Event
16:40
-
17:20
Day 2
7 Years Later: Why And How To Make Portable Open Hardware Computers
Recorded
official
After more than 7 years, a small team of hackers and designers in Berlin are about to release the third generation of their Open Hardware laptop family: MNT Reform Next. Here, Lukas "minute" Hartmann will discuss why we need Open Hardware computers, what we learned through trial, error and hardship of designing and hand-assembling over 1000 of them by hand, and how you can claw back some autonomy over your hardware from Big Computer.
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The talk will illustrate, with many pictures and without holding back, interesting problems and solutions we encountered while creating 3 laptops on shoestring budgets. Aiming to inspire more people to take custom hardware into their own hands, I will quickly walk through the essential tools and methods that you can use to create your own Open Source Hardware computing devices or modifying existing ones, like:

  • How and why I choose chips and components
  • How to get them into KiCAD for electronics, and get boards made
  • Use FreeCAD and OpenSCAD for 3D modeling, and get enclosures made, also from unorthodox materials
  • Cables, connectors and screws considerations
  • Firmware and Kernel troubles (designing Hardware for Linux)
  • Our basics of community participation (GitLab, IRC, Discourse)