A Compact Home-Made Raspberry Pi Tablet

June 28, 2017

Although a software developer by day and

tech hobbyist by night, I’ve never been
into buying every new gadget that comes
out. I got my first smartphone in 2015,
and have so far resisted getting onto the
tablet bandwagon, perhaps because I’m
often at or near a computer anyway,
rendering a tablet redundant.

I recently got to try an Android tablet for a A compact Raspberry Pi based tablet.
few days but found it too limiting due to
the closed nature of most of the software available for it. Around the same time, I
discovered the Raspberry Pi 3 and its matching 7″ touchscreen, and realized I could
build a nice Linux tablet completely to my liking based on those, so that is what I set
out to do.

Mine certainly isn’t the first Pi-based tablet, as Googling “Raspberry Pi Tablet” will
reveal, but I believe it to be the smallest and lightest so far:

CPU: Raspberry Pi 3B with 1.2GHz quad core ARMv8 and 1Gb RAM
Storage: Lexar 32Gb micro-SD card
Display: 7″ 800×480 multi-touch capacitive touchscreen
Audio: On-board with 25mm speaker, and built-in USB with mic and earphone jacks
Ports: One external full-sized USB port, micro-USB port for charging
Operating System: Raspbian Jessie
Dimensions: 195 × 112 × 17.6 mm (7 11/16 × 4 3/8 × 11/16″)
Weight: 484 g (17.1 oz)
Battery: 6200mAh LiPoly, giving 4 to 12 hours battery life (6 hours watching
YouTube)

To build such a compact device, I had to heavily modify the two major components
and get creative about how to arrange them. This also necessitated a custom
enclosure.
 This project packs a lot of components into a very small package.

In contrast to most of my projects, I did not plan everything out in advance. I very
much, “made it up as I went along”, and this article is as much about the journey as it
is about the result. If you want to build a tablet like mine, consider this article a
rough guide, as there are no complete plans. The photos are approximately in
chronological order, although I did do some jumping back and forth between sub-
tasks during the actual construction.

Components

The components used in this project are:

Raspberry Pi model 3B with a 32Gb SD card

Official Raspberry Pi 7″ touchscreen
Adafruit Powerboost 1000C charger and 3.7-to-5V converter
DS3231 temperature compensated real time clock
USB audio adapter
PAM8302-based mono class D amplifier
25mm 8Ω speaker
Battery monitor and shutdown control circuit
6200mAh Lithium-polymer battery
SPDT slide switch and 3 small pushbutton switches
USB and micro-USB ports

Trimming the Fat

The Raspberry Pi is very small, but not small enough to squeeze into such a tiny
package. The combined thickness of the Pi and display when assembled as
recommended is about 40mm (1 9/16″). I reduced this considerably by mounting the
Pi beside the display controller instead of on top of it, and by removing a few
unneeded large components from both the Pi and controller.

Raspberry Pi

The tablet would not make use of the wired Ethernet port nor the on- board USB
ports, and since these both use a lot of space, I removed them.
 The Ethernet and USB ports, and the GPIO header, consume a lot of vertical space.

I removed the Ethernet and USB ports by peeling off the metal shielding, cutting the plastic, and
unsoldering the remaining pins.

Although the tablet makes extensive use of the GPIO pins, everything is hard-wired,
so the space-consuming header was unnecessary.
All the GPIO pins except the ground pins were unsoldered. The ground pins were later clipped shorter.

Display

The display is designed for the Raspberry Pi to be stacked on top of the controller
board, an arrangement that is about 40mm thick. Since I would be mounting the Pi
adjacent to the controller, the tall standoffs could go. The USB power output port is
also useless (it doesn’t even provide 5V when the display is powered from 5V), so I
unsoldered it too.

The tall standoffs and the USB power-out port would not be needed.
 I replaced the standoffs with M2.5x4mm screws, and unsoldered the USB port.

The mounting tabs would interfere with the Pi on one side of the display controller
and the battery on the other side, so I removed them. I first cut through each one at
the centre with diagonal cutters, then bent it up slightly to cut the centre sections off
of the sloped sections. The latter were then folded down flush with the metal plate.

The display mounting tabs were removed to free up interior space.

The Case

With both the Pi and display controller thinned down, I experimented with various
standoffs to see how close to the back of the display I could mount the Pi (still
partially overlapping the controller). I eventually arrived at 16mm (5/8″) as the
amount of interior space I would need to fit everything comfortably.

I decided that the overall width and height should be just a tiny bit bigger than the
screen itself, just enough to protect the glass edges from impacts.

The case consists of three parts. The front is the touchscreen itself, the back is a piece
of 0.8mm fiberglass (unclad circuit board material), and the two are separated by a
16mm thick frame.

To construct the frame, I began by building a jig on a piece of very flat plywood left
over from another project.

The jig was constructed on a piece of very flat plywood. The wax paper is to prevent the frame from
sticking to the jig.

The completed jig, ready to begin construction of the frame.

I built the frame inside the jig from solid maple, cut into strips 16mm wide and
2.8mm thick (there is nothing special about the thickness; I just happened to have
thin maple of this thickness on hand).
The frame is made from 16 x 2.8mm strips of solid maple.

I butt glued the corners using aircraft grade epoxy.

 After the corner joints cured, excess epoxy was chiseled off, and the corners reinforced with triangular
blocking.

Test fitting the display onto the frame.

The corners were rounded to about an 8.5mm radius. To do this precisely and
consistently, I built another jig to hold the frame, first for rough cutting on the
bandsaw, and then sanding to shape with a sanding drum. I designed the jig to pivot
around the centre of curvature.
 I constructed another jig to hold the frame for rounding the corners, first by cutting them roughly to
shape.

A pivot on this jig allowed me to sand the corners to a precise radius.

