A few months back, I got my hands on a Raspberry Pi. As soon as i got it, I realised I didn’t have a use for it.

Then a week back, I had a pair of MyVu Solo’s. Sure, they’re not exactly the latest and greatest in Personal Media Viewers, but they would serve the purpose of displaying information.
The problem though, is (apart from looking ridiculous), they completely occluded my vision when I put them on.
So I’ve hacked them apart, and am in the process of turning them into a monocular display.

Here’s how I did it (and as far as I can tell, I’m the only person who didn’t destroy bits in the process)

Start by removing the shiny black plastic from the front. Just slip a guitar pick or spudger into the gap near the arms on either side, and it’ll pop off.

Then remove the 4 torx screws. Two of them are hidden behind little plastic plugs. You’ll need to pry these out before you can get to the screws.

The whole thing should come apart. Two arms, the top and bottom frame, and the optical assembly.

On either end of the assembly, you’ll find a circuit board. These are linked with a strip of Flat Ribbon Cable. Its easiest to work with if you remove the ribbon cable by lifting the tabs on the sockets on either side and sliding it free.

Then you’ll need to cut away at the glue that’s holding the micro LCD’s into place on the side of the assemblies. A sharp knife works well. Be patient. Take both ends off, they just slide free once the glue has been removed.

Now you’ve got almost everything apart. You’ll notice there’s the actual optic in the optics assembly, which you’ll need to remove.

Unfortunately, this is where you have to cut stuff. They’ve really stick this bit together. I carefully cut along the edge, and once I made it through, the optic just fell right out. Be gentle, you don’t want to break the little mirror.

Now you’ll need to liberate the cable from the Left arm. Which is pretty simple if you start from the back where the cable enters the arm, and work forwards. There are a few clips that you need to get past, and then it just splits in two.

To make a monocular display, you need the Left Lcd, and an optic. I put black tape over parts of mine to prevent light leakage and to neaten it up a bit. I’m using a little bit of tape to keep them together until I can find a more elegant way of holding the whole lot together.

I used the left LCD for two reasons

1. All the cabling comes into the left LCD
2. The left cabling includes an earphone

Now for those who have been following along at home. You’ll realise that nothing turns on when you apply input. This is because the backlights in the two LCD were wired in series. Test this by temporarily reconnecting the Flat Ribbon cable between the two LCD.

To work around this, you need to short out pins 2 and 3 on the Flat ribbon connector. Those two pins are for the Right LCD backlight LED.

A quick application of more black tape, and I ended up with a fairly robust unit which I intend on using for testing.

The original battery pendant is still on the other end of the cable, so it should function perfectly.