One of the greatest things about the hacker ecosystem is that whole standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants thing. Somebody makes something and shares it, and then someone else takes that thing and remixes it, sometimes making it objectively better. For their T3rminal cyberdeck, [calebholloway08] was inspired by a number of projects and came up with something that looks simply fantastic.
Whether you want to call this beauty a cyberdeck or a mobile PC, the guts are what you might expect — a Raspberry Pi 4, an affordable mini keyboard, and a touch screen. But this one took some doing, as in [calebholloway08] had to do a little bit of surgery on the Pi 4, the PiSugar S plus power supply platform, and the display. But you shouldn’t let that stop you from standing on the shoulders of giants, as [calebholloway08] provides (or guides you towards) clear instructions for all three mods.
One thing [calebhollway08] would have done differently was to use something other than a 18650 battery for power, like a 21700. The question is, what will you do differently?
Maybe this is a little too small for you. If so, check out this EMP-protected cyberdeck.
… to die for. Did not know one could die of carpal syndrome !
Hardly, but very likely the SD card will die a lot sooner. “Rugged” and “using SD as system disk” are mutually exclusive. There are much better boards out there that come with on board flash; they should be used instead.
I’m not sure you can call onboard flash durable either – better than an SD card generally sure. However they still don’t last through that much use and are then a bigger pain to replace. So all down to what is important to you for a “Rugged” claim – the SD card makes it easy to keep the device running, more flexible in operation and isn’t physically much more delicate than the soldered on flash chip.
Really love the way they made the case look, simple but it gives it a bit of style, and will help it stand out if (or more likely) when it gets buried in the in the charging pile on the corner of the desk.
However I’m not sure about the sharp corners on the case, particularly at the bottom corners of the keyboard section. I also think the size is probably for me in that awkward zone of too big and too small all that once – make it a tiny bit bigger and it gets massively more useable, or a tiny bit smaller and the easy carry convenience will give it lots of utility. Still a great project I’m sure some folks will love then.
Not sure I’d do a 21700 before dual 18650 (seems to be room at the bottom of the case if you lose that [strap?] cutout.)
21700 are roughly 5,000mAh, but dual 18650 is 6,000 with the proper cells. Although depending on room a couple 113465 pouch cells might fit in place of the single 18650 and give 5800mah
I always hit a rabbit hole searching for the cells though, but i just found this site: batterylipo.com/lipo-battery/ once you find some ‘standard’ sizes you can go looking for stock at the usual places.
Also E6000 is a better adhesive than hot glue.
The top case 3d print file is very short and appears to be truncated!