The completed frame was remarkably sturdy, despite being held together only by
small triangular blocks and epoxy in the corners (the stuff is strong enough to glue
airplanes together). No additional bracing was needed, since the display and case
back would provide the necessary structure to prevent the frame from flexing.
 The completed frame, ready to have holes cut in it.

After rounding the corners, it is primarily the triangular blocking that holds them together.
 The display fits perfectly, with about 0.8mm of space all around.

The case needs holes cut in it for the power switch, buttons, and various ports, but I
deferred this until I knew exactly where all these parts would end up.

Attaching the Pi to the Display

I mounted the Raspeberry Pi face down on three standoffs cut from 5mm (3/32″)
square maple blocks, each 8mm (5/16″) long. After fashioning the blocks, they were
screwed to the board with M2.5x4mm screws, and then epoxied to the metal display
back.

The 5 x 5 x 8mm maple blocks were drilled with a 2mm bit, and threaded using an M2.5 screw.
I screwed the blocks to the Raspberry Pi board to ensure they’d be positioned properly.

One block had to be notched to clear a ridge on the metal display back.
 Once the epoxy had cured overnight, I unscrewed the Pi board.

Because of the unusual mounting position of the Raspberry Pi relative to the display
controller, I had to slightly trim the ribbon cable at the Pi end (so it could bend closer
to the board), and fold it as shown below to connect it to the controller.

The display cable was trimmed and folded to suit the non-standard arrangement.

Positioning the Display in the Frame

To keep the display in the correct position in relation to the frame, I fashioned a
series of spacer blocks to fit between the metal display back and the wooden frame.
These were then epoxied to both the metal and the back of the glass, thus also
preventing any display creep that some users of the touchscreen have experienced.
Some of these spacers also double as mounting surfaces for other components.
One spacer has already been installed (left), and another is held by clamps (top) while the epoxy cures.

Installing the spacers was done in the frame construction jig to keep everything positioned properly.

All the Other Bits

Once the location of the two major components was cast in stone (or epoxy), I began
to play around with the design and/or placement of the other parts.

Power Supply

My tablet is powered by a lithium-ion-polymer battery (whose size I did not choose

until I was sure how much space would be left), feeding an Adafruit PowerBoost
1000C. This handy little board contains both a 3.7V-to-5V boost converter that can
power the Pi and display, and a lithium ion charge controller. When an external
power supply is plugged in, it provides power to both the charger and the system at
the same time.
 Close-up of the postage stamp sized Adafruit PowerBoost 1000C. I cut the outlined trace.

I made a few small modification to the PowerBoost 1000C. As shown in the photo
above, I cut the trace to 200kΩ pull-up resistor R13 for compatibility with my
shutdown control circuit (described later). This and the other changes are detailed in
the modified schematic below:

Modified PowerBoost 1000C schematic detailing the modifications I made.

Due to the confined space with minimal airflow in which the PowerBoost 1000C
would be installed, I decided to attach heatsinks to the charging and voltage
conversion chips. I made these from thin aluminum sheet, filed the bottom surface
flat, and fastened them to the chips with a mixture of epoxy and heatsink compound.
 I attached homemade heat sinks to the charging and power conversion chips. The orange and green
wires are to allow the Pi to monitor charging status.

The bottoms of the heat sinks were filed flat before mounting with a mixture of epoxy and heatsink
compound.

Function Buttons

I wanted to have a few (three seemed about right) physical buttons on the tablet to
access operations that might sometimes be awkward to perform using the
touchscreen, such as bringing the on-screen keyboard to the foreground or
maximizing a window. The switches for these buttons were salvaged from a non-
working mouse I pulled out of the hardware recycling bin at work.
Three buttons salvaged from an old mouse were mounted on a small piece of stripboard.

Three wires lead to GPIO pins on the Pi, and the fourth black wire connects to ground.
 I epoxied small maple mounting brackets to both ends of the button assembly.

To make the actual buttons, I cut the legs off of several old (1970s?) transistors I had
in my junk drawer, epoxied them to cardboard from the back of a pad of paper, and
then used a hole punch to create nice round buttons with a flange at the bottom.

The buttons themselves were made from old transistors, epoxied to cardboard.

USB Audio and Realtime Clock

The Pi’s built-in audio is not very good (approximately 11 bits resolution, with poor
high frequency response), so I added an aftermarket USB audio adapter for use with
earbuds or external speakers. The USB audio also allows for use of a microphone.

I removed the adapter from its case and replaced the USB plug with wires that would
be soldered directly to the USB pads on the Raspberry Pi board. I also unsoldered
and resoldered the two jacks, which were surface mounted despite the fact that both
the jacks and the board were configured for through-hole mounting (which is more
secure for something that undergoes repeated physical stress).
 I removed the USB audio adapter from its case, and replaced the USB connector with wires.

The Pi does not have an on-board real-time clock (RTC, really the only thing that it’s
missing), so I purchased an external RTC module on eBay. The one I received uses a
DS3231 RTC chip, which is identical to the (more common?) DS1307, but features a
temperature-compensated crystal oscillator for better long term accuracy. The
module is designed to plug directly into the Pi’s GPIO pins, but since I removed the
pins, I also removed the socket from the module and replaced it with wires.

Like the audio adapter, the DS3231 real-time clock’s connector was removed and replaced with
individual wires (only 4 of the 5 connector pins are actually used).

Shutdown Controller and Battery Monitor

The PowerBoost 1000C has an enable input, EN, which if pulled low, will turn off the
5V output and put the entire device into a very low power mode. Unfortunately,
doing this will not allow the Raspberry Pi to shut down properly. Requiring the user,
even though it’s just me, to perform a proper shutdown seemed error prone.

