- Goals:
- Build a dirt cheap raspberry pi 4 laptop or really just a mobile workstation for any sort of single board computer (SBC).
- No permanent modification to any of the parts so it can be easily disassembled and used for other purposes or projects.
- Completely battery powered.
- Large screen.
- Use as many parts as I could that I already had lying around.
- Parts:
- Raspberry pi 4 - 4gb. I would probably spring for an 8gb if you have the budget. $60. https://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Model-2019-Quad-Bluetooth/dp/B07TC2BK1X
- Raspberry pi 4 case with fan. $16: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TTMQ4PH
- Monitor 15.6" 1080p IPS with stereo speakers. USB-C powered. $110 when bought. First one broke in the first hour. Replacement seems good. I stress tested it for 13 hours. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VFF4TZG
- Plastic art supplies box: $12. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PD4I3C
- 26800mah battery with usb-c pd. I ran it for 2hrs+ and the battery still showed full bars. I haven't fully tested but I'm guessing you would get MANY hours of use with this battery. $40. https://www.amazon.com/Portable-RAVPower-26800mAh-Double-Speed-Recharging/dp/B07793KSV4
- 700 pairs of adhesive velcro dots. These are handy for many different projects. $11. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075V2BYM2/
- elastic cord: $9. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V1MPSDZ
- M.2 sata enclosure for the 128GB ssd (you can get one for around $20) I pulled from an HP laptop. $14. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MKCG5ZG/
- If you prefer to use a 2.5" hard drive this usb to sata cable works great. $8: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0716JKJ68
- Logitech K400 Plus keyboard: $25. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014EUQOGK/
- Cables: micro hdmi to mini hdmi. usbc to usbc to power the rpi. usb-a to usb-c to power the monitor.
- Rotary cutting tool: I already had a Dremel but it was battery powered and the battery was old. I wanted to upgrade to a wired one. This one worked pretty well and the metal cutting disc for wood/plastic worked great on the art box. $34. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FSBY9GV/
- Optional drill: make more holes for venting!
- Twister OS is really neat and you can easily swap the skin to look like windows 10 or mac os: https://twisteros.com/
- Details:
- It took forever to find a box the right size. It is 14X9X2 which pretty much fits everything perfectly.
- I had already owned everything else on the parts list before starting this project except for the plastic box, monitor, and the dremel. I wanted a new dremel and monitor anyways. So I'd say I dedicated $12 specifically to this project. The monitor makes a nice secondary monitor for a regular laptop or a bigger screen for Nintendo Switch.
- It weighs about 5.5 lbs total.
- I wanted a large 15.6 screen. Portability was secondary. I'm getting old and small screens are much harder on the eyes for me.
- My dremel skills are horrible, and the cuts are really rough. I didn't really care about looks that much.
- I cut the corners off the velcro dots so they fit better on the corners of the lid.
- Make sure you put the soft side of the dots on the monitor cover (both the side to attach to the box and the inside for the keyboard)
- You can open the box with the monitor still attached. Just be careful it doesn't flop backwards hard.
- I used elastic cord to keep everything together when moving it around. You could just as easily add some more velcro dots instead.
- Cutout on the left for easy access to ethernet and usb ports. Cutout on the right to get to the battery so I can unplug the monitor and rpi 4 to save battery. I had a little usb-c power switch dongle that worked great with an ac adapter but doesn't seem to work with this battery. So I just unplug everything from the battery on the right side when not in use. I can also easily charge the battery through the cutout.
- I have 2 dividers attached together with duct tape and cut down half height. I use it to separate the rpi 4 and the battery so I can plug cables into the battery without pushing it into the case. It's half height so cables can still be laid on top.
- I routed the cables out and back in the back side of the case for micro hdmi and usb-c power to the rpi 4 to prevent bending the cable so much.
- Temps stay under 60c under load.
- Lots of room for improvements. I need to find a better way to stabilize the monitor cover hinge. Still, it works pretty well on your lap for the most part.
- Typing is a little cumbersome mostly because of how thick it is.
- Totally NOT worth building from scratch. You can easily get a real laptop that is a lot more portable and usable for the money.
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Raspberry pi 4 Laptop / SBC Mobile Workstation
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