will be here and it will be projecting the image that is captured by a little CCD camera back here. So, light comes in and goes right through the person. And then down here, you’ve got the battery pack that will power it - probably 12 volts. You want something that will last maybe 3 hours. The person can turn it on and off when need be, but this is the basic system: camera, battery, LCD.”
“Ben: Okay, well here is the camera we got - it’s the Defender Security. Alright, so let’s take a look at this. A cord assembly, power and video. This is what is going to go to the LCD and this is what goes to the power supply. Power is almost always red and it almost always 5 volts. Yellow can sometimes mean 12 volts, but in this case we know that it means video. Okay, here is the CCD camera itself, it actually looks very similar to what’s in the X-Box 360 - the little vision cameras. See, it is just a little camera package all-in-one, so this will be pretty easy for us. It even has a lens cap.
This screw here, let’s try that - yep, that is what changes the focus. Okay, now it is time to test this little camera. I didn’t have the right adapter to go from this plug to a standard RCA, so I just hooked it up using some jumpers. I didn’t hack it up yet just in case this thing isn’t working. I want to still be able to return it or use it for something else. For a power supply, it needs 12 volts so I got this Atari Jacquard power supply. So, hopefully that won’t jinx us. Okay, we are ready to do a test. I hooked it up to my TV here, let’s see - I am going to power it up and see what happens. That boots pretty quickly. So I am going to do the focus on this and set it to a distance I think would be useful.
See that wooden thing over there? That is my amazing “I” table. That is about 5 ft from the camera. I think that would be a good focal distance. I am going to adjust the lens until that is in focus. Then I am going to lock it down. Viewer quality doesn’t look quite so hot on this giant TV, but when it’s on a small LCD I think it will look just fine.”
“Ben: Okay, now it is time to hook up our LCD to our battery pack and see if they will all work together. And then also see how much power it takes. Alright - so as you can see, the screen here is wired in parallel with the camera. So, we are going to hook the positive voltage from the battery pack into our multi-meter, switch the multi-meter to display current, so we switch it over to the current input and switch this to amp, so we will see how much power it is taking. So, when you send amps or currents in a circuit you always want to wire in a line.
So, positive voltage goes through the multi-meter so it can see how much it is drawing, and then goes into the unit. So it is like this - jigajew jigajew jigajew. Your multi-meter is actually part of the circuit when you test that, and then we hook up ground. Let there be light. There we go. As you can see, there is the ceiling - it is showing up. And over here we are showing about 390 milli-amps. So that’s good. We have 21 milli-amp power battery, so in theory you should get what? 2100 divided by 400 is approximately 5 - I highly doubt you will get that much. You will get at least 3, guaranteed - depending on the charge of the battery.”
“Ben: Now let’s take a break from our Viewer Challenge and work on the X-Box 360 laptops some more. In today’s episode, we are going to be modifying the LCD screen so that we can put it into the laptop, as well as starting some of the other wiring.”
“Ben: Okay, now we are going to take apart the LCD monitor for use with the X-Box 360 laptop. Now, I like this model - it is getting kind of out-of-date, but I have used it quite a few times. It’s a Gateway 1775W. 17 inch wide-screen, it has a DVI input, which is more or less the same as HDMI - so we can hook it up digitally. The thing I really like about this screen is the resolution is exactly 1280 x 720. So it is exactly the 720 HD resolution. So when you hook the X-Box up to it, the pixels are kind of on a one-to-one ratio. The X-Box will work with a strange resolution, something like 1440 x 800 - it will work with that but there might be a little fuzziness to it.
So this one has a nice crisp picture. Okay, to take this apart, we are going to start by putting down a piece of foam. This is just some white foam I got from Hobby Lobby. We do this just to keep the screen safe. It is always good to be careful. Alright, once all the screws are removed we can continue to take it apart, and like so many things these days - it snaps apart and together. So, get a screwdriver and find a seam and twist it, see how it starts to open there? What do I care, I am not putting this back together again. Okay, so it looks like we have some screws on the sides here. There is a metal mount which holds the LCD in.
