Tinkering vs Engineering: Can You Build a Laptop from Scratch? -- Episode-640

I indeed try to challenge myself with every video, thanks for noticing.

Thank you Clem, for all the great videos & projects! For someone who is learning as they go, you really tend to pick the most challenging projects

it is still a project that I would like to complete one day, and yes the power system needs a tota lreconsideration of how it should be configured, I see the 2s benefit.

Please don't give up on using a CM4 or equivalent for this project. The Raspberry Pi foundation is going to release a CM5 that will very likely be pin compatible. You could create a real fully functional ARM laptop design! I know it's challenging, but it's not impossible to build a stable power supply and BMS that generates all the required rails: 3.3v, 5v and 12v for all the different components. Going with an ESP32 as a base for your laptop design is just trading one problem for another, as it lacks the compute power to do much. Especially if it's already driving a large screen.

It would be a good idea however to use an ESP32 to do the power management of all the rails

The biggest choice/obstacle your facing is what battery configuration to use: 1S, 2S, 3S or 4S. I'd recommend going with a 2S battery system. You can buck down for 3.3v and 5v which will draw the most current and boost up for 12v which shouldn't draw much. This should give a high overall efficiency. The disadvantages are: you'll need to use a dedicated 2s charging chip, matching cells for the 2S battery and if you want to charge from 5v you'll need a boost converter to get the voltage high enough. Alternatively you can charge the 2S from 9v with USB-C PD.

I recommend reaching out to Texas Instruments for advice on what components to use, and for help in creating a basic but functional power management and BMS design

Copper Pour = Zone.

Click on a copper layer and then use the Zone tool. When you start to draw it, you can select which net it connects to.

You could also leave it as "no net" and draw it until you're happy.

I guess it depends if you can leverage fast or partial updates ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTCyJAUGWYg

I have thought about epaper but dismissed it due to the super slow refresh which would make a terminal probably unusable on it. an alternative would be the sharp memory displays but they are to expensive and to small for what I want to do.

thanks for the info.
how do you conncet the planes to a net? is it just a pour plane but with the specific net selcted for the pour? or is there a different tool for that job?

the point that I WOULD LIKE to get towards is kinda proving that we do not need much to do computing on the go..so maybe aminimalist laptop is just what the world has been waiting for _)

Very entertaining Clem.

Yes, laptop design is hard, that is why the manufacturers have large teams of engineers making them.

Have you considered using Epaper for the monitor?

That could cut your power needs and still give you a reliable output device.

If you keep it simple with a not too demanding application, you could come up with a useful device.

You just have to resign yourself to something that is going to be SLOW by modern standards.