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Cyberdeck Pt.II


A second part to a blog post?! How brazen!


The last time I posted on here, I was considering starting a cyberdeck. Since that post, I've dove headlong into the project w/ reckless abandon. I ended up going with the Waveshare 11.9 and a Raspberry Pi 4. As for the keyboard, I landed on the Nuphy Air60 V2 60% form factor keyboard. It's a great keyboard, though I'm having some difficulty finding compelling low profile keycaps.


For power, Waveshare also makes a UPS HAT that runs off two 18650 batteries. That's been very stable also. I got everything wired together and, from the software side of things, it all works! The biggest challenge remaining has been to package it in a compelling form factor.


Anyone who has seen a cyberdeck knows that unless it looks cool, it's not really a cyberdeck. So the majority of the time for the project has been figuring out how to present it. That's lead me down the FreeCAD rabbit hole. Which turns out to be infinitely better at designing such applications than Blender. So many years wasted.


Having said that, it's still been a challenge. The biggest challenge being size. This thing is roughly the form factor of a Steam deck. A little thicker, but close enough that it can actually fit into a Steam deck carrying case. (I know, I bought one) Printing the shell however, is challenging. For v1 I had to split it into two pieces. But now that my design is refined, I'm ready to see about doing a full, solid print. So I'm exploring options.


Version 1 of the cyberdeck
Version 1 of the Cyberdeck
The cyberdeck features USB and Ethernet on the side, as well as rerouted power and power switch. A headphone jack and even a small supplemental screen for informational display. It closes magnetically, and turns the screen off when the lid is shut. Once I have it completely printed and assembled, I'll post an update and a better picture. For now, here is v1 in all its glory.

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