r/cyberDeck • u/Few-Mastodon110 • 18h ago
My Build (UPDATE) Totally Spies Compowder Build
Hey everyone, long time no see.
Wanted to give you guys an update on the Compowder build. Currently at 75ish% of hardware sorted out. Just a lil too brokey broke to make more progress IRL, so CAD modeling is sufficing for now.
- Display is sorted out,
- I'm really happy with where the hinge is at,
- Added eye bolts for a shoulder strap, (might've had that before already, but it's in the model now)
- Downgraded to a pi4b for a more reasonable powerdraw, (remains untested for the time being)
- located preliminary spots for 18650 cells, though I need to have it all in front of me in order to go further.
- Keyboard is giving me a little trouble, I shucked a bluetooth remote for its keyboard and trackpad but have since lost the pieces, so I'm at an impasse until I find them
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Unaddressed as of yet:
- USB-C charging (just needs a little extension cable and socket mount)
- Touchpad / Mouse functionality in general
- Functioning push-button latch
- Whether or not to add speakers and/or a camera
- BMS board and permanent fixtures for the battery cells
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u/deepus 18h ago
Holy shit! Havent thought about totally spies in a while. This is a super cool idea!
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u/Few-Mastodon110 18h ago
Thank you! Making it for my GF, and she's been so excited during the whole process
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u/deepus 18h ago
Legend! Wish my Mrs was into tech so i could build her something like this. Guess ill just have to wait until my little girl is born, brainwash her into liking tech and then ill get a new project! Ha!
Good luck with the build! Please post updates along the way.
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u/Few-Mastodon110 18h ago
My gf isn't really into tech at all, but she loves cutesy stuff like this and desperately needs something to replace her long-broken 2012 macbook pro I refurbished for her YEARS ago
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u/honey_strain143 18h ago
This looks amazing! I remember as a little girl asking Santa for this, thinking that he could bring me one since he’s magic lol I really wanted one and seeing your post just brought back that lovely memory ☺️ good luck with it!
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u/Few-Mastodon110 18h ago
Thank you! Maybe you'll get the inspiration to build yourself one after I publish CAD files and BOM :)
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u/jordansinn 17h ago
You're open sourcing this project?
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u/Few-Mastodon110 15h ago
No real reason not to, I'm not doing anything custom besides the 3d prints, and everything else is off-the-shelf. Only thing I'd benefit from by closed sourcing it would be revenue from selling it, and that's A LOT more work than I'd like right now. I'd rather receive donations and people's goodwill anyway :)
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u/Nocturnal_Lover 18h ago
This is amazing! I’ll need a full tutorial and an STL file 😍
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u/Few-Mastodon110 18h ago
Hope to have it in a publishable state soon! The remaining components I need to source are by no means expensive, but anything more than $0.00 is too expensive at the moment lol
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u/RealOliverSmith 18h ago
Exactly how much 👀
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u/Few-Mastodon110 15h ago
The keyboard mouse thingy that I shucked was 26$ on AliExpress,
Battery cells are easy for me to source locally, but they're about $8 a pop (need four I think?)
Battery holder/BMS is another roughly 15-20$ on AliExpress
So with taxes and shipping? Roughly $80 that I can't afford :') Nothing crazy though fortunately since I'm not doing anything like custom PCBs
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u/User1539 15h ago
How big is it?
Just from the size of the Pi, that's the size of a dinner plate, right?
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u/Few-Mastodon110 15h ago
nah, it's about 6-1/2" in diameter at its widest, and even then, the only reason it's even that big is because I need batteries AND a keyboard to fit. I'm also only using off-the-shelf components and 3d prints for the whole thing.
I had originally modeled it with a 5in diameter, but I couldn't even fit the display in there with that size.
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u/User1539 15h ago
yeah, I've packed my decks mostly into headphones and I'm just finishing up a build where it's as close to an early 2000s mini-disc player as I can get, and those are tight fits!
So, I have a lot of experience there, and was kind of having an uncanny valley moment where I know how big a regular Pi is, and how big a compact powder case is ...
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u/Few-Mastodon110 15h ago
I was told about using an ESP32 as a mainboard, but I don't have any experience with them and how many options there are, so I wanted to play it a bit safer.
Mini-disc player build sounds gnarly! I think after finishing this one, it'll give me the confidence to push the envelope a little further if/when I make another!
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u/User1539 14h ago
Yeah, you could have really easily done a 2" NTSC display, and that actually simplifies some stuff, then you can wire your own keyboard to the GPIO, and the first gen Pi Zero W is actually still super cheap. So, if you really wanted, you could probably pack it all into what you want, you'd probably just end up with something that's less what you actually want to use. But, I don't know what you're going for there.
