Keyboard Builders' Digest / Inspiration
Wooden cyberdeck
Combining woodworking with electronics, u/mw33212 made a walnut cyberdeck with a cheap foldable keyboard.
Published March 26, 2022
After spotting the LCD panel on a big discount, mw33212 wanted to see what he could do with it.
Yes, it’s hugely impractical vs a real laptop although it should work for most day to day stuff and was pretty inexpensive to build.
The case is made from 5mm and 10mm walnut with Indian rosewood and maple for the borders. Hand tools and a cordless drill were used for the woodworking part.
Inside there's the LCD panel with the driver board, a tiny amp and tiny speakers, a camera and microphone, a 30k mAh laptop power bank, the foldable keyboard with track pad.
Everything is run by Raspberry Pi 4B. The USB port charges the power bank and there are controls for the overall power, the monitor control board and the amp volume on the sides. Small slot to change the SD card at one end and a tiny acrylic window underneath to read the power bank LCD charge percentage.
The device is relatively small: 33x11x6cm when closed and it weights about 1.75kg.
Regarding the time and money put into the project mw33212 notes:
I’d guess there’s 20 hours in this one; evenings after work for a couple of weeks and in total materials and parts came to about $250 USD.
More photos in this post.
Published on Sat 26th Mar 2022. Featured in KBD #71 (source).
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