3D Printing a laptop HTPC

[NeverNotExhausted]

So I got a 3D printer a couple of days ago. And in typical fashion now look at the world through the lens of "I could probably print that". I also moved into my newly built house a couple of days ago and have 2.5gb ethernet running to nearly every room. So I've been using my old gaming laptop in my lounge rooms to stream games from my main PC to my Living Room TV's.

 

Yesterday I was playing some Hollow Knight and looked at my laptop and thought "Y'know what? I reckon the width of that laptops display is the same as the height of my main monitor, I wonder if I could 3D print a case for it and use it as a second monitor?"

 

And so after a bit of youtubing people who have done exactly that I thought "well if I take the display and use it as a second monitor, why don't I print a case for the laptop and turn it into a dedicated HTPC?"

 

So here we are. I'm very new to 3D printing and to CAD software, so I expect this might take a while for me to complete. But I'm going to print out a case for the laptop's motherboard, Add a couple of 120mm fans to the top in the hopes that it will quieten down the two fans for the heatsink, and make myself a HTPC.

 

The specs of the laptop are

 

CPU- Intel Core i7-9750h

RAM- 32gb Crucial DDR4 2666Mhz (2 x 16gb DIMM's)

GPU- RTX 2060 Mobile

Boot SSD- 500gb Samsung 970 Evo Plus

 

I'm probably going to add another 2.5 inch SSD down the line for mass storage/movies and what not.

 

So, watch this space if you want to see an idiot ruin an otherwise perfectly good laptop

 

[NeverNotExhausted]

Started the teardown of the laptop and ran into my first issue. When I sent back the laptop for a warranty. Someone has rounded off a screw for one of the fans, so I had to snap off the standoff to get the fan out and I will cut the standoff out. But I now have a motherboard to start measuring and designing a case for

[NeverNotExhausted]

[r00tb33r]

I'd keep the bottom of the laptop shell and just print a flat top...

 

Or, keep both parts of the shell and just print a cover for the keyboard.

 

No, wait, that's what the lid with the screen is for.

 

Huh.  But then I just ended up with the same old laptop.  Who could have thought it was such a functional design?

[NeverNotExhausted]

1 minute ago, r00tb33r said:

I'd keep the bottom of the laptop shell and just print a flat top...

 

Or, keep both parts of the shell and just print a cover for the key boars.

 

No, wait, that's what the lid with the screen is for.

 

Huh.  But then I just ended up with the same old laptop.  Who could have thought it was such a functional design?

Lol yeah, I know it's king of a pointless exercise. It's more of a "because I can" thing. Also because I want to use the screen as a side monitor for my desktop rig.

 

I was just looking at the bottom of the case and thinking I could just print a topper for it. Make it a bit bigger so I can put some 120mm fans in and some front I/O

[r00tb33r]

I thought HTPCs are a dead thing anyway.  We were doing that 20 years ago.

 

Didn't the likes of Roku kill that off?

[NeverNotExhausted]

6 minutes ago, r00tb33r said:

I thought HTPCs are a dead thing anyway.  We were doing that 20 years ago.

 

Didn't the likes of Roku kill that off?

Yeah you're not wrong, but the laptop isn't getting used otherwise, so why not?

 

Edit- Plus it's a fun little project to do while I learn my way around 3D printing and CAD

[SorryBella]

41 minutes ago, NeverNotExhausted said:

So, watch this space if you want to see an idiot ruin an otherwise perfectly good laptop

Framework at home:

[NeverNotExhausted]

5 minutes ago, SorryBella said:

Framework at home:

Minus the 6-figure investment lol

[SorryBella]

3 minutes ago, NeverNotExhausted said:

Minus the 6-figure investment lol

Ehhhhhh i mean you can twist it to your advantage. You can say that you can do what Framework do for 0.01% of Linus' investment, and 0.000125% of the total investment (assuming 25$ in filament rolls) and 0.4% of their development time (assuming you spend a single work week worth of hours on it)

[NeverNotExhausted]

A little bit of progress being made. I've torn the laptop apart completely. Removed the heatsink ready to repaste (Just ordered some thermal pads for everything around the CPU/GPU).

 

I've also picked a layout for everything. The USB 3.0 and SD card reader are on a daughter board, So I'm going to use that internally to break out to a 4 port USB hub for the front I/O. I'm going to stick the battery to the front panel to act as a UPS, Then 2 120mm fans on the top panel blowing down on the front of the motherboard. Hopefully this will aid the stock cooling solution and reduce the noise a little bit. Not sure how I'm going to power the 2 fans, but I'll figure something out. I might desolder the USB 3.0 header on the right side of the board and use the 12v to power the two fans (going to grab a few Noctua's and run them at 7v to keep noise down). I've also got a little heatsink coming for the chipset to keep that in check.

 

I've started on a design for the case and I'm going through the tedium of measuring out all the standoff locations. I'm going to use pegs instead of screwing the board down as it won't be moving pretty much ever. The CAD progress is coming along pretty slowly while I still learn how to actually model everything. But I'm going to put a 3 degree bevel on all the edges to make it look a bit nicer, other than that it's going to be a pretty boring black box. Thinking I might make a Hexagon pattern for the fan grills, but I kind of like the grills how they are

 

[NeverNotExhausted]

2 hours ago, SorryBella said:

Ehhhhhh i mean you can twist it to your advantage. You can say that you can do what Framework do for 0.01% of Linus' investment, and 0.000125% of the total investment (assuming 25$ in filament rolls) and 0.4% of their development time (assuming you spend a single work week worth of hours on it)

Honestly I'm not even concerned about the time investment. It's pretty fun designing and making something like this

[NeverNotExhausted]

Got the side I/O modeled up. Gave it some extra room around the ports to make sure it has a bit of leeway around each port, and a recess for each port so the 3mm thick walls won't get in the way of plugging in devices

 

[NeverNotExhausted]

Been up until 2:30am local time working on the design. I'm 93 percent sure all the standoffs are correctly placed, and I've got and added fan grills all the way around the sides and rear of the case. I'm pretty happy with how it's looking so far. But I might also look into putting all the vents on an angle for aesthetics. But that's a problem for future me. Time for sleep

 

[RollinLower]

i kinda like the straight vents like this. i also think these will look a bit nicer coming out of a 3D printer, with angles you usually get a bit of a stepping effect.

nice job so far!

[NeverNotExhausted]

Progress has been pretty slow on this project. I've ended up working on a lot of things completely unrelated to the the laptop conversation, plus living in rural Australia comes with the eternal game of waiting for parts to arrive in the mail. But I've made a little bit of progress with it all.

 

I've picked up some buck converters to pull power from the motherboard and then give me some extra fan control. I've ditched the 120mm fan idea and ordered 80mm fans to keep the overall height of the case down, and also to make the airflow path a bit nicer (I also might have done this because the 120mm fans I had lying around are now planned for use in an enclosure I'm making for one of my 3D printers currently, plus some 80mm's for the hotend because boy is it loud)

 

But you know you're being productive when your desk looks like this...