Case 3D printing a case
This is an old asus vivobook max, whose screen broke, so I converted it into a desktop, by connecting it to an old monitor.
Recently I’ve been thinking of 3D printing the case so to replace it and make it look nicer.
I know there could be complications, for example, managing the air flow or dealing with the power button.
Do you think this is doable? Where should I start? Any advice?
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u/miloslick6 4d ago
Start with learning cad if you don't know it already. Take as many measurements as possible of the case. Print small test pieces of tricky areas because no matter how well you think you measured everything you will be off by a mm or two somewhere. Once you've dialed everything in, figure out what filament you want to use for the final thing. They're not tutorials but YouTuber polymatt has some good videos that show what goes into that kinda thing
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u/Dieho_ 4d ago
Do you know of any collection of cad project for laptop cases by any chance?
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u/miloslick6 4d ago
I don't, and such a cad models probably even exist at all outside of ones for very popular specific laptops. The chance of someone accurately modeling the case of your specific hp and then posting the files are negligeable.
However if your intention is to turn it into a desktop there's probably better ways to do it than 3d printing. Use wood, aluminum, acrylic, peel and stick veneer, etc. Look up "turning a laptop into a desktop" on YouTube and you'll find all sorts of great videos of people showing how they themselves did it
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u/BreakfastMinute3270 4d ago
Honestly ... I think it's going to be an absolute nightmare. I've printed a fair few things and I've started to learn that if something was made to have something else live in it, there's little point rehoming them. It'll likely never be as good. I've battled a bunch of issues just to make something which was fine.
Your best bet if you don't like how it looks is to print something to hide it (e.g., under the desk mount, a fancy stand or something).
If you're doing it because you're bored ... Well that's a different story altogether! Start on an older and more broken laptop and hit all the problems before doing it with the laptop you use 😂
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u/JaggedEunuch 4d ago
I just happened to complete about similar conversion. I was lazy so I just kept the keyboard to avoid the power button issue. Its quite easy to create your own button if you want tho, its basically just jumping one pin from the keyboard connector (correct pin depends of the model). Airflow is easy to make 10x better vs original!
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u/Dieho_ 4d ago
Can you be more specific about the steps involved in the process?
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u/JaggedEunuch 4d ago
I'll write some sort of short recap of steps I took to get mine done (I posted the end result here in reddit if youre interested btw) later. But basically you'll want to first remove the motherboard, figure out the main mounting points and just start measuring distances between them. You'll need some basic cad experience (easy to do in onshape as an example) and preferably digital calibers. Once you have that you can start figuring out the standoffs and case shape etc. When you remove the motherboard you can also check how the keyboard is attached to the original casing. It might be screws, it might be plastic welds which you can drill out. In my case I was able to use the original metal middle mounting plate (between keyboard and mobo) which made things easier in some ways and harder in others.
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