Ultra Minimal Cyberdeck

This is an ultra minimal cyberdeck, powered by a raspberry Pi Zero 2W, with a 30% Ortho-Linear keyboard and a 7" display. Runs on a 4000mAh battery.

Fairly easy to put together, some soldering skills needed to put the keyboard kit together and wire up the charging circuit.

1x Raspberry Pi Zero 2W (https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-2)

1x 16GB or larger SD Card

1x Waveshare 7" Touch Display Kit (https://www.waveshare.com/zero-disp-7a.htm)

1x Adafruit Powerboost 1000 Charger (https://www.adafruit.com/product/2465)

1x LiPo 4000MAh Battery (100x50x5 mm)

1x Gherkin 30% Keyboard kit (https://mechboards.co.uk/products/gherkin-kit?_pos=4&_sid=c33ea0de0&_ss=r)

30x Switches and keycaps of your choice

2x Right angle USB C to USB A cables

1x SPDT ON-Off Miniature Slide Switch

6x M2 10mm screws

4x M2.5 8mm screws

Electrical or heat resistant tape

A 3D Printer is required for the case (200x200 print area minimum)

I purchased this kit from Mechboards, they have a decent build video which I have linked here.

Print off the keyboard plate and insert the switches into it **BEFORE** you solder them onto the board.

No need to use the switch plate (it was a bit big) or bottom plate from the kit...

Writing the firmware and layout to the keyboard can be tricky, so I have included the needed .json file and a PDF documenting the layers and the modifier keys.

This is very easy, just connect the Pi to the screen by sliding it onto the connectors on the back.

Use Raspberry Pi imager to write the image OS Lite version to your SD card. I would recommend going through the customisations , adding your hostname, WiFi settings, SSH enable etc. This will save you having to do it from the command line later.

I would not recommend using the desktop or full version, as the Pi Zero is simply too slow to run this. Its really command line only.

You can use any capacity of battery but it must be no thicker than 5mm, and no larger that 50 x 100mm to fit into the case.

Take one on the USB cables and cut off the USB A end. We only need the power lines, Black and Red wires, so strip these and cut the rest back. Solder these to the + and - terminals on the end of the board.

Solder the switch using very short wires on the ground and EN positions, and finally the battery to BAT and Ground. See pic and also consult the Adafruit documentation here:

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-powerboost-1000c-load-share-usb-charge-boost/overview

Print off the main case and two small riser feet in the colours of your choice.

The small switch, power board and battery can be fitted, and taped down.

VERY IMPORTANT: use tape to cover the back of the charging board - if you do not you will short it out due to the keyboard being VERY close. You can secure the battery and switch with the tape too, or use glue.

Pass the USB-C end of the cable through the hole into the main case, routing the cable along side the battery. There is very little clearance here, so everything must fit down snugly.

Use 2x M2 screws to fit the left and right foot into the case.

Use 4x M2 screws to secure the keyboard over the battery and charging board.

Before screwing the screen to the back of the case, route the keyboard cable up the side and through the opening in the side now insert the USB-A into the socket. Connect the USB-C power. you'll have to try to bend the cables so that they fit into this space neatly (its a bit tricky to get right) - see pictures.

Once the cables are in place, secure the screen to the case with the 4 M2.5 Screws.

The switch powers up the system, but does not gracefully shut it down, so this must be done using the shutdown now command. Once the system is powered off, slide the switch to the off position. This might be something that could be improved in future.

I loaded the system with fastfetch - system info, cmatrix - the digital rain demo, midnight commander - a file manager and a few other utilities.

1. sudo apt install fastfetch
2. sudo apt install cmatrix
3. sudo apt install mc

I also installed frotz - this is an interactive fiction z-machine interpreter. You'll need the z-machine games files to play. (search for infocom or similar)

The keyboard is NOT easy to use! finding and getting used to where the numbers and punctuation is not the best experience, but it looks cool 😁

I hope you enjoy this project, please post a make and some pictures if you do build it.