Worklog Project: Cyberdeck

Nold

real emulation, no hardware
Staff member
.
.
2021 1st Place Winner
Joined
Jul 16, 2017
Messages
443
Likes
1,608
Location
EU
Portables
5 + 1*π
This project is not really gaming related, none the less i want to document my work on this project here. Alongside with a more detailed page on my new wiki: https://wiki.nold.in/Cyberdeck

At this point there is not much to show, as i'm still waiting for most of the parts to arrive, before i really can start digging into the case design. For everyone who doesn't know what a "Cyberdeck" is, it's basically a cyberpunk themed laptop. Here is a really cool design as an example of how that can look like:

other cool cyberdecks can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/top/?sort=top&t=all

So what's the background of this project? Well I'm a big [long time] cyberpunk fan even before reading Neuromancer & long before Cyberpunk 2077. And after getting addicted to mechanical keyboards and building many portable gaming consoles, i feel like it's time to finally build my own cyberdeck!

The core of the deck will be a powerful Rock Pi N10 SBC, running a debian based linux, as that's my favorite distribution. I'm planing to use a 7" HD702E LCD as i already got it & eDP seems like a cool option to keep external HDMI support. The keyboard will be a custom 50% JJ50. For battery & power management I needed something beefy to supply a max. of 2.5A on 5V for the RockPi & additional components. Helder's RetroPSU seems to be the best solution on the market, so i ordered one from him.

What this build also needs is EL-Wire! I wanted to use it for so long & can't wait for it to arrive. It'll give the case the highly needed neon look.


Other feature/ideas:
  • Trackball
  • GPIO breakout
  • Internal Speakers
  • Software defined radio with external antenna
  • Internal USB-Hub for additional internal devices [SDR, GPS, Keyboard, ...]
  • External wifi antenna
  • LoRa? GPS?
  • Solar panel for charging?

Name ideas so far: "Noldo-Sendai Cyberspace CDXX" or "Hackbrett" [which is german for "chopping board"]
 

Nold

real emulation, no hardware
Staff member
.
.
2021 1st Place Winner
Joined
Jul 16, 2017
Messages
443
Likes
1,608
Location
EU
Portables
5 + 1*π
Alright, so i had to redo the whole design.. because of physics. But i think i now found a nice way to make everything work. I also figured out which batteries to use, i'm going to go with 2x21700 giving me 10Ah which should be plenty in normal use.

Here's the current state of the case:
Screenshot from 2021-10-26 18-32-58.png


Screenshot from 2021-10-26 18-34-15.png


Screenshot from 2021-10-26 18-33-31.png


Since this is cyberpunk, i went the lazy road & will have the eDP wire for the screen not inside the hinge. which makes that part a little easier. For the style I also made all screws visible on the outside. I'll use some nice machine screws so i think it'll look pretty sick. Another cool thing is that the deck is upgradeable by simply replacing the "SBC Box" on the side with another one.

So far so good, still much todo ofc, but it's going along nicely. Got some parts from china yesterday, too. But I'm still waiting for a few more to arrive.

DSCF0840.JPG


Building the keyboard was fun, typing on it isn't yet xD
 

Nold

real emulation, no hardware
Staff member
.
.
2021 1st Place Winner
Joined
Jul 16, 2017
Messages
443
Likes
1,608
Location
EU
Portables
5 + 1*π
Currently the project hangs on the eDP display config.. I thought because it's called "display port" it would be plug-n-play like HDMI... i was so wrong.. you need fitting kernel drivers and a custom device-tree configuration. Those ".dts" files describe the hardware on a pretty low kernel level. So they are kinda hard to read & understand.. After many hours of reading & mostly try-n-error, I still couldn't make this panel work. Even tho it's supported by the kernel & there should be a matching dts config somewhere..

Also idk if my custom PCB is correct. so both are kinda hard to debug right now. but i'm 42.0% sure, it's correct.

1636743535529.png
 

YveltalGriffin

First Wii U Trimmer
.
Joined
Jun 7, 2016
Messages
292
Likes
1,050
Location
South Florida
Portables
5
I remember reading about eDP issues in the Damn Linux Tablet worklog on Hackaday. Do you know how many lanes your panel uses? The guy building DLT had issues with the driver not decreasing the number of eDP lanes despite querying the panel for its lane width.

One hunch that remained was that it might have to do with the fact that the displays I was trying to get working were all 2 lane displays. DisplayPort defines that for embedded devices it is ok to use only 1 or 2 lanes instead of the full 4 data lanes to safe cost and complexity for less high resolution displays.