The PowerBoost also has a low-battery warning output (LBO) which can be used to
signal the Pi that the battery is almost dead. However, I wanted more precise battery
information so that I could display a state-of-charge indication just like an off-the-
shelf tablet would have.

To address both of these problems, I designed a small circuit containing both a

shutdown controller and a battery voltage monitor.

Schematic of the shutdown controller and battery monitor. The blue area is the off-
board power switch.

The shutdown circuit consists of DPDT power switch S1, R8, R9, and C1. When the
power switch is turned on, C1 quickly charges through S1A and R8, bringing the EN
output high and turning on the PowerBoost 1000C after about 0.1 seconds. When
S1A is opened (i.e. S1 off), C1 slowly discharges through R9, and after about 20
seconds, reaches a low enough voltage to turn the PowerBoost off. This time delay
circuit is the reason why pull-up resistor R13 had to be disconnected on the
PowerBoost. With it present, C1 can only discharge to about 4.2V.

When S1 is switched off, S1B will also immediately pull GPIO pin 40 (physical pin
number) low through D2, signalling the Pi that power loss is imminent. A daemon
monitoring this pin can then initiate a shutdown.

The circuit consisting of Z1A and Z1B, the two voltage comparators of an LM393 dual
comparator IC, comprises the battery voltage monitor. Z1B, R1 through R5, and C2
form a triangle wave oscillator oscillating at approximately 100Hz, with low and high
peaks at 1.87V and 3.33V respectively. This triangle wave is then compared against a
fraction (0.689) of the battery voltage by Z1A, producing a rectangular wave at its
output with duty cycle varying from 0% when the battery is at or below 2.72V, to
100% when the battery is at or above 4.83V. This is fed to GPIO pin 38, where the
duty cycle is monitored by the daemon.

The PowerBoost’s low battery output (LBO) is connected through D1 to GPIO pin 36
to warn the Pi, via the daemon, that a critical battery situation has been reached and
that it should drop everything and shut down immediately.
 I built the battery monitor on a small (1.3×0.6″ Completed battery monitor and shutdown
or 33x15mm) piece of stripboard. controller.

As has become my custom for one-of-a-kind analog circuits, I constructed this on a

small piece of stripboard. In the photo above right, there are two electrolytic
capacitors, 10µF each and wired in parallel to give 20µF. I would have used a single
22µF capacitor if I’d had a small enough one on hand.

For those wanting to reproduce this board, here is the stripboard layout:

Shutdown controller and battery monitor component placement (top) and

stripboard trace layout (bottom). Actual size is 1.4×0.7″ (36×18mm).

Completing the Case

I began by attaching all the display-mounted parts that would require matching
holes in the case frame.
 The micro-USB charging port (top) was screwed to a frame spacer, and the full-sized USB port (right)
was epoxied to another spacer.

The complete button switch assembly was epoxied to the metal display back, with a piece of thin
cardboard ensuring the correct spacing from the frame.

Making Holes in the Frame

The next step was to make all the necessary holes. I laid out all the remaining parts
needing holes, and carefully measured and marked their locations on the outside of
the frame. At the same time, I also marked the locations for the screws that would
hold the frame to the display.
 The centre of each hole was carefully marked. I made rectangular holes by starting with a
series of round holes.

Each hole was first drilled with a 2mm bit to Part way through making a rectangular hole.
create pilot holes.

Completed holes along the top edge of the

case, including countersunk screw holes.

The rectangular holes were finished using a

small chisel and files.

Round holes were made using successively larger drill bits so as not to splinter the
wood. I made the rectangular holes by drilling a series of round holes, chiseling out
most of the remaining material, and finishing the shape with small files and sanding
blocks.

The Back Cover

I made the back cover out of a piece of 0.8mm (1/32″) unclad fiberglass circuit board
material. I traced around the display directly onto the material and then cut it to size.
The straight edges were cut by repeatedly scoring and then snapping the board, and I
then rounded the corners by hand, cutting them roughly with tin snips and then
sanding them to shape.

The cover is held in place by eight M2.5x4mm screws, countersunk into the cover as
far as possible.
 I cut the back from a sheet of 0.8mm (1/32″) fiberglass board.

5x5x10mm mounting blocks were glued to the inside of the frame, flush with the back.
With the translucent back taped in place, I drilled through it at the centre of each mounting block.

Each screw hole was carefully countersunk by hand using a 4.2mm drill bit.
 The mounting blocks are visible here. The one marked * is attached to the display, not the frame, and
also takes a screw to fasten the frame to the display.

Finishing the Frame

I debated with myself for a long time how I wanted to finish the frame. I considered a
natural wood finish, glossy black, and metallic silver. Small defects in the wood that
occurred while drilling the holes and were repaired with filler ruled out the natural
finish, and I finally settled on the slightly retro look of silver.

The first two coats of finish were HobbyPoxy Fast Fill, almost all sanded off after each coat.
Before spraying the silver coats, I stained all the holes black and plugged them so they wouldn’t fill with
paint.

After two coats of Krylon Brilliant Silver and two coats of Clear Gloss, you can’t tell it’s wood any more.

Component Installation and Wiring

At this point, all the parts were completed. All that remained was to put everything
together. The two USB ports and the button switch assembly were already attached
to the display, but the PowerBoost 1000C, shutdown controller and battery monitor,
USB audio adapter, power switch, real time clock, and battery all still needed to be
installed.
 The USB audio adapter is a friction fit. The block, visible under the mid-right side of the adapter,
prevents it from moving when a cable is plugged in.

Like the audio adapter, I inserted the buttons from inside the frame before lowering the frame onto the
back of the display.

