Using PLA filament, a small London-based team have managed to achieve the 3D printing of their own Raspberry-Pi-based laptop, with a battery life of six to eight hours and Wi-Fi enabled out of the box. It is being sold as a kit—a Raspberry Pi-powered laptop kit “you build yourself” called the Pi-Top—which includes a 13.3-in. screen, keyboard, and touchpad.
“The Pi-Top kit is just the start,” say the creators. “Future projects enable users to modify the Pi-Top using the skills learned from building it and gaining new skills to create their own products.”
Creators note the hardest part was “getting the support structure right so it could survive the beating and pressure that a normal laptop experiences.” The team printed the first prototype for the project using a Rostock Max V2 Kit with an E3D metal hotend. The laptop shell was printed out of PLA filament over the 160-hour time span, with 0.2 mm layers and 30% infill. The shell is printed in three separate pieces, two at the same time and the larger piece on its own.
Cofounder Ryan Dunwoody studied engineering at Oxford, where he said he became convinced Raspberry Pi could be used as a tool to accelerate practical hardware skills, even from a beginner level. Co-founder Jesse Lozano studied law at Kings College University, and in his spare time used free learning tools to become a developer.
