D.I.Y. Wacom Cintiq

December 28, 2006 7:24 PM

Like many who spend their days manipulating pixels on their computers I have drooled over the Wacom Cintiq but the price tag can be disconcerting. One enterprising person decided to build his own.
posted by Tenuki (18 comments total)

So enterprising, in fact, that the very same person evidently kept it to himself - the second link, at least for me, is a 404.
posted by FormlessOne at 7:28 PM on December 28, 2006

Broken link, dude. Tough crowd.
posted by matthewr at 7:28 PM on December 28, 2006

This is the real thing.
posted by matthewr at 7:29 PM on December 28, 2006

Crap, no link.

Here you go, chum.
posted by matthewr at 7:30 PM on December 28, 2006

Here's Part 1.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:31 PM on December 28, 2006

Thanks, matthewr & Optimus Chyme - appreciated. I'm one of the droolers, so I was curious about how he or she went about it.
posted by FormlessOne at 7:34 PM on December 28, 2006

Does he mention how much the total project cost him? While the fact that he managed to achieve this is interesting, I wonder if he actually saved money by creating it himself.

Also, this only worsened my craving for an Intuos tablet. I need to get on that.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 7:37 PM on December 28, 2006

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:58 PM on December 28, 2006

Does he mention how much the total project cost him? While the fact that he managed to achieve this is interesting, I wonder if he actually saved money by creating it himself.

I looked around a little, didn't find a price. Kind of a surprising/telling omission given that saving money is the primary goal of the project...

Is $2400 really that steep a price for a good quality 21" touchscreen monitor? Seems not to bad to me, actually. I want one.
posted by pkingdesign at 8:17 PM on December 28, 2006

According to the website through luck and skillful use of eBay it parts cost was just over £80.
posted by Tenuki at 8:26 PM on December 28, 2006

Here's his homebrew Cintiq in action.
posted by Tenuki at 8:28 PM on December 28, 2006

If you did this without salvaging, you'd easily get close to the retail price for an actual Cintiq.

Well, don't do that, then. Unless you think that it's just as easy to salvage a spare Cintiq than it is to salvage a low-end tablet and a broken LCD.
posted by mendel at 9:23 PM on December 28, 2006

Damn impressive hack. My only complaint is that the screen refresh rate in the video isn't that great, but I'm not familiar enough with the Cintiq to know if the bought product would be any better than the built. (Based on what I know about my Wacom, I'd guess that yeah, the bought is better, but the next question is £1920 and bragging rights on a cool build worth a few milliseconds of lag? I'd say hell yes.)

/looks over at old Wacom and non-working laptop's screen, and starts to scheme.
posted by quin at 9:28 PM on December 28, 2006

Not that I'm not impressed, but what's the big deal over Cintiq? I use a tablet pc for work and find it does an equally good job

well, except for the PC part...but other than that, it works just dandy.
posted by Hands of Manos at 9:57 PM on December 28, 2006

When dealing with large graphics projects most Tablet PCs are just too slow, too small and lack memory. They are great for sketching/doodling and taking notes though.
posted by Tenuki at 10:11 PM on December 28, 2006

I would do this with an array of 74,000 transparent plastic QWERTY keyboards arranged on top of a Jumbotron, with the fuselage of a Lear jet as my stylus. But then again, I'm myopic and a hundred feet tall.
posted by XMLicious at 11:59 PM on December 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

Eponysterical!
posted by notsnot at 4:15 AM on December 29, 2006

I agree with quin. By what I see in the youTube video, the time between when he makes a gesture and when the result appears on screen is quite long. Is this how the store bought cintiq functions?

If so, my cintiq drool factor has dropped.

I drool over the idea of a cintiq.

But I admire this fellow's skill, and I enjoyed reading about the project. (I got a kick out of the diagram where he indicates the location of the ionosphere.)

Plus, the animated stained glass window thing -- well, THAT'S a great idea. He should get right on that.
posted by Trochanter at 7:09 AM on December 29, 2006