I forgot to take a picture specifically of the PowerBoost 1000C installation. It sits on

a small platform in the top-left corner, held in place by one screw, and a small peg to
prevent it from rotating. It is visible in several of the pictures below.
Two layers of electrical tape over the metal ridge serve as insulation, and a piece of auto side moulding
mounting tape will hold the shutdown controller and battery monitor in place.

The shutdown controller and battery monitor after installation.

I also neglected to photograph the power switch, which is visible in the wiring photos
further below. The switch is a simple DPDT slide switch, with a rather long handle,
from my parts collection. Two 3mm thick blocks were epoxied to its mounting ears.
These block then take M2.5x4mm screws from the outside of the frame.

After all of the above components were in place, I began wiring them together, since
later components would make access difficult. I then installed the Raspberry Pi and
completed most of the remaining wiring.
 Completed wiring between the PowerBoost 1000C, shutdown controller and battery monitor, power
switch, and charging port.

With the Raspberry Pi installed, I completed the power, USB, and GPIO wiring. The real time clock has
also been installed and connected (bottom right side of the Pi).

Instead of a fancy Fritzing diagram as seems to be popular for Raspberry Pi and

other projects, I hand drew and then followed the wiring diagram below. The parts
are obviously not to scale, but are drawn in their approximate relative locations.
 Hand drawn wiring diagram for my Raspberry Pi tablet.

More Work on the Case Back

Once all the components (except the battery) were in place, I could mark where I
planned to install the speaker and amplifier, drill holes for the speaker and for
cooling, and then finish the outside of the case back.

With all the components in place, I marked and drilled the locations of the speaker and cooling openings
and marked where the amplifier would go.
 The outside of the back cover was sprayed with two coats of VHT Nite-Shades transparent black
headlight paint.

Battery Installation

I had ordered the battery from a seller on eBay as soon as I knew how much space I
would have, but after three months, it still had not arrived. I contacted the seller, and
he shipped a replacement by a faster method, which arrived in just over a week.

The 9x60x90mm 6200mAh battery came with very thin (about 28AWG) wire leads.
 I used double sided automotive moulding mounting tape to hold the battery in place.

I cut the supplied leads as short as possible to minimize resistive losses, and spliced them to the tablet’s
power leads.

Internal Amplifier and Speaker

Although the primary audio output of the tablet is via the USB audio adapter, I
wanted to have a built-in speaker for applications like an alarm clock, or watching a
YouTube video with a friend. I used a tiny and very thin 2.5W (overkill) class D
amplifier, and an equally small 8Ω speaker.
 The amplifier was fastened to the inside back cover with mounting tape, and the speaker with its
supplied adhesive ring.

Since there is only one speaker and a mono amplifier, I

mixed the left and right audio channels together using a
pair of 220Ω resistors soldered to the Pi’s audio jack test
points, and fed the resulting signal into the amp. Click on
the image to the right to see a close-up of the connections
to the Raspberry Pi board.

To avoid damaging the speaker, which can’t handle even

close to 2.5W, I turned the amplifier’s physical volume
control to zero, played a maximally loud recording at full
volume, and then turned the amp up to just below the
point where the speaker started to sound unhappy. This
ensures that nothing I play through the speaker in the Stereo to mono mixer.
future can damage it, even if I watch Star Trek: Into
Darkness on my tablet.

All Done!

After screwing the back cover on, the tablet was done!
 The completed tablet showing the on-screen keyboard and system monitor utility.

Because of the transparent black finish (and the cooling holes), the internal LEDs are visible.
 I made a hardcover case for my tablet, which will be the subject of another article.

Software

My tablet runs Raspbian Jessie, which although a great Linux distro, needs a few
additions to be a viable OS for a tablet. I added several pieces of software, some open
source, and some that I wrote myself (also open source). I started development of the
software early in the project so that I had something to do while waiting for various
parts to arrive (I powered the tablet from an external 6600mAh lithium ion battery
for a few months).

xvkbd

A tablet needs an on-screen keyboard (although I also use it with a Logitech K380
Bluetooth keyboard for tasks requiring a lot of typing). I tried a few alternatives,
including matchbox, but found them not to my liking. I eventually settled on xvkbd,
customized via the ~/.Xresources file.

The customized xvkbd virtual keyboard.

twofing

Raspbian treats the touchscreen the same way as a one-button mouse, so common
gestures like dragging to scroll or long pressing for a right- click do not work (except
in Chromium, which supports these directly). The excellent twofing utility solves all
these issues by implementing two-finger gestures for right clicking, horizontal and
vertical scrolling, and zooming.
Pi Tablet Daemon

In the construction notes, I’ve made reference to a daemon which monitors various
bits (literally) of the hardware. The daemon, named pitabd, is written in C and is
launched from /etc/[Link] (at some point I may take the time to configure it
properly as a service). It performs the following functions, once per millisecond
unless otherwise noted:

checks for a shutdown signal from the power switch and initiates a proper shutdown.
monitors the three buttons and performs the corresponding actions:

bring keyboard (short press) or dashboard (long press) to front

increase brightness by 1/8 (short press) or to maximum (long press)
toggle foreground application between normal and maximized (short press) or
full screen (long press)

monitors commands from the dashboard (every 5 seconds):

enable/disable screen dimming on idle when on battery power

enable/disable USB and Ethernet ports
enable/disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

power monitoring:

status of PowerBoost 1000C charging and charge-completed indicators

battery voltage
estimate of energy remaining
information is written to a tiny RAM disk for display by dashboard

monitors X11 idle time (at varying intervals depending on need):

dims display to half of selected brightness after 2 minutes of inactivity

turns off backlight completely after 5 minutes

monitors PowerBoost 1000C LBO and performs an immediate shutdown if triggered.

