Jake Simek's Pelican-Deck Is an Open Source 3D-Printed Framework for a Pelican-Housed Raspberry Pi

Self-described "cybersecurity enthusiast" Jake Simek has become the latest to built a rugged, portable cyberdeck by combining a Raspberry Pi single-board computer and a Pelican case with some 3D-printed parts — and has released them all under an open source license for you to do the same, if you'd like.

"This project is my first attempt at building a portable cyberdeck using a Raspberry Pi 4 and a Pelican 1150 case," Simek explains of the Pelican-Deck. "It's designed to be fully self-contained, with water-resistant ports, onboard battery power, and cooling fans. My main focus was to create a sleek, functional system for running various scripts and tasks, such as BadUSB attacks, while keeping everything compact and portable."

The heart of the system is a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer, though other models would also suit, which lives in the upper part of the watertight Pelican case behind a 7" color display. A 3D-printed face plate keeps everything lined up, providing access to an SD card reader, USB hub, status LEDs, and toggle switches for the peripheral hardware — plus vents for a trio of cooling fans. Additional ports, including Ethernet, more USB, and HDMI, are brought out to weatherproof connectors for external use.

The lower half of the case houses an off-the-shelf wireless keyboard and, hidden underneath, storage for SD cards and USB drives. Everything is powered by a pair of commercial USB battery packs, though Simek says that a custom battery pack based on 18650 cells and with USB Power Delivery charging is on the to-do list, along with a move to the more powerful Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer.

Full details are available in the project's GitHub repository, where 3D print files are published under the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3; additional photos can be found in Simek's Reddit post.