The metal mount is what is actually attached to the plastic case. It looks like there is another surprise for us here. See how the data cable goes through the shield. So we have to remove the shielding before we can pull out the screen completely. Okay, see this thing here? That is called a ZIF (zero insertion force) socket. It is important to undo this carefully, or you will ruin it. What you do is you take a flat-head screwdriver, twist up on one side, it flips up and you can pull the ribbon cable out. Okay, well here are the three parts of the LCD all together: power, driver, screen. In the next step we will modify these things so we can use it with our portable. Alright, so I am going to use a Dremel to knock down these tabs a little bit.
When we are soldering, there is less mass to pull through the circuit board - unless you have heat. Okay, here is the part that is going to make some of you cringe. A blow-torch like this is a lot cheaper than a hot-air station. So, you want to get right on it - get your pliers ready so when it comes loose you will be ready. Don’t get too close because you don’t want to destroy the traces. Come on, yeah - give it to me, baby! Yeah! Go for it, yeah! Swish - 3 points.”
“Ben: Okay, the driver board here - what we need to do is split this into 2 parts for our X-Box 360 laptop. Let’s take a look at this board here. Clearly you can see the white line up here, which shows the AC/DC separation. But, we also need to split off this. So, if you look right here you will see there is a big ground plane here and here. Then you have power coming from the DC over to the converter, so we should be able to cut it right through here. Okay, take a look - we’ve got a scrape here from the knife and then here I have Dremeled this corner and then we have the knife again. I didn’t Dremel the whole thing, because even I don’t care for that must dust inhalation.
So now, I am just going to bend it here. Did you hear that snap? And then, bend it down here. Keep your thumbs under it, so when it snaps it snaps right where the line is because you don’t want to crack or break the circuit board under the service components. Now that the circuit board is split we have to make sure we reconnect the ground connections as need be. There are quite a few of them, you can see three here, and then there are two here. Okay, I have the bulb inverter all set. It has a 12 volt line attached, it’s got the bulb enable attached, and it’s got the ground attached as we discussed. So, this is ready to go into the top of the LCD, so we are going to go on to installing the parts into the lid that we routed.”
“Ben: Now around the edges, there is a little bit of gap on the design. So, I am going to actually use some of this self-adhesive foam I got at Hobby Lobby - must buy all of it! It is great, you can use it for all sorts of stuff from padding, spacing. See how it fits in there nice and tight? Okay, let’s start putting parts in this board - you might remember the driver board and the socket. Get in there! Okay, so that’s hooked up. Now, we are going to insulate it against the metal here. I have this plastic that I pulled off of something, I don’t know what. But, I am going “green” and recycling it.
Okay, we have the driver board and the light board both wired up and they are wired to each other. The next step is to take this HDMI to DVI conversion cable and hook it up manually. There are four pair of twisted data cables, and each one has a colored wire and a white wire. There is red, green, blue and brown. So, we have to separate these into bundles so we can lay them down flat. Here is a close-up, I have taken the red, green and blue ones and put them on the left because most of the data goes right here. And the last one, the brown, is pulled out this way so it goes to the right. Also all these loose wires, these are like data hot plug connect, etc.
These all go to the right as well. Here is a close-up of one of the connections, we have got the white wire on the left, the colored wire in the middle, then the ground on the right. And you know, we wired this very carefully and it should work. Okay, now we have the funky foam all over the units, so when we put on the lid - the back of the lid will push against the LCD so the LCD will be tight in place.”
“Ben: Hey, this X-Box 360 laptop is actually starting to look like a laptop. In the next episode we will continue wiring it and we will be a lot closer to the finish. Now, let’s get back to the Viewer Challenge.”
“Ben: Brad, you’re not Jones. Where is Jones?”
“Brad: I don’t know some massive fall-off, I don’t know we won’t see him for a week.”
“Ben: Oh my gosh, it must be that evil reach game that came out.”
