First Project / Post - Salvaged Resistive Touchscreen

[Wannabehandyman]

Hey guys,

This is my first post so go easy on me. Recently took apart a Dell Axim X3 (read: rendered permanently inoperable) however the resistive touch screen was working fine prior to this. It has two FFC ZIF type cables coming off of it, the wider one seems to be around 50 pins or so (the 1st on the far left has a gap between the next one) and then another FFC cable sticking out right above it with 4 larger gold-plated connectors, not 100% sure what that does.

Now let's all of us assume that I don't know a whole hell of a lot about franksteining a salvaged (though ostensibly working) resistive touch screen LCD into another device...for my purposes, it could be a crude drawing pad and input device, can anyone point me in the right direction so far as what resources I'd want to study / obtain to make this happen? I realize this touchscreen was made to function on a device that used an ARM processor as opposed to hardware normally suited to desktops, but could it be implemented into something like, say, a Raspberry Pi or similar SOC configuration? I'm not looking to buy a graphics pad / input device...I'm looking to build one with stuff I have. Possible or no? I look forward to everybody's input. Thanks guys.

 

[donkey]

everything is possible. My greatest failing is programming atm. and in this case it might be yours too.
we could give you a pin out to hook it up but without softare to drive it its kinda useless.
do you have a nintendo wii by chance? someone on these forums showed a marvelous little thing using the wii remote a bluetooth adaptor, an infared "pen" and an lcd screen. the software for which is already there ready to go for windows. however linux (for raspberry pi) is completely different

link to the wii whiteboard thingy

 

[Wannabehandyman]

Hey thank you for your input Donkey I appreciate it, and thanks to the mod who moved this to appropriate forum.

I do have a Wii Remote (don't have the Wii, forgot to pawn off that last Wiimote when I sold it ), currently waiting on some Raspberry Pis as they are on backorder...to be perfectly honest I've been lately trying to cram as much independent study into electronics and computers as I can, programming will be a big priority (I have a very very rudimentary grasp of programming concepts) in the future for the type of projects / hobby / God-willing business I am hoping to get into.

Is there any light you can shed on the ZIF sockets using FFC? If you were somehow able to procure a pinout for that particular touchscreen wow that'd be amazing. I guess it wouldn't be rocket science to figure it out, it's just that a personal shortcoming of mine is that while I know how to install hardware and identify PCB components (to an extend), I'm not sure where to find pinouts for peripheral devices...USB might be a different story since it isn't proprietary to one technology or another.

Once again, thank you!