Some of you following me here or on social media will know that I’ve been working on a little Cyberdeck project, with the aim of providing a fun way to not only promote my novels, but also provide writing opportunities when out & about.

To this aim, I decided to build my own writer’s cyberdeck.

Now if you’re familiar with cyberdecks, you’ll know that the involve the joining together of individual components, and setting them in an aesthetic looking case.

I looked at a number of case ideas from repurposing old tool cases to building something myself. But the more I looked and saw what other cyberdeck builders had done, whilst all quite brilliant and a skill level above my own, it wasn’t quite what I was looking for.

Then, in a flash of brilliance, if I may say so myself, I hit upon my builds theme.. a pleasing ‘bare-bones’ approach, with minimal casing and all of the working ‘innards’ on show.

I already had a Raspberry Pi 5 so took that computer and joined it to a Waveshare 6.25 LCD touch screen. Now a word here on screen choice. I chose this particular screen based on its high resolution (perfect for typing), its letterbox style proportions (meaning i could type sentences without continually scrolling on a small screen), and its ‘touch screen’ usefulness.

There is one problem with the 6.25 LCD screen… It doesn’t have any bezels or mounting surrounds available (unlike other small screens) so there’s very little to work with in terms of case mounting, if you go down that route, it will probably involve making or 3D printing your own bezels etc.

Since I’ll most likely be writing in a public place, I wanted to increase the opportunity for promoting my novels, so I used a Raspberry Pi Sense Hat (V2) with its 8×8 LED matrix and sensors, to create rotating display of the time, weather and some little robot animiations.

The pixel display is surrounded by a graphic of a little robot figure, asking the question “Ask me what I’m writing?”.

The whole thing will run off of an external battery pack or mains power. For the Battery pack, I used a RUGD Power Brick 2.

I’ve shared previous videos on my YouTube channel documenting the build process – perhaps you’ve already watched them and got some ideas for your own cyberdeck build?

The Raspberry Pi 5 has two external HDMI connections so the small screen is not a problem when back at home. I simply connect the external HDMI monitor and mirror the desktop of the smaller ‘built in’ Waveshare screen.

I’ve got one or two more ideas that i can expand my cybderdeck build with – perhaps including a camera so visitors can record their own testimonial in person or more additional displays showing different data.. perhaps the book title and chapter I’m writing at that precise moment… all ideas.

For now, I’m very pleased with my little cyberdeck build. I know there will probably be ‘purists’ out there that will say the lack of case means it isn’t really a cyberdeck in the truest sense of the word, and I’m sure with a more equipped workshop or 3D printer, I could have really expanded on the whole case theme, but you know what? I’m rather pleased with what I’ve created.

I look forwards to taking my very own ‘A.M.I.e’ out on the road at the next opportunity.

P.S all the parts links in this article are non-affiliate – I haven’t received any attention or renumeration. I’ve simply included them so if you do want to build your very own cyberdeck, you can at least see the components I’ve used.

You follow these links at your own risk and any purchases etc made are between buyer & seller.

Here’s a little video of the big reveal…

#Cyberdeck #IndieAuthor #actionadventure #youthfiction #