The daemon makes use of the following libraries and utilities:

bcm2835 – low level GPIO library used to monitor buttons, voltage, etc.
libxss and xscreensaver – allows the daemon to monitor user idle time
wmctrl – command line utility used by the daemon to resize windows

I’ve made the source code for the Pi Tablet Daemon available under the GNU
General Public License at [Link]/svorkoetter/PiTabDaemon.

Pi Tablet Dashboard

The dashboard is a small graphical utility that is

launched from ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE‐
pi/autostart to display the current state of the
system, and to allow the user to adjust some settings.
It is written using FreePascal and Lazarus (an open
source Delphi-like RAD environment). The
dashboard performs the following functions:

displays system status:

battery voltage
estimated energy remaining
CPU/GPU temperature

lets user adjust power saving settings:

The dashboard lets the user
monitor and control power usage.
dim display when idle on battery power
 enable external USB and audio (and the unused Ethernet port)
enable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

displays concise information in its taskbar icon:

energy remaining both as a gauge and a number

gauge blinks at 2Hz when energy is below 5%
blinking lightning bolt at 1Hz indicates charging is in progress
solid lightning bolt indicates charging is complete

I’ve made the source code for the Pi Tablet Dashboard available under the GNU
General Public License at [Link]/svorkoetter/PiTabDashboard.

Conclusion

Well, it’s been a long build and a long article. I spent about three months of evenings
building this tablet, slowed down from time to time by having to wait for parts to
arrive. It has pulled together several of my interests, including electronics, software
development, wood working, and just plain tinkering.

The end result is a tablet that is somewhat comparable to commercial offerings in

many ways, but is a full blown portable Linux system of about the same power as my
travel laptop (and will likely replace said laptop).

With a compact Bluetooth keyboard, the tablet makes a viable laptop replacement for travel.

This project wouldn’t have been possible without that great little computer and
display from the Raspberry Pi foundation, as well as the many add-on bits produced
by third parties. And of course, it would have gone nowhere without the huge
amount of free software out there, including but not limited to Raspbian (GNU
Linux) itself, FreePascal and Lazarus, xvkbd, twofing, and countless other packages
that make Linux complete. Without these, I would have been reinventing a lot of
wheels.

Addendum February 2018: Adding Better Bluetooth

After successfully using this tablet as a laptop (netbook) replacement I really missed
having a mouse. The touchscreen is fine for browsing and e-mail, but tasks like text
and photo editing are better done with the higher precision of a mouse.
I ordered a Logitech T630 ultra-thin touch mouse, but found that when I tried to use
it together with the keyboard, both the mouse and the keyboard behaved erratically
(jerky mouse motions and lost or repeated keystrokes).

A bit of Googling revealed that this is a known

problem with the Pi 3’s built-in Bluetooth, and
the only solution is to use an external adapter. I
decided to try an old Cirago Bluetooth 2.1
adapter I had lying around, and was pleasantly
surprised to find that it worked with Raspbian.

Of course, I didn’t want a Bluetooth adapter

sticking out the side of my tablet and tying up Cirago Bluetooth 2.1 Adapter

the only USB port. I followed the the same

approach I used with the USB audio adapter, stripping it of it’s casing and wiring it
directly to one of the unused ports on the Pi 3 board.

The Cirago Bluetooth adapter, stripped of its enclosure, is about the size of a fingernail.

I soldered fine wires to the USB contacts, and then covered the adapter with heat shrinkable tubing.
After connection to the USB terminals on the Pi board, the adapter was tucked into an empty area near
one edge of the tablet and held in place with double-sided tape (not shown).

In order to use the external adapter, it was first necessary to disable the built-in one
by adding the following to the end of the /boot/[Link] file:

dtoverlay=pi3‐disable‐bt

After rebooting, Raspbian automatically recognized the new adapter and was happy
to pair with the keyboard and mouse, both of which functioned flawlessly. Although
it’s too soon to say definitively, it seems that the built-in WiFi is also working better
with the built-in Bluetooth disabled.

The adapter I used has long been discontinued, but the same technique should be
applicable to any tiny Bluetooth adapter that is known to work with the Raspberry
Pi.

Addendum November 2018: Real Time Clock Battery

A few weeks ago, I went to use my tablet after it had been idle for a while, only to find
that the clock was showing the wrong time and date after booting. I opened up the
tablet to find that the 3V lithium cell in the real time clock module was reading about
0.2V after only about a year of use. I had bought a total of three of these modules at
the time, so I went and checked the others and found that their cells were also dead.

I placed an order for replacement cells from a seller on eBay, but while waiting for
those to arrive, did some research on the DS3231 chip used in the clock module. It
turns out that the allowable range of backup battery voltage is quite wide, so I
decided to power it directly from the tablet’s main 3.7V lithium-ion battery instead of
a dedicated cell.
 With the real time clock’s own battery removed, a thin red wire from the tablet battery’s positive
connection directly feeds the real time clock.

To do this, I spliced an additional thin red wire to the connection between the
positive terminal of the main battery and the tablet. Then, after removing the clock’s
lithium cell, I connected this to where the positive terminal of the cell had been
connected. While doing this, I had to be extremely careful to not allow the
temporarily exposed positive connection to come into contact with any circuitry or
metal parts in the tablet, as it could easily fry something (since the negative terminal
was still connected to everything).

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83 Comments
Michael Horne
July 14, 2017

What a tremendous account of a fantastic build. I want one

Dillon Nichols
July 14, 2017

Amazing attention to detail. Awesome project.

Adam Paul Sommer

July 14, 2017

Thanks for posting such great details of the steps. Been thinking about a Raspberry
Pi laptop build for a while, and this is very inspiring.

Thanks again!
fred
July 15, 2017

What an inspiring labour of love! The stripping down unused parts thing gave me
ideas for my own projects.

Andy from Workshopshed

July 15, 2017

Hey Stefan, what a great project. An excellent combination of electronics, software,

woodwork and more.