“Brad: That could be it.”
“Ben: If you have seen Jason Jones, please call our hotline below. You can help save his life. Alright, anyway I have all the parts we need to put together the portal shirt. A bunch of funky foam, which is great - beef jerky, lots of Velcro, and then over here I have got some screws, felt, straps. Okay, we have this pattern here which shows the largest oval we can fit onto the LCD. Alright, we cut the pattern and taped it to the LCD so it fits, right? So we can see how the oval is going to show through. So let’s put it where we want it and then we will tape this and hinge it, that way we can cut through the paper for the LCD. No when to say when.”
“Brad: Come down just a hair. That’s it, good right there.”
“Ben: Okay, that’s perfect?”
“Brad: I think that is good.”
“Ben: Alright, ta da.”
“Brad: An oval.”
“Ben: Now that’s how you make a pattern. Remember a sharp knife is a safe knife because if your knife is dull, you push unnecessarily hard and then it could slip and that is when you cut yourself. Alright, you need to put that Velcro around the oval on the inside. What’s wrong?”
“Brad: It’s not adhesive back - what are we going to do?”
“Ben: We need a glue gun. Portable work bench!”
“Brad: Okay, so what we have done is we have our strips of Velcro, we cut them into small pieces. And we used a hot-glue gun to glue them around the portal shirt.”
“Ben: Okay, you see the LCD here, the first thing we are going to do is add some funky foam to make all the thickness even. So it is basically a consistent depth. Okay, I have cut the portal’s pattern so I can match it back up to the LCD - so I know where the top of the LCD is at the top level. Oh hot-glue, you are my friend. I know sometimes I don’t treat you right, or remember your birthday but I do love you hot-glue. Okay, so now we are going to figure out how to hook up the straps. Don’t let go Brad. This is not nearly the most ridiculous thing I have ever worn.
Alright, so we will mark that spot. Just as I expected, we pretty much made a bra. Okay, so we have this plastic film that goes on the screen. We are going to put the Velcro on it, and you can see through the film so we can see our reference oval. So this Velcro will match up with what’s on the shirt and hopefully give us a nice, pure portal oval. All right, why don’t you fire it up - Ahhhhhhhhh! Hold the battery, okay you have the camera still? All right make a really small mark on the shirt.”
“Brad: Is the camera straight?”
“Ben: Yeah. Got it?”
“Brad: Got it. Here is the center of the shirt, so here is the target where the lens will be sitting.”
“Ben: So you are saying that we will attach the camera to the white undershirt and it will just stick through a hole in the back of the other shirt?”
“Brad: I think that will help hold the camera in place, and then protect the camera a little bit more.”
“Ben: So we need to get the camera lined up the right way so it matches up with the angle of the LCD up front. Well we have a spare pattern, so we will put that there. We will just cut off the bottom of it and line up the camera and the angle, and Bam!”
“Brad: So what do we do with the funky foam here, Benny? Isn’t that just to cover up the wiring and the camera, kind of?”
“Ben: Yeah, just to try and give it a little bit of structure. Also, sewing will hold it in place and this will just keep it as straight up and down as possible.”
“Brad: I got you.”
“Ben: I want to see how it works on the actual shirt. Oh, I’ve got a portal in me this big.”
“Brad: Hey, we got the project done. Will we still be able to return that shirt to Wal-Mart though?”
“Ben: Excuse me, I bought this shirt but there is a portal in it.”
“Wal-Mart Employee: Do you have the receipt?”
“Ben: That is all the time we have for today, be sure to tune in next time when we build a laptop you can actually comfortably use in the coach section of an airplane. I know, it sounds daunting, but we are going to try it and find the way. We will see you then.”
The Ben Heck Show was made possible by our sponsors at element 14. For more information on all my projects and for a list of all the parts I used today, visit element14.com. Visit their community and The Ben Heck Show using the URL below. Join me there to get more details about a chance to win the X-Box 360 laptop we are building. We will see you next time.