Ruggedize your not-so-rugged portables

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Popular Mechanics has a detailed how-to on diy ruggedization of common portable electronics such as laptops, cameras, and cellphones. There is video of a laptop surviving an eight foot fall due to the tennis balls, pipe insulation, and weather stripping they’ve added. Its not just shock resistant, they’ve used a two-part compound marketed for making custom molded earplugs to make the laptop water resistant.

Comments [13]

tagged: camera, cellphone, laptop, rugged

13 Responses to Ruggedize your not-so-rugged portables

ProGamingLife.com says:

August 25, 2009 at 8:39 am

Sick, and I’m 1st

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cynic says:

August 25, 2009 at 9:16 am

I’m not convinced the HDD wasn’t SSD(as that model does have an SSD upgrade package). I would have thought a normal HDD would have chewed itself up, even with all that padding.
Could be wrong though…

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Chris says:

August 25, 2009 at 9:31 am

@cynic
I think many modern laptop harddrives include accelerometers to detect a change in acceleration (ie, starts falling) and automatically park the hard drive heads and attempt to protect itself.

side note – typing out “park the hard drive head” reminds me of my mom’s first tandy 286 (approx $2000) that you had to give it a park command before shutting it off!!!! ms dos and all those old floppy disc games….battlechess, qbert, … wow – nostolgia.

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Tater says:

August 25, 2009 at 9:33 am

But then I would have to carry around something that looks like the above. They could have just wrapped it in bubble wrap and put it in their bag.

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booger says:

August 25, 2009 at 10:29 am

Just have to say, “park the hard drive head” sounds dirty. Impressive mod, though not practical enough for everyday use. Not willing to bulk up my portables with that much padding. All that for just a little insurance against dropping? I’d rather just back up data and continue being careful to not drop my electronics.

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xrazorwirex says:

August 25, 2009 at 10:58 am

I was hoping for something like… i dont know… pickup truck bedding spray or rubberized paint or something… this IS diy, but way to amateur. the earplug compound is real interesting though.

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xrazorwirex says:

August 25, 2009 at 11:01 am

at $12 a pair-worth of ear mold compound, definitely fail.

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googfan says:

August 25, 2009 at 11:11 am

epic fail. anyone can cover something in duct tape.

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slagr says:

August 25, 2009 at 2:41 pm

how does that cover affect the ventilation?

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sexiewasd says:

August 25, 2009 at 3:12 pm

This is the same issue that was edited by Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, so I think that they were thinking of a bit more abuse that just daily use. I can definitely see this as being useful if it is going to be used for data capture on projects with a good chance of things going wrong.

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blackbird says:

August 26, 2009 at 4:46 am

How would you explain to TSA that the duct tape, tennis balls and pipe insulation are making your valuables more durable?

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ManOfGallifrey says:

December 10, 2009 at 9:50 am

@slagr I was wondering the same thing. They state in the article above that “they’ve used a two-part compound marketed for making custom molded earplugs to make the laptop water resistant.”

If its water resistant then it would have to impede the hell out of airflow, and would run the chance of doing thermal damage to the components,… but of course, you could always spray the water resistant laptop with cold water to cool it,… :)

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ManOfGallifrey says:

December 10, 2009 at 9:53 am

and in response to myself,… after another look at the picture above, it seems they only used the earplug compound to seal the area for the USB ports and such,… but if thats the case then it would be pretty useless, because if water is gonna get in those places, it would just as easily seep thru the cracks on the sides or the keyboard and so on,…

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