DIY Privacy Display - Recycle your monitors in a badass way
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
3,088 words · ~15 min read
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So, there's this really cool kind of trick effect that you can do with an LCD
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or LED monitor where you remove the polarizing filter and then mount a
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polarizing filter into a pair of glasses. Very easy to do with some 3D
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glasses. That results in a monitor that looks like it just emits white and
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nothing else. But if you're wearing the right glasses, you can actually see
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what's on screen. Let's check it out.
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Ozone Gaming Strike Battle Keyboard is a 10 keyless compact keyboard with
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multiple Cherry MX Switch variants as well as 30 macro keys with five
0:40
profiles. Check out the link in the video description to learn more. So,
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this isn't an original Linus Tech Tips idea. This was posted by two different
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people about 2 years ago. On YouTube, it was posted by Brussup and on
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Instructables, it was posted by Deovi. And there's also two different methods
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of doing this. They both start with taking off the bezel of the monitor and
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then using a knife to cut a perimeter around the screen. It's very sketchy,
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but oh well. And then by chiseling off
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the polarizing filter, getting rid of the glue somehow with a solvent of some
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sort and then mounting a polarizing filter in a pair of glasses. Sounds
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pretty straightforward so far. The differentiating part is whether or not
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you buy some polarizing filters or reuse the polarizing filter off of your
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screen. Uh, buying them sounds like more of a sure shot. So, I made sure that I
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had some before we started this, but we're going to see which one works best
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and we're going to go through the whole process on camera. Okay, so first things
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first, I need to clear this area. I need
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to get my iixit kit ready and my screwdriver because I have to tear the
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bezel off of this guy. I'm going to remove the stand. Um, one interesting
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tidbit. Uh, I've already kind of done
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this. I used a different monitor and it super didn't work. And you might be
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wondering why I would release this video if it like super failed once already.
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The problem there was there was a pre-existing crack on the monitor. So,
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when I'm trying to pull off the polarizing filter, there's glue under
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there. The pre-existing crack spreads and I just ripped the whole thing in
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half. So, hopefully that doesn't happen again. And if not, we'll probably be
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good. Removing bezels on monitors kind of super sucks. I'm going to do
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something that's not super visually appealing and use just a flathead to pry
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it off. Realistically, you're supposed to use a spudger. Um, but I just bent
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the whole head off of one of mine because it wasn't really working properly. The problem with this guy, and
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the reason why it's going to be pretty ugly, is it's metal and it doesn't give
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at all. It might be nice if you have something plastic so it can give a little bit. I might end up messing up
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some of the plastic here. So, what I'm going to do is start on the bottom. That
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way, it's hopefully going to be the least viewed part of the
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monitor. Now, see, look at this.
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My proper prying tools don't really seem to be surviving. I just torqued the
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whole end off of that one. So, rip. I
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guess I'll go back to using my probably not going to be as pretty, but
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screwdriver
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trick. I ended up starting on the top because the bottom was giving me too
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much trouble. As you can see, the starting point is pretty rough actually.
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That's why I suggest maybe taking a little bit more time with it and using a
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more proper tool. And then from there on, it's not too bad. You'll just see
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little bumps here and there from the flathead, but it's not really the end of
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the world. I know people will care and it will bug me, so
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whatever. Okay, bezel is hopefully off. What is
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going on down here? Oh dear. There's
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some cables going to the buttons. I was
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kind of hoping that these were just going to be button plates and the actual
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button was going to be under them and not on the bezel. That is not true. As
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you can see, the whole mechanism is in here and then it goes through a wire
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into the thing. So, I'm not actually going to be able to get this out,
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which super sucks. Oh no. Yeah, I'm not going to be able to
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get it out. So, I'm going to have to get a support for it and then I'll be able to work around it. One little tidbit
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that I recommend, uh, I learned from the last monitor that your initial perimeter
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cut is actually pretty important. Um, I would recommend a sturdier, hopefully
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bit sharper knife for the actual perimeter because you want a nice clean
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cut. If that part makes it in the video, everyone's going to scream at me for
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cutting towards myself. So right now I'm just trying to connect
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the corners. So I cut four perimeter
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lines, but they don't necessarily completely match up. So I'm just trying
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to bridge them. Okay, so our perimeter lines have
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been cut. Um, we're mostly done with the
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nice big knife. Now what we need to do is try to get under those lines that we
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cut and start actually pulling up the polarizing filter. Now remember, there
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is glue under this entire thing. So,
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while you can pull it up sometimes, you do really need to chisel under there and
