This is my completely upgradeable and customizable Framework Powered Handheld i’ve been working on for a bit. I call it, the FrameDeck.
It has hotswappable mechanical switches for face buttons, 1200p touch screen and is powered by the framework 13 mainboard. It has two external tb3 ports and the stock battery. The photo above is the first prototype, but I plan on having a transparent 3d printed resin chassis made for the final revision for that sweet sweet transparent tech look. The goal is for people to use their old mainboards&battery and make a handheld from parts they can easily order online (PCBs and 3D printed pieces included) and assemble with basic tools.
Link for the progress Video and the Github if you guys are interested in following along
The only thing I see in the article is that they’re moving to an immutable distro. Nothing to indicate it will be better-maintained in the future. This project has gone 6+ months without updates in the past.
If you have any issues with it at all, join the Universal Blue discord and we’ll be happy to work with you, we want this to be a great experience for anyone who goes through with a mod this cool.
cool work. how do you manage heat dissipation to prevent thermal runaway on the battery?
this is my biggest fear with sandwiching the battery like and leading me to use a GPD Pocket mainboard + battery (which go side-by-side within a 7" chassis) for a custom mini-laptop/deck project design.
i guess the battery goes between the backlit display and the motherboard so that the fan can pull air from the back? neither of your videos show the motherboard and battery going in
I plan on making a step by step guide for assembly once I iron out a few kinks- but in short, the piece that the mainboard screws into separates the mainboard from the battery. It’s about 1.5mm thick. The mainboard gets sufficiently cooled, as long as you don’t block the air flow intake/vent . I’ve never had the mainboard on its own become hot though, even while running games the board is just well cooled and the battery is sufficiently isolated from the mainboard that heat doesn’t transfer through.
The only heat “problem” is the screens controller board I’m using atm. It gets far warmer than the framework mainboard. It uses the screen as a heat sink but it’s not ideal
Here’s a screenshot from my video where you can find the piece that separates the mainboard from the battery (it’s on the top half of the screen)
Hi! This is very cool. You say it is open source, but I don’t see any open source licenses in your repository. Making this open source would be amazing, but without a compatible license, copyright is still “all rights reserved,” even if the source files are available for people to see.
Please either add a compatible license (CC-BY-SA is a good option, but licenses that restrict commercial use such as CC-BY-SA-NC are not open source) or remove references to “open source” if you can. Labeling projects as “open source” that are not licensed with an OSI open source definition compatible license muddy the waters.
Hi, how well does the wisecoco display hold up, is the touch layer laminated or is it air gapped from the display? I’ve been considering one of their bigger displays for my tablet project.