Chris Barbieri
July 15, 2017

Fantastic! I especially love the pushbuttons made from old transistors. I too am a
woodworker hobbyist and in this day of 3D- printed parts, it is nice to see wood
being used.

Kirk Adair
July 15, 2017

Very nice, very good use of space

AndyJ
July 15, 2017

In appearance, it reminds me of a very basic metal-cased Android tablet I had a

number of years ago. In ability, it’s in another league. Congratulations!

I realise I could go hunt the price for each component listed, but ignoring the huge
amount of time put into this, do you have an idea the costs involved?

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 15, 2017

Hi Andy: I didn’t really keep track, but it was definitely more than I could have
bought a tablet for. Probably somewhere in the $250 to $300 (Cdn) ballpark. Of
course, some of the things I bought, like paints, I only used a tiny portion of on
this project, and will use on other projects too.

Bob Murphy
July 15, 2017

WOW! An intense, elegant, creative labor of love and ingenuity. This has so many
good ideas in it I’m going to save it to savor. Congratulations to you, Stefan.

FipS
July 15, 2017

Very nicely put together! I wouldn’t expect such a compact build when using
standard components, great job. The wooden frame is also very nice. I’m building
something similar based on Raspberry PI Zero W, but without a display, just a very
portable wireless mini server, which can serve as a backend for my mobile/tablet on
go.

JP
July 15, 2017

Contratulations Stefany,very nice. An excelent work that include wood, software

programme, electronic services nand art.

Stéphane
July 16, 2017

Brilliant!

William H B Mawhinney
July 16, 2017

Excellent article!!
Freire
July 16, 2017

Congratulations, one of the best and thorough project for Raspberry Pi.

George V
July 17, 2017

Excellent work, very detailed, much appreciated for sharing the know how

Xiblack
July 17, 2017

Thorough article, detailed explanation and excellent results.

Thank you for sharing your work. It has practical usages for many pieces of
hardware, software and diy stuffs.
Love the final look of your tablet.

H. Kamran
July 17, 2017

You could have used a Raspberry Pi Zero W. They are small, powerful, plus has
wireless capabillites. The only difference is that is has a mini-USB for OTG support,
and it has a camera port only. But you probably could have found a way to use the
mini-HDMI port with the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s Display…

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 17, 2017

The Pi Zero W hadn’t been announced yet when I started, and I don’t think it’s
trivial to convert HDMI to what the display is expecting. I’d probably need a
Pi-3-sized converter board.

Brian
July 18, 2017

Does the tablet work in portrait and landscape mode?

Zander
July 18, 2017

May I suggest writing an LXPanel plugin for quick access to battery levels?

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 18, 2017

I haven’t tried it in portrait mode, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t. It would just be
a matter of setting lcd_rotate in the /boot/[Link] file.

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 18, 2017

I could do that (after figuring out how), but the dashboard app I wrote already
gives that information in its taskbar icon anyway, so all it would do is save a
tiny bit of real estate on the taskbar.

John
July 20, 2017

Wonderful Stefan! It has inspired me to have a go at something similar. Thanks for

sharing.

Nayan
July 22, 2017

Hi stefan,

I’m also working on similar to this tablet and also using pi 3 , 7inch touchscreen
display & powerboost 1000c but what I’m facing is that when i bootup the pi it
restarts again & again coz the o/p voltage drops to 4.5V. I’m sure you also face this
problem while making this tablet. Any suggestions about this problem??

It will be a great help for me!

Thanks
 Stefan Vorkoetter
July 22, 2017

Hi Nayan,

The only time I had a problem was when the battery leads were too long and
thin and could not supply enough current to the PowerBoost 1000C to maintain
the desired output voltage under load. The leads should be short and/or thick.

Also, if the problem happens with the adapter connected, make sure the
adapter can provide 5V at 2.5A. When the adapter is connected, it both powers
the Pi, and charges the battery.

Forrest Dee Jeffcoat

July 22, 2017

My hardiest compliments upon your admirable accomplishments; and my sincere

admiration.
Not the least, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the ‘trip’ you’ve
shared in your adventure extent!
My best of wishes toward your next adventure!
A tip of the old Hatlo hat, as it were and Bon Voyage!
(wouldn’t have an open berth, perhaps, would you?)
Jeff

Juris Perkons
July 23, 2017

Super inspiring. I am electronics engineer and hobbyist, so, project like this gives
me tons of emotions, thoughts, and gives dopamine dose to brain. Thank You a Big
One.

kenC
July 23, 2017

This is Engineering Art. Not only fully functional but a classy silky style achieved
from a lot of extra thought/effort resulting in a very professional and desirable piece
of technology. It was a bit like observing someone modelling a new sports cars but
there it is made out of some easy mouldable material. This is more a designer at
work wearing an engineer’s hat and working with the hands of a craftsman. Should
have a flash motif on the side! Perhaps….Ultimate_Pi.

Great stuff.

Javier Garcia
July 23, 2017

I want one!!! Lovely, nice, neat and sleek!!!

Nayan
July 25, 2017

Hi Stefan,

Thanks for the reply!

After connecting the wall adapter to PB 1000c the o/p voltage drops . while on
battery the o/p voltage remains 5.01V. Kindly suggest

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 25, 2017

It sounds like your wall adapter is inadequate. What is the rated output current
of the adapter?

Nayan
July 25, 2017

ok. my wall adapter is 5V 2A.

[Link]

I suggest u to read my conversation with adafruit guy, he is saying that PB 1000c is

not suitable to powerup pi3 & 7″ display.

Andrew
July 25, 2017
Fantastic build, thanks for sharing!
Quick question, where did find your 6200mAh Lithium-polymer battery? I’m having
trouble finding one.

