Board holders for iMac 2009 monitor conversion

thingiverse

My dad's 2009 27" iMac a1332's graphics card died. Based on the age and cost of replacement I recommended he get a new computer, which still left the iMac parts, including a good screen. After exploring the possibility of hardwiring the switch to do "always from external DisplayPort" (no documentation available on the switch chip :( ), I wound up going with one of the inexpensive scaler boards from AliExpress based on the Realtek chip. I could have just mounted everything with foam tape, but figured why not do it classier. So here are a set of board holders that fit on the screw bosses in the iMac's case (once the internal boards have been removed) and hold the scaler, inverter, and control board. The control board holder fits where the RAM slot cover goes, and holds the control board as well as a panel mount short HDMI extension cable for input. I drove mine off of the built in power supply, using the +12V standby to power the scaler board and the +12V power on to power the inverter. An enhancement mode FET switches on the full power supply when backlight_on is asserted to the inverter board, but you could probably use the +12V standby for all power or use an external power supply. Eventually I'd like to move back to the Apple inverter, but that requires some tweaks to run the PWM.