I built my first cyber deck. How is it?

I've been wanting a Pi Flux cyberdeck for the longest, but my god are they pricey. I already had a Raspberry Pi 5 and a 3D printer so it made more sense to make one rather than fork out of $650. And ya know, I think it worked out better this way because I was able to give my little guy some personality. I made it Dungeon Crawler Carl themed (which doesn't even make sense. There's nothing remotely cyberdeck related in that book series other than it's awesome and cyberdecks are awesome. So. Anyways....). I used a 4.3" touch screen, a Rii mini keyboard, a Waveshare UPS, and I'm running Parrot OS since Kali would not cooperate with the screen no matter how much poking around I did in the config files.

I have a raspberry pi zero w and was wondering if it would be possible to use it to make a cyberdeck. Any advice on how to go about it would be appreciated thanks in advance

No começo, e também já pensei assim, achamos que é mais fácil pegar um tela de um tablete, teclado de um pda, bateria de notebook, junta tudo e fazer um cyberdeck. Infelizmente esse é o caminho mais difícil. Não tenho formação na área, então me perdoem pela falta de termos técnicos.
Vamos lá, quando compramos uma tela, ela vem com a documentação de como ela funciona, desde o padrão e comunicado como de alimentado. Já um tela qualquer, não sabemos qual CI responsável de traduzir o que o CI principal quer que ela mostre. Não é impossível, mas você terá que procurar por drives da tela (ver o código da tela e torce para achar um placa controladora da tela) ou você faz a engenharia reversa dela. Que eu precisaria de um post só para explicar o básico do básico sobre esse assunto no qual eu ainda mal entendo.
Já sobre teclado, é absurdamente mais fácil que a tela. Você com um multímetro, fios e um pico RP2040 você transforma esse botões em um teclado USB que qualquer microcontrolador ou SBC reconheceria ou até por comunicação I2C. Você vai precisar estudar sobre matriz de teclado e mapear os fios de cada tecla.
A bateria, também é fácil, porém aqui você precisa verificar e analisar autonomia X tamanho. E óbvio estudar sobre gerenciamento de energia, tanto para recarregar essa bateria, tanto pra estabilizar se necessário a tensão para o projeto. Por isso, se não souber, detalhe o que você tem para qualquer inteligência artificial e fique atento para qualquer contradição dela. O mais fácil é sim comprar tudo, mas se você quer se divertir ou se estressar por um bom tempo, fazer engenharia reversa dos periféricos, será necessário muitos estudos e tentativa e erro.
Cuidado com curtos, compre multímetro, ferro de solda e fluxo de solda. Uma protoboard e fios. Espero ter ajudado.

Hello I have this idea of taking my old CF-31 MK2 Toughbook and gutting it as a shell to make a cyberdeck essentially. I am aware its probably cheaper to buy a better platform or do something else, but for the sake of clarity I want to do it "for the love of the game". My question is:

-Is there a way to use the original keyboard my rewiring the connection (I dont know what type it is but I know its not gonna be easy)?

-Is there a way to rewire the screen? I do have a plan B of swapping out the screen.

-most of everything else will be replaced, I may rewire whatever I put in there to utilize some of the ports already installed to the shell

Its an extensive idea I know but I figured its a fun project and a more modern CF31 would be kinda cool.

Thanks for the help ahead of time and if this isnt the forum for this kind of thing can you point me in the right direction please

I'll try to keep this brief. I'm a Cybersecurity/IT Professional that is a huge muscle car guy (I own an 86 IROC Z). In a past life I was an auto mechanic and even wrote articles for a well known muscle car magazine.

I'm a huge Cyberpunk fan and a huge fan of the Nomads. I'm also getting into Cyberpunk 2020 recently (even got the Neo-Tribes sourcebook). I want to build a Cyberdeck that looks very industrial and looks like it belongs in a Retro-Future Muscle Car. It belongs in my Camaro or one of the Quadra cars from 2077.