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 25, 2017

Nayan, I will go participate in that conversation. The adapter should be

adequate, although 5.2V at 2.5A would be better.

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 25, 2017

Andrew, search for “906090 battery” on eBay.

MAthieu BC
July 25, 2017

Great and really good job. A true step-by-step tutorial for raspberry and linux lover
that love a freedom tablet. Because of this great tutorial, many people will have
more software and true programming capability with the tablet instead to use an
Intel computer for Android apps.

Nayan
July 26, 2017

yes u r ryt stefan!

I unplugged the battery from PB 1000c and power only by wall adapter the volts I
measured from BAT pin was flicking b/w 4.67V – 5.01V which causes reboot of pi3
& display.

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 26, 2017

Oh oh. You should never run a PB1000C without the battery attached, as it will
likely be damaged.

Mark F
July 28, 2017

Fantastic job. I love to see the work of a craftsman. Thank you.

Ben S
August 03, 2017

Thanks for sharing your building adventure. Outstanding work! Super cool!

MarkyD
August 10, 2017

What an awesome achievement, very impressive. Whats more impressive is that

you have taken the time to document this is such a detailed and extensive manner.
You have inspired me and I am sure others. Big thank you!

Wolfgang
August 18, 2017

Since I am currently working on my own Pi-Tablet -like device, this is a really great
inspiration. Thank you for sharing!

JohnP
September 10, 2017

Great job – very inspiring. It appears you are a pilot, and so am I, so I was
wondering if you have done anything with a PI ADS-B receiver? If so, have you
published the information?

Thank You!

Stefan Vorkoetter
September 10, 2017

No, I haven’t done anything aviation related with the Pi (yet).

dwrz
January 07, 2018

Stefan, are you available to build one on order?

Stefan Vorkoetter
January 07, 2018

No, sorry, I’m not.

Mark C.
February 16, 2018

Great guide! I was going to build mine per Adafruit’s project but I like yours much
better. Questions: the big LiPo battery from eBay, is it holding up well? Have you
considered adding the R Pi camera?

Stefan Vorkoetter
February 21, 2018

Prompted by your question, I decided to do a discharge test. I fully charged the

battery overnight, and then turned the tablet on and left it idle, with the screen
at 50% brightness (the level at which I did all my earlier power consumption
tests). It ran for a hair over 7 hours, which works out to 15Wh. The battery is
supposed to be 23Wh (6.2Ah x 3.7V nominal). The only difference from my
initial test conditions is that I have the on-board Bluetooth disabled and a USB
Bluetooth adapter permanently connected. I never did such a test when I first
installed the battery, so I don’t know how much it has degraded versus how far
below spec it started out. All my initial tests were with an external 6.6Ah pack.

Regarding the camera, I had thought about it at first, but decided that a tablet
doesn’t really need a camera, and I also couldn’t figure out how to fit it in.

Stefan Vorkoetter
February 21, 2018

I just discovered I had an old discharge log from shortly after I installed the
battery. For the two parts of the discharge that the logs have in common (4.10V
to 3.50V), the time went from 8:03 to 6:30. That suggests a ~20% reduction in
capacity 8 months. I’m now going to fully recharge the tablet and try the
discharge test again.

Stefan Vorkoetter
February 22, 2018

Okay, I’ve just done the discharge test again, after fully recharging after
yesterday’s full discharge. The run time over the same voltage range is now
7:04. It seems that the battery had gotten lazy and was suffering from memory
effect (yes, it turns out that lithium ion batteries do suffer from this:
[Link]
batteries).

Mark C.
February 24, 2018

Thank you for those test results. I’m probably going to upgrade to a larger battery
but am fearful of getting a bogus or inferior one as some have reported about LiPos
from China and HK(generally.)

Given the tight space issues in the case I have considered making an externally
mounted battery case given a flat enough cell.

Regarding the need for a camera in the tablet it’s a preference more than anything.
Given the versatility of it from taking pics of documents to making it a surveillance
cam with MotionEyeOS to being a 3D print server with OctoPrint.

I’ll be installing a tripod screw mount so that the unit can be as versatile as possible.

The hardest part of the build so far has been, wait for it, finding the right screws.
Had to dig around in my spare screw box from years back when I disassembled
everything broken I could get my hands on.

Gene J
March 20, 2018

Thanks for all your wisdom! I’m primarily a hardware & mechanical guy so your
software wisdom is highly appreciated! I’ve had similar ideas and dislike the
limitations of an ‘out of the box’ tablet. I know mine reflect changes to reflect my
personal need but you’ve helped confirm by basic concepts. I already have a Pi3
waiting in the wings, just need a display to start tinkering.I’d love to learn more
about the case you made…it’s similar to what’s been rattling around my mind

allan
June 04, 2018

Any chance you can sell me this raspberry tablet? Kindly email me. Thanks

Stefan Vorkoetter
June 04, 2018

Sorry Allan, but it’s not for sale.

Simon
June 22, 2018

Great project, instructions and results! I’d like to build this. Is there any reason to
not use the latest Pi3+? Or is it be better to stick with the original Pi3?

Stefan Vorkoetter
June 22, 2018

A Pi3+ would probably work and fit fine, but I can’t say for sure since I haven’t
tried it. My only concern would be the slightly faster clock speed resulting in
higher power consumption and more heat to get rid of.

Raymond
July 02, 2018

Great job and very well done.

Jesse
July 17, 2018

Very nice job! I found this write up after I purchased my parts. I’m going for a pi3b+
build, I was a little skeptical about the powerboost 1000 and 4400mah battery I went
with, but after seeing your write up I am more optimistic.

Can you tell me what gauge wires you used for your power setup? Any other
gotchas for making my setup work?

