NUC's eDP port issues

There is some issue with the eDP port. First it has only 2 lane, second the maximum Vin which is around 19V is simple not enough for drive the LED strings on the panel. We need 48V. So what should we do? There is a few LED driver IC on the market, but most of them not supported the 48V, just under. After a research I found the perfect candidate: Texas Instruments TPS61199. It has a wide range input from 8V-30V and 60V output, can handle 8 LED strings with max. 70mA each (we need only 6 and 20mA). That's more than enough.
If we got everything on board we need a cable from the LCD panel to the motherboard. It's a little bit tricky, I'm not sure right now the motherboard's eDP port can actually drive the panel, I mean the 2 lane is enough or not. Theoretically is enough for 2560x1600 with 30Hz. So I don't know if we should use a normal displayport or not. And because of this I designed a breakout board PCB.

The plane is to connect the eDP cable(previous post) to the breakout board, set some jump wire and connect the LED driver board then the LCD panel's IPEX plug too. If this is not working somehow I just replace the eDP cable with a normal displayport cable, then reset the jump wires. That's it.

What about the LCD panel?

Good question. I didn't talk about this before. There was two candidate. One of them is a Macbook Pro Retina 13.3" panel. The other one is from the new Chromebook with 2560x1700 resolution. The macbook's panel is a Samsung LSN133DL02-A02 or LG LP133WQ1-SJA1 with a resolution of 2560x1600. There is some known issue with the LG's one like IR, but Samsung is okay. The Chromebook's panel, LP129QE1-SPA1 is a cheap alternative and if you thinking about building something similar you should buy this one. Seriously it's 5 or 6 times cheaper! But I already have a disassembled top lid from a Macbook (A1502), so it's an obvious choice. Another plus I don't need to design a new lid.

The LCD cable has a 30 pin IPEX (20634) connector and because it's not compatible with the NUC's eDP cable, I developing a breakout board. In the next post you'll see.

Pinout for NUC's eDP cable

There is a eDP cable on the market for the first generation NUC, for the DE3815TYBE exactly. But regarding to the tech spec guide the connector pin out on the motherboard is the same with the 5th generation model. On the mobo you can find a JAE FI-X30SSLA-HF connector so the cable plug should be a FI-X30H or a FI-X30HL.
I ordered one and yesterday the mailman just dropped by, so let's see the cable.
Part number: INTL-EDP-FTDS

So here is the JAE FI-X30HL connector pinout:

 1 NC
 2 GND black
 3 LANE1 P black
 4 LANE1 N white
 5 GND black
 6 LANE0 P red
 7 LANE0 N white
 8 GND black
 9 AUX P blue
10 AUX N white
11 GND black
12 LCD_VCC black
13 LCD_VCC brown
14 NC
15 GND black
16 GND black
17 HPD red
18 GND black
19 GND black
20 GND black
21 GND black
22 ENABLE orange
23 PWM_DIM yellow
24 NC
25 NC
26 BKLT_PWR green
27 BKLT_PWR blue
28 BKLT_PWR purple
29 BKLT_PWR grey
30 NC

And here is the other side of the cable which should be an IPEX 20634 CABLINE-CA connector, the pinout:

 1 NC
 2 GND
 3 LANE1 P black
 4 LANE1 N white
 5 GND
 6 LANE0 P red
 7 LANE0 N white
 8 GND
 9 AUX P blue
10 AUX N white
11 GND
12 LCD_VCC black
13 LCD_VCC brown
14 NC
15 GND
16 GND
17 HPD red
18 GND
19 GND
20 GND
21 GND
22 ENABLE orange
23 PWM_DIM yellow
24 NC
25 NC
26 BKLT_PWR green
27 BKLT_PWR blue
28 BKLT_PWR purple
29 BKLT_PWR grey
30 NC

If you wondering about what happened with the lot of black wires(GND)? well it's converter into a big one.
Maybe this information is useful for someone else too.

NUC alternative (?)

I just got a hint about Sapphire's 4x4 AMD solution. Check out the BP-FT3GS board.

It's really nice, it has a AMD G-series processor and smaller than the NUC! But after a little research the lack of displayport is a disadvantage and I'm not sure what is the maximum resultion for HDMI output. The price is really friendly it's only 170USD, but I already bought my NUC so.. And btw it's looks like kind of same as the GizmoSphere's Gizmo 2.

Let's continue

After a little more research I found some other "possible" solution, the Intel 2th generation Compute Stick with m3 or m5 processor. The problem with this.. they not on the market yet only the atom version, but atom can't handle 4K. There is an another thing to notice, the price. Ohh and I totally forget: You need a 4K HDMI to DP converter and it's rear. Only 2 chipset is ready for this: ST's STDP2600 and Realtek's RTD2796. First one is sold, I mean ST sold the complete division to an other party, so let's say it's not in the game anymore. The second is rare as hell.
Time to go back to the NUC. I choosed the NUC5i5MYBE because it has two DisplayPort and an eDP connector! And it has an i5 core, max.16GB ram, 15W TDP like most of the NUCs. Well i managed to get one for less than 200USD from ebay, that was a good deal, right?

The fall-backs: I found out the eDP port only has 2 lanes, that's sucks because most of the LCD panels use 4 lanes with HBR and not HBR2 like the NUC. Maybe later this will be a problem. But you can always use a DP port, right?

Introduction

This is our first post, so..
Our plan is simple. Get every components in the market then build something different. Just look at the Raspberry Pi Zero, it's so small.. and the first thing come in to your mind.. la-la-la.. build some hand-held or notebook/netbook. Get a keyboard, LCD screen, Li-Po and your done. There is already a few all-in-one solution on the market, but all of them lack of quality, tiny LCD or just ugly as hell.

Okay what's next? You already put everything together in your head, but something missing or just not good enough, it's 2016 after all.
For the modern requirement, we should get a min. 2560x1600 pixel LCD panel, right? Okay but look at the Pi's specification. First problem is Pi's HDMI port not support this resolution, the maximum is full HD, that's sucks. So what's next?
The problem is here: there not too much 4K( or 3K ) solution on the market, at least not in the ARM segment. You can easily find the ODROID XU3 but it's discontinued and you can't dig up one on earth! Nor ebay nor anywhere else.  
Okay let's look after some x86 solution. You should find a mobo with an i3/i5/i7 core, enough ram and of course 4K supported DP port. Wait a minute why DP? because most of the modern LCD panels are with eDP connector. If you want to make your life easier, think ahead. Most mobos are pricey I mean really pricey, an embedded SBC in picoITX format is around 400USD+. So we got to the final conclusion: we step back to full HD or we get an Intel NUC.

To be continued..