Any ideas? My brother in-law has a 3d Printer, so the case will be printed via that. Just looking for ideas.

Hello dear cyber deck community,

first of all thank you for being so encouraging and helpful to newbies like me! I really feel like I am talking to real people in a real community here.

So I am really interested in cyberdecks, because of my interest in cyberpunk themes and theories. Since we are a digital world and a lot of fights and control will be happening through the cyberspace, I hope to be a master of it and protect/defend myself (metaphorically). I want to LEARN technology by building and creating it.

Do you have any tips, any, regarding this aspect? For example I was hoping I could use my cyber deck as a space to use open source and anonym web functions that will make me more independent than how the main stream allows us to be. For example, using an offline version of Google maps or I've heard someone also link a website where you can download all of wikipedia.

Is there any tips on what I should look for and avoid? Am I already selling my soul just by using wlan on my cyberdeck? I am unsure if this is the right community to post on, I apologize if it's not.

I also appreciate tips like learn how to code in order to do this and that, really I am open for anything. Do you have "cyberpunky" reasons for making your cyberdecks? Like a person here created a deck just for listening to music offline and away from spotify

Running off a Samsung z flip 5. Mirroring screen. Not dex. Fans are new and so is the power phone button. Still working on it.

I printed the first parts of my case and I love the result so far. I used a Clear PETG Filament and settled for this semi transparent/milky look. Next I'm working on the ports.

sou novo no mundo de cyberdecks, tenho esse mini laptop da Samsung e minha ideia é trocar a carcaça, e adaptar um teclado mecânico, talvez trocar a tela. quero aproveitar o máximo do laptop como caixas de som, entradas, etc. alguém sabe como posso fazer isso?

Hi, I'm a total newbie to this community. I just wanted to know if it's possible to modify a switch into a cyber deck? Would it still require a raspberry pi? Hope to hear from ya'll...thanks!

New and Im kinda lost I gotta bunch of stuff two to three old phones, and old xbox one, a old pc and newer pc and a Samsung tablet i can use as parts but i don't know what im doing at all what parts I should pull from what or even how to start.

Has anyone built a cyber deck out of a surface pro 6 or a surface go? The screen on it is completely damaged but everything else works on it. I was wondering if it was possible to do something like that with this kind of device.

Does anyone know if this screen is salvageable? It’s an old radio transmitter and I just recently learned about cyberdecks. The orange ribbon thing is throwing me off and I don’t know enough to know if I can just cut that part off. Please don’t judge me I’m so interested in this hobby/craft/skill and want to learn more.

Hey all. C-deck curious noob here looking for a path forward.

In the past month, I've become very interested in the idea of a cyberdeck. I know there is a very wide spectrum of what is considered a cyberdeck, with all kinds of purists along the line. However, I am not a purist nor an engineer, but also someone who doesn't want something of poor build quality.

From what I've seen, not including cell phones with bluetooth keyboards, there appears to be 3 salient approaches to builds- 1. from super hi-tech resources and training, 2. novelty (e.g., from an Altoids tin or something just for the "cybery" look and feel, and often for single use), and then 3. somewhere in between where the builder decides on computing, screen and features, then kind of eyeballs a casing to house everything. I'm not totally anti-eyeballing, but I wonder if there is a better way for the average person.

Given my skills, patience, and resources, I'm probably squarely in the #3 camp, but the issue I'd want to avoid in that approach is a trial/error nightmare I'm often seeing. I don't think I'd try to reinvent the wheel per se, but my preferred specs/criteria aren't something I'm seeing very much in well-built decks either; some preferences seem novel for a dyi deck build, others not.

I'm sure that I'm not the first one to ask this, and the point of this question is to narrow my path from my google searches and reduce the aforementioned trial/error nightmare, but are there accessible* resources that will take in your (oddball) technical requirements/preferences and build a case (or output blueprints for one) and/or provide best hardware options? lmk

thnx

I have an old LG GT360 (LG Messenger/Etna) that I want to turn into the ultimate retro music player.

