The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

If you're making a portable you probably need something to watch it on. (Unless you want to guess what's happening in the game, but I wouldn't advise that) Anyway, this forum is your "Hacking a pocket TV/screen" one-stop solution. Share your experiences and knowledge here.

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Tchay
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The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by Tchay » Sat Jul 03, 2010 12:52 am

http://www.aliexpress.com/product-gs/25 ... alers.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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My second-favorite pair of boxers (right behind the silky Santa Claus ones)

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^ here you can see the control tacts. Green acts as a switch from VGA to AV (one simple push, no holding required for any of the tacts). Red acts as a power switch - push once to turn off the screen; push again to turn the screen back on.

Heres the cool part:Pushing blue actually displays a TV menu to change the brightness, contrast, H-position, or V-position. Very impressive.

The two non-colored tacts are used to change the brightness, etc for the TV menu. I am still trying to figure out how to get audio. I'm pretty sure this board has a built in audio amp, could be wrong though.

HEAT
The main chip gets a lil hot but its nothing to worry about, The leftmost and largest coil on the board gets very hot. I would strongly recommend heat sinking this coil and some of the surrounding capacitors when shoving this into a portable. proper fan ventilation would work as well.

DIMENSIONS
most measurements and specs can be found here

The cable from the LCD display to the controller board is long enough that I was able to turn the board perpendicular. So basically you can move the board around to the side slightly to make more room.

Display is beautiful (although this is my first VGA/AV screen so I have nothing to compare it to). If I ever get a PS1 screen Ill do a visual comparison. I'm sure this screen has better colors than the PS1 screen though.

This came with an already-hooked-up VGA plug, so all I had to do was hook up the monitor cable from my computer and voila: VGA computer viewing on my 5" display. Actually, I have been typing this entire review on the 5" screen, no joke. I also watched IGN's latest REWIND THEATRE of Zelda: Skyward Sword on my lil screen. Anybody see that yet? Pretty cool, although I'm not digging Links getto pants...

CABLES/PLUGS
So theres no confusion: This comes with a VGA input plug, 5 tact switches (with 3 empty tact spots included), AV input plug (ground and the yellow composite wire), and then the power input plug (ground and 12V red wire). All of this junk is pre-wired and go to plugs on the board itself (just like on the PS1 motherboard). I noticed some pins on these board plugs not being used, maybe audio is on the 3 empty pins next to AV. I'll keep you guys posted on that.

One more thing: The switch from VGA to AV works perfectly. I was worried about this at first because I plan to have VGA on a future project of mine. But seeing as some games don't support VGA, I wanted to have the ability for the player to switch from VGA to AV with ease. This board makes that possible. As I explained earlier, all you have to do is push the VGA/AV toggling tact switch. The board also has auto switching from PAL to NTSC, not a big deal for me though.
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snowpenguin
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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by snowpenguin » Sat Jul 03, 2010 2:20 am

How'd you go about buying it?

How many did you get, did they give you a quantity discount?

And why not get this one for cheaper?
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-gs/30 ... alers.html
Will post cheaper as i find them.
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-gs/28 ... alers.html
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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by Tchay » Sat Jul 03, 2010 3:42 am

hmm, looks like I should have searched around on the site.

I can't really notice any differences on the cheapest screen you showed. My screen and the one you showed are both sold by Lisa Wang. So I'm confused as to why she would have identical screens for different prices. I've already contacted her to see whats up.
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snowpenguin
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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by snowpenguin » Sat Jul 03, 2010 3:45 am

Probably to get people who cant find the cheaper ones AND people who can, more money made.

How did you pay?

I suppose $80 isn't as bad as it might be, and if we got a big lot of em quantity discount could bring em down pretty far, then resell in that top secretmajig that nobody at bh knows about :D
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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by Tchay » Sat Jul 03, 2010 3:58 pm

snowpenguin wrote:Probably to get people who cant find the cheaper ones AND people who can, more money made.

How did you pay?

I suppose $80 isn't as bad as it might be, and if we got a big lot of em quantity discount could bring em down pretty far, then resell in that top secretmajig that nobody at bh knows about :D
I paid 100 for my screen. Still waiting to here back from her :facepalm:

But yeah, she definitely is looking for mass orders so I might be able to work something out for her. Buy maybe 10 screens? I would probably ask for 60 or 70.
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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by snowpenguin » Sat Jul 03, 2010 4:02 pm

might be a bit low for ten.

for that super secret thing that no one at bh knows about, that super secret person could get a lot im sure, like 30 :D he has so much moneh.
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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by limpport » Sat Jul 03, 2010 11:38 pm

snowpenguin wrote:might be a bit low for ten.

for that super secret thing that no one at bh knows about, that super secret person could get a lot im sure, like 30 :D he has so much moneh.
The person in charge of the MR store?

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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by snowpenguin » Sun Jul 04, 2010 12:22 am

fffff all the benheckians go to mr nao :3
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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by limpport » Sun Jul 04, 2010 11:37 pm

I was just making a wild guess :P

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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by Haunted360 » Fri Jul 16, 2010 3:52 am

Good find. A little expensive I must say for the seller to sell it at that price. But, never the less it is a good screen if all the PSone screens run out from modders :wink:

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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by Ashen » Wed Mar 02, 2011 10:37 am

Has anyone tried running these displays off 5v only for an extended period? The linked website says 12v +/- 25% but the data sheet here http://www.good-lcd.com/upfile/product/ ... 443371.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; makes it look as though it just takes the 12v and drops it down to 5v anyway? I'm thinking the board would produce a lot less heat if run on 5v input alone. Tested briefly with a lab supply and @ 5v the mah goes up to .6ish (@11.1v mah is .3ish) but the screen seems to work fine.

By the way, these displays are beautiful. Much better looking image than the PSone screen delivers.
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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by Tchay » Sat Mar 12, 2011 11:12 pm

Ashen wrote:Has anyone tried running these displays off 5v only for an extended period? The linked website says 12v +/- 25% but the data sheet here http://www.good-lcd.com/upfile/product/ ... 443371.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; makes it look as though it just takes the 12v and drops it down to 5v anyway? I'm thinking the board would produce a lot less heat if run on 5v input alone. Tested briefly with a lab supply and @ 5v the mah goes up to .6ish (@11.1v mah is .3ish) but the screen seems to work fine.

By the way, these displays are beautiful. Much better looking image than the PSone screen delivers.
I will be getting another screen soon and can try it out. Thats awesome if it only needs 5v. I don't like using the 12v line for anything, just bad luck for my portables :P
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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by hackmodford » Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:15 pm

If this things runs on 5V and looks better than a PSOne screen i'm definatley interested.

Edit: I wonder about running this off of a 3.7V battery. When fully charged is almost 5V right? So why not just skip the 12V regulator?

The datasheet says it takes 12V and converts it to 3.3V and 5V

Can you just feed it the battery directly and it handles the rest?

Or could you just bridge the 3.3V and 5V line together and run the 5V line on slightly less and the 3V line on slightly more?

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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by Basement_Modder » Fri Mar 18, 2011 5:02 am

I wouldn't risk it on such an expensive screen...
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Re: The GD50MLXD TFT 5" LCD Screen Review

Post by jdmlight » Fri Mar 18, 2011 9:21 am

Is this screen actually 640x480 like the datasheet says? Or is it 320x240 like the PSOne screen?

If it's 640x480, I would be interested in how easy it is to get to the bare LCD panel (minus the backlight and diffuser) for my DIY projector, because 320x240 projected onto a 60" screen is a bit gross. :lol:
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