[sf-lug] Hardware hack for laptop - Raspberry Pi in the optical slot.

[Ken Shaffer]

On 9/22/20, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):
>
>> Hi LUGers,
>>
>> I asked sometime back one of our knowledgeable members about
>> this sort of thing and was told it was impossible.
>>
>> <https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-zero-replaces-broken-laptop-optical-drive>
>
> I very much doubt that anyone claimed _this_ sort of thing is
> impossible.  It appears the problem is that you probably didn't
> properly understand what Oliver Child, the experimenter, did.
>
>> The laptop now runs on the Raspberry Pi.
>
> No, it very much does not.
>
> Oliver's RPI Zero W merely lives inside the hollow space normally
> occupied by the Lenovo ThinkPad T420's modular, slide-in optical drive
> (which got broken).  The _only_ connection between the RPI Zero W and
> the computer that houses it is power-feed pins from a SATA cable, thus
> supplying +5VDC and ground cables that he soldered to the connection
> pads for power connection on the back of the Pi.
>
> There is no other wired connection of any kind between the two
> computers.  In particular, the only way to have a network connection
> between them is courtesy of the RPi having a wireless network chip.
> Towards that end, Oliver connected a small LED display to the RPi so the
> RPi can display its DHCP-assigned IP address, there, for the user to see
> by peering over at it, shining out through the bezel on the side of the
> optical drive bay.
>
> Armed with that IP address, the user can then connect to the RPi over
> wireless TCP/IP, e.g., for a VNC connection.  The user can of course do
> this from the Lenovo, _or_ from any other machine able to reach the
> RPi's wireless network.  (In theory, Oliver could have extended an
> ethernet connection out of the size bezel, instead, but didn't.)
>
> So, it's a nice little way to give a tiny RPi computer a home and power
> it off a laptop's power supply -- but it's nothing like the laptop
> "running on the Raspberry Pi".
>
>> But it takes a 3D printer to produce the board that makes mounting the
>> RP in the optical drive slot possible.
>
> Well, I don't know about _that_.  Oliver found that the most expedient
> way to make a plastic carrier with the same size and shape as the
> optical drive tray -- by 3D-printer extruding one.  However, obviously
> any other approach that gives the user a widget the right size and shape
> to slide into the optical drive tray would serve fine -- including maybe
> detaching the optical drive from its tray and using the latter.
>
Or just buy a caddy from Walmart for $8.60, shipped:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Universal-SATA-2nd-SSD-HDD-Hard-Drive-Caddy-For-12-7mm-CD-DVD-ROM-Optical-Bay/937669178
I'm running an old 60G SSD in one now on my W520.
Ken

>
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