What do you do when your laptop keyboard breaks for the second time? Well, most people might use an external keyboard until they couldn’t take it anymore and bought a new machine. But [Marcin Plaza] isn’t most people.
It took more than twelve hours of CAD, but [Marcin] redesigned the case to be at least twice as thick as the Lenovo Yoga that inspired this project in order to accommodate a slimmed-down mechanical keyboard. Further weight-loss surgery was required in order to make the keyboard fit, but the end result is kind of a marvel of engineering. It’s marriage of sleek modernity and early laptop chonky-ness, and we love it.
Lacking a complete metal fab shop of one’s own, [Marcin] elected to have a board house fab it out of titanium and was quite surprised by the result. We really like the clear acrylic bottom, into which [Marcin] drilled many holes for airflow. Be sure to check out the build and demo video after the break.
Did you initially wonder whether the new case was printed? That’s totally a thing, too.
Thanks to [Katie] for the tip!
But can you type in Morse code by repeatedly slamming your laptop shut?
I love seeing a laptop with a real keyboard, all those modern fancy stuff laptops are made to be as thin as a razor blade and not for typing comfort, small rectangular pieces of plastic made to look nice and clean but impossible to type on with slippery pizza fingers during a serious session of true late night programming frenzy.
PS: 12 hours, I can only whish that my CAD skills were that fast and result in something that’s right the first time. Cool project and nicely done!
I wish that laptop manufactor will consider this in future as the we have currently a mechanical keyboard hype. (Fingers crossed)
Don’t hold your breath. Remember, we live in a world where manufacturers think it’s a great idea to glue batteries into kilobuck electronics.
My brand new Razer laptop has an internal battery and it charges up to 4.4 volts per cell! Between that and the all-metal case roasting the internals and externals all the time, the battery went spicy pillow within six months and has destroyed the trackpad.
Please, PLEASE give me a modern machine built like the last of the IBM thinkpads. I don’t want thin and sleek, I want a machine meant for professionals to do real work on for *years* and that I can replace every part on. Bonus points if it’s heavy enough to use as a weapon.
Hey, if you want a side hustle start making kits yourself.
I won’t lie I had the same idea when the keyboard on my Asus TUF FX505DY died. Its a perfectly good machine otherwise, but the keyboard is ridiculously expensive for what it is (a simple chicklet keyboard) so it isn’t worth repairing.
I gave up at the step where I had to model all the crazy number of different geometries of the motherboard and other assembly elements in CAD.
One of these days though…
why other big firm not create a similar device?
this is very goog idea (meybe create a planck/chocolate layout)
Waiting for someone to hack a Core i7 and an original IBM Model M into an Amstrad PPC chassis.
https://mansfield-devine.com/speculatrix/2017/03/from-the-archives-amstrad-ppc-review/
Shut up and take my money!
So you want laptops to be as thick as they used to be?
> So you want laptops to be as thick as they used to be?
YES. OMG, yes please!
I also want a honking great fat battery and dozens of ports on the thing.
https://canadiangold.tumblr.com/post/675666527469568000/i-dont-want-my-laptop-to-be-the-thinnest-model
And a decent cooling system!!
That can’t burn your genitals when using it in bad!
https://www.wired.com/2002/11/this-laptops-too-hot-to-handle/
I completely agree. Same for phones. Give me a fatter phone with a removable battery, microsd, and a freaking headphone jack.
The extra couple mm of thickness makes no difference in your pocket.
Yes. I want a laptop with a nice keyboard and on top of that: enough usable ports so I don’t need dongles.
That’s pretty epic. Kudos for it fitting and working (apparently?) first time.
don’t mind me i’m just the old man in the corner saying
my god laptops are empty these days. can you believe it!! empty!!! used to be a rat’s nest of overlapping logic boards and structural spinning media. STRUCTURAL SPINNING MEDIA!! now it’s just one motherboard, a battery, keyboard, touchpad, speakers, wifi antenna, display, and maybe two stub boards just to convert the peripheral I/O into ribbon cables. i don’t know about you but it’s been 14 years since i bought a laptop with even a spinning fan.
structural spinning media!! take the HDD out of the center and the whole laptop goes floppy. jeesh did that really happen. it was all a dream. it was all a dream.
He did such a great job, it really is a very nice project. Super impressed.
Nice job, but I wouldn’t want to be sitting next to that in a cafe or on the train… *clack clack clickety clack*