Michael Mayer Is Back with Another 3D-Printable Laptop, This Time Powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero

Maker Michael Mayer has designed a successor to his 3D-printable Portable Pi 84 clamshell laptop, swapping out the full-size Raspberry Pi 4 Model B at its heart for a more compact Raspberry Pi Zero to create the Portable Pi 80.

The original Portable Pi 84 was unveiled last month as a do-it-yourself clamshell laptop inspired by classic machines of the 1980s and early 1990s in which the rear of the chassis remains fixed and a wide-format display hinges over a mechanical keyboard. The reason for that fixed rear: to provide enough room to house batteries and the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer that powered the device.

Now, Mayer is back with the Portable Pi 80 — a more compact design that uses a full clamshell layout, dodging the bulky fixed rear portion of its predecessor by switching from the full-size Raspberry Pi 4 to the more compact Raspberry Pi Zero. This sits in the top half of the 3D-printed clamshell case, attached to a Waveshare Zero-DISP-7A 7" touchscreen display — handily removing the need for a dedicated pointing device.

The bottom half of the clamshell holds a pair of batteries and the related charging circuitry, as well as a Contra 40% mechanical keyboard — with the clicky board a clear focus of the Portable Pi 80, as with the larger Portable Pi 84. There's a USB Type-A port for external peripherals, a battery level gauge triggered by a physical button-push, and a choice of internal speaker or analog audio jack — though Mayer is still working on getting that final feature working.

The 3D print files for the project, along with a bill of materials and wiring instructions, are available on Printables under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.