7 Years Later: Why And How To Make Portable Open Hardware Computers (Relive)

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2024-12-28 20:00:04

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.

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)