Raspberry Pi laptop for general everyday use

thingiverse

This is my 3D printed raspberry pi laptop computer. None of the other raspberry pi laptops I could find seemed to be quite what I wanted, so I designed my own. I designed it to be a laptop for general everyday use. It is ultra compact. It features 3 USB ports, an ethernet port, a latching power switch, a headphone jack and speakers. None of the raspberry’s ports stick out of the side of the case so that the case won’t become obsolete if the location of the Raspberry Pi’s ports change in future revisions, and other Raspberry Pi equivalent boards could be used. There’s plenty of room inside of the main compartment of the case, so you can re arrange the components inside to your liking. It is powered by two 18650 lithium ion batteries. I’ve gotten 1-3 hours per charge depending on how hard you run the pi. You’ll need a good understanding of electronics and a soldering iron to put this together. The USB ports, ethernet jack and headphone jacks all need to be super glued in place. The keyboard is a little tricky. You will need to disassemble the keyboard completely, and very carefully remove the lithium ion polymer battery. IMPORTANT: do not bend it, short it’s output terminals or poke it with a sharp object. Doing any of these will cause the battery to catch on fire or explode. I accomplished this by slicing through the middle of the double stick tape with a razor blade, CAREFULLY! You will have to trim the sides of the keyboard’s case off, you just need the top and the beveled edges, and not a bit more. I used a jigsaw to do this, and it was tricky. The remaining part of the keyboard’s case gets super glued to the 3D printed keyboard insert, and I super glued the keyboard’s circuit board to what is left of it’s case with several big drops of glue around the edges. The two long rectangular bars get glued onto the back of the screen insert to prevent it from buckling outward. Printing: Print in whatever resolution you like. I recommend 100% infill for all of the parts. Support is required for the lower body. The screen is better off without supports. The power supply: I set up the two Adafriut 1000C boards independent of each other. One powers the PI and the other powers everything else. It could be done differently, or you could save a lot of cash and skip the batteries and power supplies. When the power switch is closed, it pulls the enable pins on the 1000C boards low, turning off the inverters. Assembly: Parts list: Raspberry Pi, Pine, etc board of your choice. Waveshare 7 inch 1024600 Capacitive Touch Screen LCD Display https://www.amazon.com/Waveshare-Capacitive-Interface-Raspberry-Beaglebone/dp/B015E8EDYQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1547372446&sr=8-3&keywords=7+inch+lcd+screen+waveshare I used this display because it’s a higher resolution than the Raspberry PI Foundation’s screen, and most importantly it’s driver circuit is built into the unit. The only downfall is that it requires a rather bulky HDMI plug. I couldn’t find a way around this, so the screen has to have a big lump to cover the HDMI plug. This is a touch screen. I didn’t really want a touch screen so I didn’t hook this up. You will need to use a file or somehow carve off the slider of the power switch on the back of the screen. It is too tall. Unfortunatly the HDMI plug sticks out so I had to put a box over it. You’ll need to super glue this on to the back of the screen. A flat HDMI cable: https://www.amazon.com/Permanent-Standard-Normal-Compatible-Blackmagic/dp/B01MYSL7KM/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1547372883&sr=8-6&keywords=ribbon+hdmi+cable NOTE: the orientation of the 90 Degree end needs to be like the one in this picture. Two Adafruit 1000C Lithium ion charger/converter boards. A package of male micro USB connectors. You really only need one but they are easy to break! Two 18650 LiPo batteries (Or a different LiPo batterey that you can cram into the case.) Two 18650 holders: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3250065 Note: you could print a different 18650 holder that will hold both (or three) batteries but it will be a lot harder to cram into the case A Nexspark Mini USB keyboard I think there’s a bunch of re brands of this mini USB keyboard out there, but I'm sure the Nexspark version will fit. A power switch I put a considerable amount of effort into finding a 12mm NC black maintained pushbutton switch with a white lighted ring, and this is as close as I could get. This switch is normally open. If you can find a normally closed version it would be better. https://www.ebay.com/itm/12mm-12V-Car-Aluminum-LED-Power-Push-Button-Metal-ON-OFF-Switch-Latch-5-Colors/401578142895?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=671315388461&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649 A 5 Volt 8 Amp power supply. This may be a bit overkill, but a standard micro USB wall wart really isn’t going to do the job, so why not go for a BIG power supply? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Supply-Adapter-Transformer-LED-Strip-2A-3A-5A-8A-DC-5V-12V-24V-AC110-220V/263670682898?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649 Super glue Two 8-32x1” screws for the screen hinge. I did not use nuts and it works great. Some very tiny wood screws for the screen. An assortment of wire