Close

First step - pick main components

A project log for PlagueStation Zero

An entry into the cyberdeck.cafe zerodays deck design competition

abrugschABrugsch 10/04/2020 at 22:310 Comments

Screen and Wifi

On the announcement of the zerodays competition I thought about what I had in my spares box that i'd be able to use and a dormant PiCB-TFT which already had a zero attached was staring me in the face waiting for it's time in the sun.

So that was pi and screen sorted. I had batteries a-plenty and chargers from bulk-buys from other projects, but the pi was a non-W variant so would need wireless to make it a true cyberdeck. Fortunately another board I had lying around was a redbear IoT pHAT. A wifi and bluetooth board that came from when there were no integrated wireless Pi's available that I backed as a kickstarter project (though are sadly no longer available) and never found a use for before the zero-W was released.

Keyboard

So I only needed a few other bits to make a funtional deck. The main part would be a keyboard and most decks use a mini bluetooth keyboard, but my inspiriation came from the N-O-D-E youtube channel and his latest zero-terminal V3. Featuring a tiny PCB+tact switch keyboard that according to the notes was a variant of a design by [bobricius] which I found here and that seemed a perfect fit.

Sundries

The final pieces of the puzzle are sound (a MAX98357A I2S DAC and AMP in one board from Adafruit and a 14x20mm speaker from my bits box) a USB hub (4 port retrocution board from OSHPark) and a LED flux capacitor (also from OSHPark by SwedishVaper) for some blinkenlights

So now all I had to do was design the sucker....

Discussions