Tearing apart a brand new LCD monitor

The next component of the flight simulator I'm going to work on is the main gauges.  The gauges will be the largest part of the cockpit and will give me something to build off of. One way to do this is with hardware gauges from the likes of SimKits.  These look great and work wonderfully, but each one is very expensive and they all require a back plane to connect to.  I'm going the cheaper route that will maintain full functionality but reduce cost considerably.  I'll be using an LCD monitor with an MDF board over the front with 3" holes cut in it for the gauges.  The monitor will be driven by a low power, low cost computer that will just display the gauges.  I will also have rotary encoders embedded in the MDF to act as the adjustment dials on the instruments.  The result will look like a normal cockpit but with a bunch of little LCD screens for the gauges.  I've already done a proof of concept with X-Plane 9 and was able to very easily create a custom cockpit that displays only a black screen and the 6 gauges I chose.  This was running fairly well on the crappiest hardware money can buy (a netbook) using a plugin to disable drawing of anything but the cockpit.

I considered my desk size as well as the size the cockpit will eventually be and decided a 17" widescreen display would suite my needs.  I took the plunge and purchased two screens (one for dad, of course).  Upon their arrival I immediately set out to remove all of the extra crap on the screen. All I need is the panel itself so removing the bezel would let me place the screen as close as possible to the MDF front.  This is the first time I've ever taken apart a brand new toy without even plugging it in first.  It felt good.

The first step was the scariest.  This particular LCD screen had no external screws to take it apart.  This meant I had to pry the bezel off.  I first used a small screwdriver but that marred the plastic, so I used an even bigger screwdriver.  That worked.

Once the bezel was loose, I was able to take it most of the way off.  On the bottom right of the bezel the control buttons needed to be unscrewed.  The controls came off as one board.  I'll have to figure out a clever way to incorporate them into the design of the cockpit.

That's about it.  No drama.  The metal bezel around the screen is about 1mm thick, so I'll be able to put the screen right up against the MDF.  It should look nice.  I also uncovered some unused mounting holes on the four corners of the screen.  This will make it simple to mount to the front of the MDF instead of my original idea of mounting the screen via the VESA mount on the rear.