[Arm-netbook] Housing idea: screenless laptop

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68


On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 9:31 PM, Matt Campbell <mattcampbell at pobox.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It occurred to me that for blind people, who use a screen reader such as
> Speakup or Orca, a laptop housing without the screen or the touchpad would
> be quite convenient.

 and a lot thinner.  hmmm...

> And if this housing used the same battery as the
> regular laptop housing, it would last longer because there's no screen.

 yeah it would.  about twice as long.

> To the engineers on the list, how difficult would it be to modify the
> current laptop housing to remove the screen and touchpad?

 don't connect the cable, make a couple of fillers for the hinge holes
and something to cover the touchpanel 3d-printed - that's about...
6-10 days of work.

> I suppose there
> are two ways to go about removing the touchpad: either it could just be
> replaced with empty space,

 if you wanted to just put a blanking plate across it you could knock
something up (and glue it in place) in an hour or so.  actually
redoing the parts to *fit* a blanking plate - several days.

> or the keyboard could be moved to the front.

 that's a good 3-5 weeks of work.... no wait.... possibly a lot more
than that.  there are about eight separate physical parts that would
need to be redesigned, and PCB2 might need redesigning as well.

> In
> the latter case, how much smaller could the housing be made without removing
> anything inside (battery, space for a USB dongle, etc.)?

 anything is possible if you have enough time.  PCB3 is right at the
front, in front of the battery: there's nowhere else to fit it on the
right-hand side: there's no space to "stack" them one above the other,
and the entire RHS that's not taken up by battery (160mm x 130mm x
6mm) is taken up with PCB3 (80mm x 35mm x 1.5mm with 6mm high
components).

 you could move it to the LHS but that would require a total redesign
of PCB3 (2 months work)

 you would also lose space in the compartment on the LHS.

 answer: absolutely no space could be saved.  at all.

 now, if you could source a smaller battery that would be a different
matter for the RHS, but PCB1 still is at the limit taking up the
entire LHS with the 3x USB2 "dogleg", so now you'd need to redesign
PCB1.

 basically it's an adjustment of virtually every single part (PCBs and
casework), which is several months work.  it's a new product in other
words.

 much better to just leave everything as-is and just not have the
screen.  converting the EOMA68 RGB/TTL output to a standard HDMI
output (with a TFP401) would be a neat addition, though. but that
would be an alteration of PCB1 which would be... mm.... 3-4 weeks to
first prototype.

 l.