3D printing my laptop ergonomic setup
ntietz.com93 points by kurinikku 15 hours ago
93 points by kurinikku 15 hours ago
OpenSCAD! My personal favorite 3D modeling software. Started using it a decade ago since it made sense to me as a coder and I've been too stubborn to use anything else.
Cool stuff, you might already be using this but this roundedcube function has drastically improved the quality of my prints: https://gist.github.com/groovenectar/92174cb1c98c1089347e
I guess for simple objects, 3D printing is already sufficiently useful.
I'd still like it to be much cheaper and simpler though. My own tinker days are over; I kind of want to depend on what is cheap and reliable; or at the least very reliable. I honestly can not warrant time investment when things don't work or break down in yet-another-component of my already way too many components heavy living conditions here. 3D printing should be so simple that one never has to think about it. Or print a surrogate 3D printer, to have as a backup device. But what about the materials? I guess plastics dominate.
Huh? 3D printers haven been cheap and reliable for a while now. You can get an Bambulab A1 mini for $200 USD and it’s a work horse. If things break, get a new part online from them and it’s usually plug and play. I’m north of a thousand hours on my P1S and it’s still going strong.
Every time there's an article on HN about 3D printing you have a flock of people who have obviously not looked at a 3D printer in 10 years come and spout absolute nonsense.
As you're saying, modern printers are simply click and forget. I haven't had any maintenance or fix to do on my P1S in 2 years.
Or Apple can just allow macOS on iPads and all will be ok
Apple is doing the opposite, locking down macOS and make it more like iOS.
Quite cool! I wonder if it doesn't wear down the laptop hinges to keep it at 180 degrees opened in an upright position. Could print some clamps for the sides to reduce strain if that's the case. Though that'd only work for laptops that actually _do_ open 180 degrees, according to TFA, not that many.
I have a "car desk", which is just a little expandable contraption you hang on the steering wheel, then you can place your laptop on it. I wouldn't call it ergonomic per se (the right external keyboard could probably fix that), but using it for about one hour per week, it works well and doesn't cause any issues I'm aware of. The driver seat is not a place where I previously could get any work done, so the bar is a bit low.
> I have a "car desk", which is just a little expandable contraption you hang on the steering wheel, then you can place your laptop on it.
I remember one of those on Amazon with like a thousand reviews that were all meme reviews about using it whilst driving. Cant find the exact one, but it was one of those many Amazon products full of joke reviews.
I believe there‘s likely less wear in that position than any other angle you might use it at.
Hp has a lot of "convertible" laptops that open the full 360 if you want, usually with a touchsreen and two cameras so they can optionally be used as a tablet.
Very cool, nice effort and a good write-up!
If my math is right it seems the cost in material for the printed part is around $5 which seems ridiculously cheap for a custom-designed and adapted solution like this. Nice!
I wish the author had spent a few words extra to motivate why it needs to be in PETG filament for "heat resistance", is the regular PLA limit of ~55 degrees Celsius not okay for a desktop accessory? I guess if it's in direct sunlight that might be exceeded, or perhaps if the laptop runs very hot?
To be fair, that's something you learn as soon as you start 3d printing. Anything that experiences repeated stress and have any chance of getting over room temperature during summer should not be printed in PLA. And near a computer heating up, it sure looks like it's going to be higher than room temperature. Also pictures in a train exposed to sunlight via glasses are another reason for concern.
Compared to PLA, PETG has higher temperature resistance (by about 20°C), isn't quite as susceptible to stress, doesn't cost more and isn't any harder to print on modern printers.
Some people in the 3d printing community have totally ditched PLA and use PETG as a baseline because of that.
> is the regular PLA limit of ~55 degrees Celsius not okay for a desktop accessory?
Not the author, but PLA has a glass transition temperature of around 60 degrees, which in layman's terms is when it starts to melt. However, depending on the quality of the printing process, layers start separating/the print is pliable significantly lower, at around 35-40 degrees. This means that in countries where you get 30+ degree summers, PLA is not really suitable for anything which experiences any kind of stress. I would hazard a guess that the standing laptop can cause quite a bit of stress when the train starts/stops.
It should be mentioned that as far as I can tell pretty much no one is selling pure PLA filament. They all have additives, so who knows what the actual glass transition temperature is for any random given filament. This has been true for a while too. Pure PLA has some properly awful properties, among which is it having pretty much no elastic deformation. Any amount of force will introduce microscopic cracks. The various additives reduce these kinds of issues and are therefore not really optional.
Glass transition temperatures are a little bit misleading, but from personal experience even leaving a PLA print in direct sunlight under even a little tension will cause it to warp in as little as 30 minutes if you aren't careful.
I used ASA for something I intended to keep in my garage, I live in Florida so summer gets hot. ASA is way more heat resistant than both. My water boiler uses the heat within the garage as part of how it warms water so my garage doesnt get too hot but it can still feel pretty bad in there.
This is obviously far more advanced, but I still think its a shame that the old style thinkpad dock didn't catch on more. For those who arent aware, the docks on old thinkpads used to double as a stand (and a lock too actually), originally connecting via a custom connector at the bottom of the laptop and then over dual usb-c slots.
Excellent that people work on ergonomics, especially for moving away from the centenary typewriter model, but remember that 15’ of streching-exercise , call it yoga - taichi (anything with more than 1000 years :D) goes further than hours of the perfect static ergonomics
She should have a look at the Huawei Matebook. You can transform the screen into a big desktop sized screen. The only thing missing is a stand that brings it to an ergonomic height.
I think you mean the Matebook Fold?
Surely the other missing thing is that it only runs a proprietary OS that nobody except Chinese companies develop apps for?
Or, she could sit down and think really hard about what she needs, come up with a neat technical solution, and share her thinking with a community that loves this stuff.
Glad she didn't go shopping.
I'd cut off the numberpad of my laptop, center the touchpad and what's left of the keyboard. That would be my ergonomic setup.
That laptop served me well but it was a compromise between several factors. I think that at the time there were only an handful of 15" laptops without a numberpad and probably it's still like that. I eventually had to give up on that to get other features.
For my home laptop I ended up going for 13" specifically to avoid off centre / number pad layouts.
I'm sure there are plenty of better options if money is no object but it was mainly for light gaming, personal projects, video editing etc.
That's basically what I'm telling folks. My MBP16 is fantastic in that regard. I use the integrated touchpad only
while I aplaud the very well thought out and implimented design for a computer interface (it has very strong space ship vibes) there is a fundamental flaw in the premise, in that ergonomics implys some optimisation of the physical(cardio) effort(impact, strain) and comfort of useing a tool, which is impossible while hunched over a static device making very small partial body movements. So this set up will very likely optimise well for speed run missions,but the cost will actualy be greater pressure and strain on a persons body overall, and the only answer for that is to fully detach, relax, exercise, and rest between missions.
That's a really interesting concept. Either once they open source their build (or I get over my innate laziness) I could use something like that for my build at home (more of a horizontal stand style thing, looking at the monitor) - my laptop's primarily my second monitor at home with attached KB.
More fuel to help convince my wife the printer isn't a waste of money xD