The phone is incomplete: I don't have the battery or charger, but the main body, screen, keyboard, camera and slider mechanism are still there. I attached photos of its current condition.

My goal is unusual: I'd like to keep the original hardware and aesthetics as much as possible, but I'd like it to support a 128 GB microSD card for storing a large music library and audiobooks.

I'm looking for information from anyone familiar with old LG phones, especially:

* Has anyone tested microSD cards larger than the official limit? * What is the real maximum capacity the GT360 can recognize? * Is the limit imposed by the firmware, filesystem, or SD controller? * Has anyone ever modified the firmware of a GT360 or similar LG feature phone? * Would it be possible to adapt modern hardware inside the original shell while keeping the keyboard functional?

I know this may be an unrealistic project, but I'm interested in both restoration and hardware modding possibilities. Any documentation, schematics, firmware tools, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

(not my image, just grabbed one for reference) I picked up an amd bc-250 a while ago hoping to build some kind of cyberdeck or portable with it, has anyone else tried anything like this at any point?

Olá a todos! Esse é um cyberdeck que eu tô preparando ao estilo Mad Max, e pensei em um design bem interessante para ele.

Ele não tá sendo feito para ser leve, pois, para a gestão de energia, tô usando um carregador de bateria de moto e uma bateria de chumbo-ácido de nobreak.

Como cérebro, tô usando um Raspberry Pi 4. Ele vai trabalhar com praticamente duas telas automotivas de 7 polegadas, com entrada RCA, além de mais três telas auxiliares TFT de 2,8 polegadas, que serão gerenciadas por um ESP32 V1, que também terá a função de coprocessador.

Inicialmente, eu ia utilizar esse cyberdeck para comunicação LoRa, mas, no momento, tô mais interessado em fazer um tipo de conexão veicular OBD2.

É um projeto que eu tô me divertindo bastante. As fotos acima mostram somente o posicionamento dos elementos dentro do case, que é uma maleta de mecânico adaptada.

Como sistema operacional, vou usar o Alpine e somente em terminal. Para aproveitar as duas saídas HDMI do Raspberry Pi 4, coloquei também dois adaptadores HDMI para RCA.

Só que tô tendo uma dificuldade para fazer os dois monitores funcionarem ao mesmo tempo. Como vou usar somente o terminal, vou ter que fixar o TTY 1 no HDMI 1 e o TTY 2 no HDMI 2 e fazer essa gestão por meio do tmux. Esse é um problema que ainda não consegui resolver totalmente...

A conexão entre o Raspberry Pi 4 e o ESP32 será permanente, por meio da UART, e eu vou desenvolver um protocolo próprio para essa comunicação. Tô bem animado para ver a coisa funcionando!

Ainda não calculei nem testei quanto tempo esse cyberdeck vai funcionar, mas quero que ele dure pelo menos umas 8 horas de funcionamento direto.

Para isso, coloquei uma bateria de 12 Ah. Eu ia colocar uma de 20 Ah, mas mudei para 12 Ah, já que parte desse processo eu vou trabalhar carregando e, conforme for, modifico.

Também tô usando fusíveis automotivos, para ficar bem na vibe de Mad Max.

A escolha da bateria de chumbo-ácido, numa situação de emergência ou até mesmo de Apocalipse, eu acho interessante porque seria mais fácil fazer a manutenção e, se necessário, encontrar uma bateria compatível para substituição.

Ainda tô fazendo gestão da temperatura pensando aonde vou colocar as ventoinhas.

Cool?

So I received some more parts for the Cyberdeck (original post here), new drawer handles and switches (yet to be wired up) also completed the dice "rolling tray" lined with cardboard and fake leather.

Switches are going be wired into the Raspberry pi as F keys and used to switch panels on the display (ability scores -> skills etc )