Ask HN: Prototyping a tablet-like device | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Prototyping a tablet-like device

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I've been interested in hardware development for a long time now, I never gave it a serious try because it seemed like a very difficult field to get into.

I have finally decided to give it a shot and start out small. I want to prototype a "simple" tablet-like device by purchasing a ~15" touch panel and hooking it up to a Raspberry Pi, but even this has been putting up a lot of roadblocks for me.

I've been able to find what seems to be a good place to find LCD screens (panelook.com) and I was able to learn that I need an LCD and controller board combo for my prototype. But finding a combo that supports the LCD and the touch screen functionality seems impossible.

Does anyone have tips how to approach something like this? Any great forums/websites with a community that is happy to answer questions?

not 15", but it does already include touch...

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2407

...yes, I saw multiple such screens. I want a large screen and I do want to learn something, i.e. how to actually turn this into a product. I can't seriously buy these pre-made touch screens and sell them as a product with an RPi.

Why not?

Plenty of commercial systems are bolted-together, commercial-off-the-shelf components or whole products. How many small shops have you swiped a credit card at, and their "register" was an iPad in a stand? Doing so lets you focus on the actual core competency of your business or product. If you're worrying about what some unknown customer might think about the appearance of your product at this stage, you're not focusing on the product itself.

This is as much about the product for me as it is about playing around with hardware and learning. Right now, at this stage I have so many software projects that I would like to learn some hardware, buying a pre-made screen and plugging it into a tablet is incredibly boring intellectually.

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