Infinite Laptop with Raspberry Pi 4

The Raspberry Pi 4 has proven itself to be an amazing, useful, and welcome upgrade to the fine line of Raspberry Pi products. With it's Quad-core, up to 4GB of RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0, it has catapulted itself into the forefront of the Single Board Computer market. Not only is a 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 an adequate Desktop Computer, it can also be a super laptop replacement, as well.

The Pitop company has come out with a number of Raspberry Pi Products, and the best one is the PiTop CEED. The regular Pitop laptop that is currently available is not readily compatible with the Raspberry Pi 4. Mainly it's the fault of the Raspberry Pi 4. The Raspberry Pi Foundation made an unexpected change to it, in that they swapped the location of the Ethernet and USB ports. The Ethernet port used to be on the left, but it's now on the right. The PiTop was tailor-made for the form factor of the Raspberry Pi when the latest model was the Raspberry Pi 3B. Because of the tight, unforgiving cabling and plug-in boards, the current PiTop cannot accommodate a Raspberry Pi 4, not without some serious modifications.

But if you can find a Raspberry Pi CEED laptop (Not to be confused with the CEED Desktop), not only is the quality of the cables better, but everything is set up in a way that makes it possible to just plug in a Raspberry Pi 4 wityhout having to do any more than add an adapter plug or two.

On the left is the PiTop CEED's interface board that combines battery management, Display connectivity, and power pass-thru. On the right is the Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM. In the middle is the soon-to-be replaced HDMI-to-Micro-HDMI cable. I only had a 4-footer on hand. I have a 6-inch replacement on the way.

The ArkTek adapter is just a micro-USB to USB-C adapter for the power. It was pretty much the only extra thing I had to put into this, next to the HDMI-to-Micro-HDMI adapter. There is plenty of room inside for many different brands/types of adapters. You should be able to fit an SSD into this, if you even need one, since the Micro-SD card I have is 256GB.

The main drawback of the PiTop CEEDis how you connect ethernet and USB devices. Currently, there is just a gaping hole in the side of it, and you're supposed to just run your Ethernet and USB cables through it. You can slide the black tinted plexiglass panel out to stick your fingers inside to make the process easy, but ultimately, this needs a remedy.

As you can see, the placement of the hole, and the fact that it's not "fitted" to the form factor of the Raspberry Pi makes plugging in USB sticks and Ethernet slightly inconvenient. The size of the connectors varies, and because the hole is slightly offset, some USB devices just won't fit. I had to remedy this temporarily with a USB hub..

The reason I say that this is an infinite laptop is because if the Raspberry Pi 5, 6, and other future models maintain the same form factor, this laptop can be upgraded easily, by just swapping out the Raspberry Pi. You could upgrade the display, as long as the 14" display for laptops continues to be available. The only real drawback is the keyboard and trackpad. Just like with any laptop these days, the keyboard is custom and would have to be purchased from PiTop, if it breaks.

Update Dec, 2020

I revisited the original laptop after leaving it in my pile of projects, and made some much needed improvements, along the line of the list I made:

• Get an Ethernet extension cable to route the Ethernet port on the Raspberry Pi to the rear of the PiTop case.
• Get a USB 3 Hub to route the Raspberry Pi's USB 3 ports to the rear, to give a number of USB 3 and USB-C ports next to the Ethernet Port.
• Add a micro-HDMI-to-female HDMI cable to the Raspberry Pi's second micro-HDMI port, and have the female HDMI port stick out the back, so that external monitors can be used.
• Add a fan and drill some vent holes to keep overclocked CPU cool.

First, I moved the Raspberry Pi closer to the Power/battery/video board, so I'd have more room to put in the parts I wanted.

This worked out rather well, because it allowed me to have a large, unobstructed place to put in the USB 3.0 Hub. If the Raspberry Pi were in the original place, I'd have to contend with the cables and tiny wires built into the display and power board. By moving the Rapsberry Pi over, I have a place to cut the hole for the hub which doesn't interfere with anything else. It came close to the rightmost hinge, but since I was gluing the hub in place, there would actually be more stability there after I was done.

I am using this Inland brand USB 3.0 hub, because it was the thinnest one I could find, and had 3 ports on one side. Most other hubs I saw were either too long, too thick, or had only 2 ports on one side. This one was just right. I used a dremel tool with a circular cutter to cut the hole and this picture shows me slipping the hub into the hole.

Here is how the unit looks from the rear, with the USB hub poking out. I used Sugru to plug any gaps left by the unevenly cut opening. I've been using Sugru for years now, and it is my Go-To product for filling in gaps, giving wires extra protection from being pulled, and other things.

Here is how far the hub sticks out. I made sure that opening the display would not allow it to bump into the hub.

With the hub glued securely in place, I wrapped up the excess cables, and glued the Ethernet union to the base of the PiTop case. I eventually want to try adding an NvMe Sata drive, and it can still fit there right next to the ethernet jack and hub. If that works out, I'll have it booting off of it. Right now, though, it works fine with the 256GB Micro-SD. Speaking of the Micro-SD card, I installed Ubuntu 20.10, after a few weeks of testing it and it's predicessor, 20.14.

Finally, I added a FanShim from Pimoroni, so I can overclock.

So here is something I'm pondering now. I need ventilation otherwise the fan will not do it's job. On method you see here, is me covering the plexiglass cover with Masking tape in preparation for drilling vent holes into it. But then I thought about just cutting a square hole, and putting a mesh filter over it. Still another idea that came to me was just using sheets of plastic to craft my own case top, which would snap into place, and have holes for speakers, as well as a large mesh-filter for ventillation. I haven't decided exactly which one to use yet, but in the mean time, I can use it and continue testing things.

So for now, this is the finished product, until I decide on how to actually complete it. As an internet/travel computer, it's fun and functional. It does video, plays games, and so far, has been my go-to computer for when I go to family gatherings where I might need to hang around waiting, or need to show people something on the internet.