I also quickly found a hint for the culprit in the driver, while display is requesting that the amount of lanes be lowered, the driver never actually does. This happens a few times until the driver determines there are no more lower lane counts to check albeit it never actually doing that. The driver defines a struct with the the three different lane counts to check but it seems it never actually uses it other than to check for how many times it has to lower the lane count.
You may have already explored this, but I figured I'd mention it just in case! The project is looking super cool and it would be a shame to sacrifice separate HDMI out just because of an eDP driver issue...
 

Nold

real emulation, no hardware
Staff member
.
.
2021 1st Place Winner
Joined
Jul 16, 2017
Messages
443
Likes
1,608
Location
EU
Portables
5 + 1*π
I remember reading about eDP issues in the Damn Linux Tablet worklog on Hackaday. Do you know how many lanes your panel uses? The guy building DLT had issues with the driver not decreasing the number of eDP lanes despite querying the panel for its lane width.



You may have already explored this, but I figured I'd mention it just in case! The project is looking super cool and it would be a shame to sacrifice separate HDMI out just because of an eDP driver issue...
Thanks dude, yea i was thinking of that but couldn't find a way how to set the lane count in the dts file yet. afaik my display only used 2 of 4 lanes. I'll look into it tomorrow!
 

Nold

real emulation, no hardware
Staff member
.
.
2021 1st Place Winner
Joined
Jul 16, 2017
Messages
443
Likes
1,608
Location
EU
Portables
5 + 1*π
So after buying another [DSI] display & finding out it's blob driver only supports the RPi4, i bought a new SBC. With the NanoPC-T4 & the matching eDP display everything should work fine. First tests confirm that my display is working & i was able to power the nanopc from 5V [or 5.5V]. BIG-up to FriendlyElec for good documentation, schematics, CAD files & upstream linux support!

Because of the new SBC the case had to be reworked, so i started from scratch. This is what i'm currently at:
Screenshot from 2022-04-03 11-25-48.png


Screenshot from 2022-04-03 11-24-24.png


I'm planing to put a lot of cool features into this little badboy & there's still a lot to do. But finally i can make some progress!


Anyways I give printing the first prototype of the top a shot.. sadly i have quite some shifting issues on these big parts.. so i have to figure that out somehow... since this might take a while.. have some meme:
1649010839607.jpeg
 

Nold

real emulation, no hardware
Staff member
.
.
2021 1st Place Winner
Joined
Jul 16, 2017
Messages
443
Likes
1,608
Location
EU
Portables
5 + 1*π
Alrighty! After giving my printer some highly needed love & a lot of test prints, i'm confident that i can start printing the final parts soon[TM].. Also a few more memes arrived, so i can stuff every last inch of this thing full of cool features.

I'm really happy how everything is turning out & can't wait to see the full case in real life. In the meantime, here are some renders:
cyber v14022.png


cyber v140.png
 

Nold

real emulation, no hardware
Staff member
.
.
2021 1st Place Winner
Joined
Jul 16, 2017
Messages
443
Likes
1,608
Location
EU
Portables
5 + 1*π
I becomes reality! I'm so hyped.. the prints look good everything should [or will be made to] fit. Sanded quite a few hours [it's a little bit bigger then my usual projects]... But I think it looks totally badass xD


DSCF0931.JPG


Electronics are still a WIP but we're getting there.. also sorry for the mess

DSCF0927.JPG


But even tho it's kinda big, there isn't much space left in it & lots of wires todo.. Check out my tiny USB-hub :D
DSCF0938.JPG


Big thx to my can Rick for helping me out

DSCF0919.JPG
 

Nold

real emulation, no hardware
Staff member
.
.
2021 1st Place Winner
Joined
Jul 16, 2017
Messages
443
Likes
1,608
Location
EU
Portables
5 + 1*π
Yesterday i reworked the top plate and added a holder for the RetroPSU [which has sadly no screw holes]. the Holder in the middle basically a second layer for components to the case, which came in quite handy.

Finally i could put everything together today, for the first time! I went up and added a externally accessable DIP-Switch to power off/on the internal boards like the RTL-SDR, EL-Wire and LoRa-Board. Also i figured i need SD-Card access for development, luckily i could still include one quite easily..

1650479205812.png


Still need to build/get a fitting heatsink/fan... anyways, everything is looking good so far.

1650479758135.png


To my own suprise everything fit together quite well :) [even so something usb is already broken again - lol]
Also EL-Wire inverters are loud-AF! the wire was the first thing i disabled xD Anyways, I will build a [hopesfully] more silent inverter soon[ish]..

The hinges are not finished yet, too. But for now, lets enjoy the view..

1650479986140.png


1650480038083.png


Funny thing is, i can't even test the screen yet, since i still need to figure out the linux kernel / dts configuration for eDP >.<'' .. also way more software stuff to test / make..

Whatsoever.. Happy 4/20!
 
Top