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separate the polarizing filter from the actual panel. So, the reason why you want a
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nice clean cut with probably a nicer knife around the perimeter is once you
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kind of get started with your chisel, as you go along the side, where you cut
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should just kind of come Oh, that part
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shouldn't go in the video. That's bad. Oh god. I was just
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commenting about how I shouldn't be cutting towards myself. So, the reason
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why you want a nice clean cut with your probably sharper knife around the
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perimeter is so that when you're moving along with the chisel, uh, the perimeter
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actually comes up. So, as you can see here, I'm pushing in and then sliding
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out, angling a little bit, pushing in again, and just moving along. And the
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perimeter should just kind of come up with my knife, which is actually quite
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helpful so that it keeps a clean edge. When you enter the first time with your
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chisel, it's probably going to be a little bit messy, but once you start
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going, everything does get easier. Another helpful trick is to not
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necessarily pull the polarizing filter all the time and kind of kind of rip it
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off, but hold it up so you can get your chisel under there more easily. Once you
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have some room like I do now, it's much
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easier to do this at the beginning. Obviously, that's not really going to
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work. So, I've I've got this whole side
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off and I've got a bit of the top and a bit of the bottom off. It starts to go a
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lot faster. Now, I will note this might not be the experience with every
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monitor. I do believe the amount of glue used on each monitor is definitely
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different, but with this one, it is going quite a bit faster. Another thing that's helping me is the clean, sharp
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cut that I got all the way around the monitor. Um, which will feel super
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sketchy while you're doing it, but is actually totally fine. So, don't worry
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about it. So, up here, it started to break a few times. Um, yeah, I don't
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really know what's going on with that. Probably something's wrong with the cut.
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I do notice there's some strand of something here. So, what I might do is
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grab the knife that I originally did the perimeter with and kind of rerun this
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area a little bit just to make sure that it's actually
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okay. So, this top bit for me is pretty
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rough. I keep getting cracks constantly going down from the top, but my bottom
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line is super clean. So, hopefully I'll have a lot of usable filter in kind of
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this area and I'll just have to ignore the top left, I guess.
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Almost. Let go. Come on. There we
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go. Okay. So, there's our polarizing
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filter. We've got uh kind of an ugly entry here where I started and then some
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big cuts up here which are pretty unfortunate. But I have a lot of usable
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space to cut out lenses to replace on here. Or there's the other method which
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I'm also going to do which is where we have purchased polarizing filters for
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like I don't know not that much off of Amazon. And we'll try each method see
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which one's better. So just a note is that this stuff on the screen isn't
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actually slashes or cuts into the screen. This is all just glue residue.
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So, I need to clean it up somehow. Hopefully, I can use isopropyl alcohol
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cuz that's all I really have on hand.
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Um, but I know people have been using gooby gone. So, we'll see what has
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happened there.
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Hey, do we have gooby gone? Do we have goooo gone? I have been using a shirt
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because the paper towel was leaving a whole bunch of crap behind and I
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wouldn't recommend that if you actually ever want to wear the shirt again. So,
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just a note. Wow. Okay. So, yeah, using a
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proper thing that is designed for removing glue probably a good idea. This
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is so much easier.
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So, one thing I would recommend is making sure that you let your whatever
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goo removal stuff you use to sit for
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probably a while and then kind of pat it
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off and take it off nicely and then do it again and let it sit and do it again
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and let it sit and just keep on doing that to the point where you can fairly
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easily just wipe the glue off. Um, I, as
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you guys saw, used the chisel blade, which was recommended on a few guides
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online saying that the blade definitely wouldn't scratch the monitor, but there
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are lines going along the monitor that you can see from just the edge of the
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knife. So, a little bit disappointed in that. And yeah, try to make sure that
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your solvent solution does more of the work than you do, and I think you'll be
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fine. We're going to call it quits there in terms of trying to touch up the
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panel. I'm going to try to get this monitor back together. I knew those
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wires were going to be a problem. All right. One thing again to take note of
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is you can do this with pretty much whatever panel you want, but I recommend
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going my route and buying some kind of cheap panel off some dude who's moving
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on Craigslist um because it's not a
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perfect method. But we'll talk about that more later on. Now, what we need to
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do is plug this guy in. Make sure it's all white, which I'm sure it will be.
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And then check out the alignment for these filters so I can cut them into
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some glasses. Can you even see that, Brandon? See what do you want to plug
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the Wancho computer in?
