Looking to build a laptop all on your own? Check out the Pinkpad, a DIY laptop project that as if appeared out of nowhere, gives you a based on an off-the-shelf Dell motherboard. This build projects an aura of unabashed competence – the website brings you to a different universe, the documentation is as curt as it is extensive, and the build evidently works.
With a Thinkpad x61 keyboard, a reasonably modern (Dell Vostro 5481, Ryzen possible) motherboard embeddable inside, and a 10″ 1024×768 screen, this ~11″ laptop packs a certain kind of punch for what’s a build-it-yourself project. Most of the value of this design is in the 3D files – which were done in Google SketchUp, and the laptop is small enough that you could print its shell reasonably quickly. Not that you should follow the parts list religiously – the screen in particular might just warrant reconsideration in your eyes. On the other hand, we wish you all the luck on your SketchUp journey if you want to modify the shell. It also isn’t lost on us that the parts list doesn’t list a battery in it.
This is an impressive project to see open-sourced, and we hope it can inspire some hackers in the custom laptop building cohort. One prominent flaw of consumer-facing technology is that you can’t always get your devices in pink, and printing your laptop’s chassis yourself is a surefire way to combat this. If this laptop’s form-factor is too commonplace for you, we’ve seen no shortage of custom laptops grace our pages, from miniature ones to CRT luggable beasts, and click on the tags below if you’d like to see more!
We thank [Max_UA] for sharing this with us!
I’ll print a 3dp90 in pink, but I’m not printing a laptop in pink
both? both. both!
But that ain’t pink, that’s fuchsia.
Loved the website! and the soundtrack on top of it. )retro 90’s style, those were the days my friends.
browsers disabling autoplay on
<audio>should’ve been a crimeI’ll assume this is a rick-roll article and move on.
I prefer to go for pranks that actually make sense – this is, indeed, a laptop ^^
It is a laptop build page, but the retro shake ad banner does link to a Rick roll lmao
ayyy lmao
And I was so excited to see that I was the 999,999th visitor…
Pink and a clitmouse!
Shade of pink? See your laptop groinocologist ASAP.
It’s like badly printed old school ‘Swedish Erotica’. Where everybody looks like they have a terrible disease. Zappa did a song about it. IIRC on ‘You can’t do that on stage anymore’.
sometimes you just have a half-roll of filament that you realize fits a project well enough and is going to collect moisture and dust otherwise.. I’d go for even more pink if possible =D
yooo i made hackaday, awesome
pinkpad mini (orange pi 5 based) soon™ (™ because it will take me forever) btw, and it will have equally useless build instructions because i always forget to document anything because i’m stupid
the battery is just whatever the matching dell battery for the laptop the motherboard is from, but cut up and re-shaped to fit in the case. there isn’t much space.
It’s an awesome looking build. You don’t list cooling though? I’m guessing just stock fans. Also the link on your site to the backlight bridge is dead. What was it called in case I wanted to look it up?
the cooler is a toshiba satellite C850 cpu cooler (mounted upside down), and the fan is from the same toshiba. The fan needs a transistor added to make it work with the dell motherboard, because the dell uses a 4 pin pwm fan header and the toshiba is 3 pin.
i had to solder a copper plate onto the heatpipe to make it work, it’s not really a good solution lol
the backlight driver was a generic boost converter backlight driver. I can’t find the exact same one for sale anymore, but you can find very similar boards by punching “universal backlight driver boost” into aliexpress’ search bar
hell yeah glad someone linked it to me!,,, submit your projects to me/us next time please 🥺
will be patiently waiting, that sounds fire! ^_^ also I really liked the build instruction style, putting this into my toolbox, because this can’t be taking that much time, which matters for projects that’d otherwise go undocumented; please carry on! (maybe add a pic of the battery into there at some point but Not Required, lifehack: can link this article in the post for “discussed at” info source kind of deal, too!)
Nice hack, love me some Thinkpad keyboard.
Website gives me nostalgia <3 <3
Wow I looked at the website and I had these late 90s vibes.
Interesting project but turn down your volume when visiting this website
Love the website. Text, links and pictures. That’s all we need. (I did look at it with my volume muted, thanks to the commenters on here)