• Display Hunting

    Mike • 07/03/2024 at 02:44 • 0 comments

    After a great deal of Googling "The Wrong Way"™️ I've come to the realization that what I'm looking for are "Panel" components "panel display" "panel Keyboard" etc.  This is a descriptor meaning that the component is meant to be embedded.  Adding this to my search terms has made finding the type of parts I'm looking for infinitely easier.

    The the Raspberry Pi board supports essentially two options for a display interface,.  

    There's a ribbon cable called DSI (Display Serial Interface). This is probably the choice we want to go with.  Many hobbyist displays come with an SPI interface, might work but will need a driver board in the middle.

    There's always the fallback of HDMI, but likely the cabling would be obnoxious, and most HDMI displays are monitors with big chonky power plugs.

    This Waveshare display might serve, at about 10 inches. Ideally we'd go a little larger. 

    There's cheaper models and I might pick up a cheaper DSI Display like this onefor short term tinkering while I figure this out. I have extra PIs, so I can likely re-use it. 

    GeekPi has another 10 inch display.

    MNT ReForm uses embedded display port (eDP).  So it would be wildly impractical to use their monitor.

    MicroCenter has a lot of LCP panels all nominally replacement parts for existing laptop brands.  Most are 30-pin connectors.  I need to figure out what sort of driving board I need to have between the Pi and the Display

  • More Interesting Source Material

    Mike • 07/02/2024 at 03:02 • 0 comments

    MNT Reform this project builds a laptop on completely open hardware standards, a German company and it's quite expensive for what you're getting but it's worth going through what they've built.

    Framework A CA company that aims to make consumer electronics modular, enable customization and end-user upgrades.  

    This guy's Latte Panda based thing, Latte Panda is a Chinese company and produces a handful of single-board computers, more powerful than a Raspberry Pi, though also meaningfully more expensive.

    This R-Pi based Cyberdeck project on Hackaday

    Lego Raspberry PiBook I like the cut of this guy's gib

  • Keyboards Pt 1

    Mike • 06/28/2024 at 04:07 • 0 comments

    I'm probably looking for either a laptop replacement keyboard or a  full set of chiclet keycaps with switches.

    I found plenty of laptop keyboard replacement units on e-bay for fairly cheap

    Odds are good I want to end up with a 60% keyboard, other things end up too wide for laptop use, smaller and you're sacrificing real productivity buttons.

  • Similar Projects

    Mike • 06/27/2024 at 04:36 • 0 comments

    I'm not the first one to have this idea and it's worth documenting some of the others who have come before. 

    Similar aspirations

    CrowPi-L A Chinese company that makes educational kits.  It's designed for the Pi 4 and if I was going to buy a solution this is the closest to an ideal solution.  

    Pi-Top 3 No longer available but another similar product for older boards.  Will be worth looking at the product's decisions

    This guy's chonker uses a cannibalized Dell, he includes the 3D Printer file

    This Product  it's a chunky little tablet not a DIY thing, and it's got a Compute Module inside.  Not ideal, but worth exploring the specs.

  • Requirements

    Mike • 06/27/2024 at 04:04 • 0 comments

    The goals which I believe should be fairly attainable:

    Operating System - I tend to prefer Debian, but I'll consider any Linux Desktop environment a success.

    Connectivity - Wireless (802.11) is a must.  The Pi itself has a chip on board, though without an antennae it tends to have terrible range/reliability.  Experimentation will need to be done if that's sufficient to do things like streaming video.  May require additional hardware.

    Battery Powered - Should have a battery life of at least 2 hours. Longer would be ideal but price is likely to be a constraint

    Screen Real Estate - Must be useful as a productivity machine, with in my experience means 10 inches is the floor, larger would be better, but screen prices go up dramatically. Will shoot for 11-13 but need to analyze the options

    Keyboard & Mouse - A keyboard, large enough to be useful. No laptop keyboard is ideal, so pretty much any QUERTY Laptop keyboard is an option. As for Mouse interactivity, I'm thinking classic touchpad, but if I end up with a solid touchscreen I may consider it sufficient.

    Cooling - Likely this hardware will generate enough heat to require cooling in an enclosed space.

    Case - Likely the ideal solution will be 3D printed, a device I don't own and have no expertise with. I'm contemplating constructing out of other materials I'm more comfortable with (LEGO, wood) 

    Minimum Benchmarks - Must be able to run VS Code, stream video (reasonable video quality) and attach to remote (beefier) machines with X-Forward.