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I actually think it might be a better approach at this point. I'm just doing
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Okay, so it works. Um, a kind of frustrating thing happened while we were
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going though. Nothing went wrong with the actual removal of the polarizing
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filter or anything, but it seems like the inverter on the monitor
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has died at some point in time. So, if I
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shove this guy on here and change the
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source, you'll see it works, but then
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goes away almost immediately. So, we're
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going to go through the rest of it. I'm going to make some glasses. I'm going to test some things, but pretty
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disappointed that the monitor died. So, I'm going to have to kind of rotate
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trying to turn this thing on and then try to figure out what orientation these
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things need to go before I cut
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them. Oh, that's really close.
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Yeah. Yeah, that's good. So, now I know
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from just not letting go of it that this part needs to be going up. Use my lens
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that I popped out of my glasses earlier. um squish that kind of against the
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polarizing filter and I'm going to use a thin Sharpie to outline it. And then I'm
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just going to cut on the inside of the
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outline and then it should work. Okay,
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so I've cut my filter. Now it's time to actually fit it into my pair of
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glasses. I think that works so far. Feel like a hipster not having one of my
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lenses there. But now I just need to fit one more of them and I think we'll be
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good. All right, so my glasses are set
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up and ready to go. Let's see if they actually
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work. There we
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go. All right, so the glasses do work.
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Um, sorry that the inverter is borked so you can't really see it all that well.
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But something I'm going to do is actually pass these to Brandon and then
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hold those over the lens. We're going to do this live and
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then I'm going to change the source and hopefully you guys will be able to see
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it better with that over the lens. Give me a moment. I'm going to have no idea
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when this works because I'm not actually going to be able to see it. Is that good? Okay, there we go.
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So, the project worked. The monitor
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didn't, but the inverter dying had nothing to do with what we did for the
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project. So, poor old like 10year-old
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Flatron is is going to have to be retired and recycled after this. But, oh
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well. I would still recommend getting an
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old monitor. I just wouldn't necessarily recommend getting a very old monitor or
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one that you don't trust. I bought this one off Craigslist for 30 bucks or
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something. And I only tested it for about 2 minutes 2 weeks ago and now fast
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forward two weeks, the inverter's dead. Things are
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bad. Another little bit that I have to say is while being able to remove the
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polarizing filter that was on the monitor and using it again is cool, you
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also need to remove the anti-glare filter off of here. And while it's
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possible by soaking it in hot water and then trying to peel it off like a
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sticker and stuff, it's really annoying.
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And the polarizing filters from Amazon are super cheap and work really well.
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Uh, one thing to note on here is that they also have a film on it, a
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sticker-like substance, which is just supposed to protect them, but it's super
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easy to take off. So, not nearly the same problem that we have with the
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anti-glare filter. Another thing is the goof off or gooby gone or whatever the
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heck paint thinner you end up using to remove your glue. Let it sit on there
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for a while. Dry it off. Let it sit again. Dry it off. Let it sit again. Do
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that a few times so that you don't have to scrape the glue off. It should come
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off much more evenly and you'll have a better time. I probably should have done
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that. But honestly, it wasn't that hard. It was sketchy. It feels very weird
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bringing a knife to a monitor screen. It doesn't feel natural. Um, but yeah, if
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you guys do it, please post it on the forum. I'd like to see your projects.
15:38
Mac Welden gear ranging from underwear to undershirts, t-shirts, socks, sweats,
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and they're really easy to order, and honestly, they're really easy to wear,
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too. I mean, their boxers are literally cradling my man parts as we speak, and
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they do a great job of it. Something that's pretty great is that their
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products are naturally antimicro reel, but especially the Puma cotton with
16:02
silver XT2 ones. So, I swear to my
16:05
girlfriend, if you're watching this, these were clean before I put them on.
16:09
But you in the audience should run an experiment where you get the silver ones
16:13
and see how long you can wear them until they, you know, like actually smell for
16:18
science. Anyways, by the way, if you hit up the macweldon.com website and use the
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promo code Linus, you get 20% off. So, I don't
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know. Check it out. Thanks for watching, guys. If you
16:31
dislike the video cuz you're like, "Wow, the project didn't really fully work cuz
16:34
the inverter died." Be sure to press the dislike button. If you like the project
16:38
cuz it kind of sort of worked at the same time, press the like button, get
16:41
subscribed, favorite, share, all that fun stuff. Go on Amazon, use our Amazon
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affiliate code. uh buy some of our shirts in the link in the video
16:49
description down below or become a contributor on the forum if you want to
16:52
see other crazy projects. There's the conclusion to my Fallout build which
16:56
definitely falls under the category of crazy projects. So, click up here to
16:59
watch