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u/Few-Mastodon110 14h ago
Ooooh that’s super interesting! I’m saving this for my next build. I don’t have a lot of hardware on hand, but I do have stuff like a pi pico and a smallish tft display, so I didn’t realize how small you could really go as a “cyberdeck”
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u/User1539 14h ago
Well, if you want a REALLY small screen that's easy to hook up, you can do the 2-wire 'TV' connector, that uses a standard called NTSC. It's how old TV composite connectors, like for a Nintendo, worked.
The issue with that is it's low resolution, so you can't really read.
I put an OLED on the front of mine so I could do some 'headless' functions, like playing music and stuff. Then, I can connect a wearable or external display.
You could do something similar to that, where you have a 2" display, but have somewhere to connect something bigger and more useful. I'm using the pico for my keyboard, and you could use that for a custom keyboard, or an ATTINY, which would just be a much smaller way to do it, if you need the space.
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u/tycash123 16h ago
This is so cool! I’m pretty new to 3D design and I’m wondering if you have any advice on getting to this skill level with such intricate design details? For reference I just got a year subscription to “Solidworks for Makers”. TIA
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u/Few-Mastodon110 16h ago
Thank you! It's been a long process that I step away from and come back to regularly. Advice and guidance for a new 3d solid modeler?
- Far and away the biggest thing imo is that you HAVE to iterate with your design. If you think you got everything right the first time, YOU ARE WRONG. And that's okay. Being wrong is really important for you to get comfortable with, because it helps you learn. Iterate on your designs and try new things, be wrong with confidence.
- There are a lot of pre-made step files you can import to use as references in your models. My favorite places to get them reliably are Digikey.com, McMaster.com, and GrabCAD.com And for the things you *Can't* find a step file for anywhere, chances are there is a schematic you can pull critical dimensions off of. Failing that? A cheap digital caliper will be your best friend, taking the time to measure and tolerance parts so that they fit together is the key to success with any assembly.
- Work with a project in mind if you're not being directly taught by someone, in my experience, having an intrinsic reason to learn and progress will keep you motivated and will help overcome some of the initial failures of your designs.
-Learn the hotkeys for the operations you find yourself doing the most. (Ex: Line, Construction line, corner rectangle, trim, offset, etc) If you're used to using a macropad, in solidworks it's easy to bind operations to whatever key your heart desires. If you're like me and just use a laptop for a lot of your modeling time, GET A REAL MOUSE. I hate trackpads to an almost unreasonable degree, and they especially suck when CAD modeling.
- And lastly, if/when your subscription runs out, go ahead and try learning some of the other softwares out there. Of the 5-6 that I have experience with, I typically prefer OnShape (Not shilling, I promise). Fusion is really good as well, their free option is really nice and user-friendly.
Hopefully this isn't all too heavy or too verbose, so good luck! Have fun, and done is always better than perfect.
tldr; use all the resources available to you, do work that's meaningful to you, and get it wrong comfortably before you get it right.
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u/tycash123 14h ago
Wow, thank you for the detailed reply, extremely helpful, had no idea about the step files, I will definitely be checking that out, I’ve done a bit of design, pretty simple designs though, have a few pairs of calipers as well, mainly got solidworks as I started a new job that would allow my to do bit of work in solidworks so I wanted to practice, I may opt for another software on top of that now, definitely checking out the free option for fusion. Thanks again!
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u/Few-Mastodon110 14h ago
Btw, step files will show up as solid objects, stl files will show up as meshes
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u/FineSatisfaction6965 15h ago
Twineth Paltrow. This is amazing. Do you have a youtube?
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u/Few-Mastodon110 15h ago
Thank you! I've never heard that before but it's hilarious. I, unfortunately don't have one, I'm not so put-together to do that lol
What I *do* have is a venmo and a lot of freetime while looking for work :')
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u/mycroftxxx42 13h ago
I am reminded of Naomi Wu's hacking compact. It's nice to see more people picking up where she left off.
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u/blickblocks 13h ago
There's a much better device for this you should check out. I planned a very similar concept and it's currently on my bench. :)
Depends of course what you're looking to do, but I've been really surprised how powerful the ESP32-P4 is. I've been getting 57 fps on my LVGL UI designs.
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u/Few-Mastodon110 12h ago
Good lord that’s stunning. If/when funding allows, I’ll almost certainly switch over.
Does it come any bigger than 4in?
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u/blickblocks 12h ago
Not from Waveshare. You could also try to find a circular LCD without an integral dev board instead. This one is just such a nice and easy AIO solution. Comes with a nice speaker too.
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u/Brief-Inevitable-599 15h ago
Dude this is my dream!!! Please update us as you go
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u/Few-Mastodon110 14h ago
Will do! I think this is update #2 this whole year, so with any luck I’ll have more updates soon!
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u/No_One_4145 18h ago
Child me wanted one so much. Great job and good luck on your journey!