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 18, 2018

I didn’t check exactly what gauge they were, but they were taken from an old
3.5″ floppy drive power cable. Probably 18ga. Be sure to keep the wires
between the battery and PowerBoost as short as possible. If the battery
already has wires on it, they are probably too thin (mine were), so cut them as
close to the battery as possible and attach the thicker wire there.

Jesse
July 19, 2018

What do you think about using two power boosts? Any concern with that? Jump
from USB input to the others USB input. Dual batteries? Then one output goes to
the display and the other the pi.

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 19, 2018

I wouldn’t use dual batteries, or if I did, I’d wire them in parallel. Otherwise your
system will become useless when either battery is dead. But yes, using one for
the Pi and one for the display would work. You should then NOT connect
power wires from the Pi to the display (probably obvious, but worth
mentioning).

Jesse
July 19, 2018

If using dual batteries would both boosts charge it or just one? That’s the issue I am
concerned about.

Stefan Vorkoetter
 July 19, 2018

Good point. I would use a PowerBoost 500 for the display. It doesn’t charge.

Jesse
July 21, 2018

I’m wondering if I could wire a 1000 (non c) to the battery that’s plugged into the
1000c. My only concern with that is what the voltage from the battery will be when
it’s charging from the 1000c. I’ll have to take some measurements.

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 21, 2018

Yeah, this occurred to me the other day too. The 1000C, when connected to an
external source of power, powers the Raspberry Pi (or whatever is connected
to it) directly from the external source. The battery is no longer part of the
power supply while it is being charged. If you have another 500 or 1000
attached to the same battery, then it might confuse the charger of the 1000C.

Jesse
July 29, 2018

So I completed my tablet. The dual powerboosts worked well, thanks for the help!
The purpose of my tablet is mainly for show and a conversation peice for my office
that has dozens of engineers

[Link]

[Link]

Stefan Vorkoetter
July 30, 2018

Very nice work! Glad I could help.

Refaat
August 02, 2018

Hi I have a question.
What pieces are used in this segment (Shutdown Controller and Battery Monitor)
I read the subject, but I did not understand how to make this piece
Is it possible to buy a similar piece of internet?

Stefan Vorkoetter
August 02, 2018

The parts are all listed in that section. I have also just added a component
placement and stripboard trace layout diagram. As far as I know, there is no
item like it available commercially, as it is very specific to the problem I was
trying to solve.

Daniel
August 17, 2018

Hi, I’m really impressed by your design, and I’m trying to do something a little less
complex on my own. I’m still confused by how you managed to get ~2A (to power
both Pi3 and screen) from the PowerBoost 1000C (which, as far as I can tell, is
rated at only 1A). Does it have to do with the trace that you severed on the
PowerBoost 1000C? Is there something I’m not understanding here?

Thanks again for taking the time to do the write-up and upload pictures!

Stefan Vorkoetter
August 17, 2018

Hi Daniel. I didn’t get 2A from the PowerBoost. With the Pi reasonably busy
(playing a YouTube video) and the screen at full brightness, the whole thing
only uses 0.95A. That drops to about 0.53A with the screen at a comfortable
brightness level (42/255). The recommendation of a 2A supply for a Pi 3 is
merely to ensure that there is enough power for peripherals, and in the case of
cheaper power supplies, that the voltage actually remains above 5V even at
typical current consumption levels.

Daniel
August 21, 2018

Hi Stefan, thanks so much for taking the time to answer my question!

GW
September 23, 2018

Hi Stefan.
I have a few questions:
Q1:
In the “Schematic of the shutdown controller and battery monitor”, C2=220nF. In the
cuitboard “Shutdown controller and battery monitor component placement (top)”, C2
= 22nF. Which should it be?
Q2:
In the picture of the “Completed battery monitor and shutdown monitor”, you have a
capacitor soldered between R1 and R2, which you can see across the top of
LM393. This capacitor seems to be missing in your schematic as well as in the
stripboard layout. From the picture, it seems that the value of this capacitor is 104 =
100nF. Is this capacitor necessary? If so, is it indeed 100nF?

Stefan Vorkoetter
September 23, 2018

220nF is the correct one. I will fix the board layout when I get a chance. The
extra capacitor is just a power supply bypass capacitor, probably not strictly
necessary in this case, but I’m in the habit of putting them in. It is connected
across pins 4 and 8 of the chip (via the connections to R1 and R2).

FGemini
November 07, 2018

Dude, this is an AMAZING diy job.

Really, it kicks asses.
GG <3

Craig
November 16, 2018

I would like to build a 10″ tablet, also based on a Raspberry Pi. Would the recently
released Pi 3A+ be suitable for a tablet build?

Stefan Vorkoetter
November 17, 2018

Do you mean the Pi 3B+? It should work about as well as the regular Pi 3, but
it might use a little bit more power due to the faster clock speed.

Craig
November 17, 2018

The newly released Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ : [Link]

/products/raspberry-pi-3-model-a-plus/

Stefan Vorkoetter
November 17, 2018

Sorry, I hadn’t heard about that one yet. It should work, but keep in mind it only
has 512Mb of RAM instead of 1Gb, and only a single USB port.

Michael Muise
November 30, 2018

Hello, where can we buy this Raspberry Pi tablet and is it Android based?

Thank you, Michael

Stefan Vorkoetter
November 30, 2018

You can’t, and it isn’t.

Yon
December 23, 2018

Hi Stefan,
 This is a seriously awesome build! Thanks so much for sharing. I’m building this for
my niece, so I just want to build a more robust enclosure.

I’m still an electronics noobie, and was really battling to understand how the triangle
wave generator part of your circuit worked. I feel like to I finally get it now, but using
[Link] to simulate the circuit really helped.

Here is a sim of your triangle wave generator: [Link]

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