BUILDING A CYBERDECK
QUICK START GUIDE
*Under Construction*
There's a lot to cover when it comes to building your very own deck so let's get right to it.
Quick List:
Pick a SBC
Get a compatible LCD screen
Choose your medium for constructing the case (duct tape + hot glue?)
Other peripherals - keyboard, pointing device, speakers/headphones
Powering your device - mains and or battery
Operating system, linux of some flavor
Learn to solder
Here’s our curated list of hardware and other Cyberpunk things personally used by myself and community members. This list will keep expanding and is a great resource to help you get started and avoid buying techno junk. To the best of our abilities everything here has been vetted and shown to have at least passable quality.
Recent addition to our hardware list is the “Retrocart” a 3D printed cartridge for use with all Cyberdecks created by the group member MS3FX. This is an awesome addition to any deck so go check it out, only costs about three fity.
Retrocart-usb-cartridge-system
*2020 supply chains are broken and some hardware is in very limited supply to please excuse any dead links or out of stock items. Affiliate links are used whenever possible to help support this site and keep it ad free.
Works Of Fiction
Technical Books
Pocket Ref 4th Edition - The most useful book ever written
Every Tool's a Hammer - Adam Savages book
SBC - Single Board Computer
Z8350 Windows 10 Compute Stick 2GB DDR3/32GB
ODROID N2 SBC 4GB with Power Supply
Displays
4.3inch HDMI IPS LCD 800x480 Capacitive Touch
5.5inch HDMI AMOLED 1080 Capacitive Touch
7.0 Inch HDMI IPS LCD 1024×600 Capacitive Touch
10.1 Inch HDMI IPS LCD 1280x800 No Touch
13.3" HDMI+VGA IPS LCD 13.3inch 1080 No Touch
Peripheral's
USB 3.0 Hub with Power Switches
Audio
Mini Speakers - Pairs well to the mini amp
Mini Audio Amp - It’s good enough
Fostex T40RP - Best over ear headphones ever made - must use with amp
KZ ZS10 Pro IEM - Excellent sound reproduction
Cables
Micro HDMI 90 Angled to HDMI (For Pi 4)
USB-C 3.1 to Left Angled 90 Degree
Micro SD to Micro SD Extension Cable
Data Storage
High Speed SD/Micro Card Reader/Writer 4.0/UHS II
Samsung Evo Micro SD Card - high speed storage for OS
Samsung 256GB - 300MB/s USB 3.1 Flash Drive
Power System
RETROPSU - One of the best Pi4 power supplies
Raspberry PI Portable Power Pack
Hardware
SDR - Software Defined Radio
NooElec Ham It Up v1.3 – RF Upconverter
WIFI
AWUS036AC - Supports Monitor Mode
Cyberpunk accessories
DSTIKE ESP8266 WiFi Wristwatch
Now that you’ve had a chance to browse a few hardware options and the gears are spinning lets dig into some more detail.
SOLDERING
This is a skill you need to aquire before building your first deck. Its almost impossible to get away without at least splicing or soldering wires up a power switch. There’s an excellent guide from the user “Newts” that goes into great detail while managing to keep it short and simple: Google Doc's Slide
PICK YOUR BRAIN
The choice in Single Board Computer aka SBC used to be easier with only a dozen options available but how with hundreds of boards and thousands of configurations it might seem a bit more complicated. Don’t worry its still a simple choice, The Raspberry Pi it still king and with the Pi4, 2GB RAM model you have the perfect mix of performance vs cost.
I personally use the Pi4, 4GB RAM model in my decks and find that i rarely even use 2GB of RAM so if you need to shave a few bucks off go with 2GB model it’ll be fine.
INPUT
Many things fall under this category so for our use here its limited to “Touchscreen, Keyboard, Mouse, Trackpad” and this part really isn’t all that difficult. Size and budget constraints will make the choice for you.
DISPLAYS
After you pick a SBC you need to find a display that's compatible and meets you visual needs, also if you want touch input.
Choose the size, resolution and interface (DSI, HDMI, DP-USB-C) then using the links provided have a look through the most commonly used options. Avoid anything less than 1024x600 resolution as your main display, lower res are fine for secondary use like showing system stats.
BUILDING THE CASE
Now we must pick a method to build this thing. There’s no one material that’s really better overall and by the time you’ve finished will probably have used half of what’s on the list.
3D print
Hard Case
Sheet Metal
Expanded PVC Foam Board
Wood
Acrylic
The choice here is a personal one, use whatever you’re comfortable working with.
MY WALLET HURTS
All of this might be starting to sound like an expensive new hobby and the truth is it can really start to add up if you’re not careful so lets take a moment to go over some ways to keep within a tight budget.
Cheap component sources:
E-waste Recycling
Thrift Store
99c Store
Ebay
OfferUp
CraigsList
You might already have perfectly good LI-PO’s around in random unused tech on a shelf so start out by just searching through your shelves for broken and disused hardware. Everyone has power bricks around, laptop supply is typically around 19v, old routers commonly 12v and plenty of 5v cellphone chargers so its unlikely you’d need to buy one but if you do check goodwill they always have bins full of them for a buck.
Thrift stores are a great resource, check the bag section you may find the perfect briefcase to base your deck around instead of buying an expensive pelican case and we all like mechanical keyboard’s but its another big ticket item, stores like GoodWill have plenty of keyboards for $3-10 in every size, hardwired and bluetooth.
99c stores are full of mostly junk but if you need small amounts of glue, tape, random usb cables or even a soldering iron they typically have it.
My least favorite options are offerup and craigslist, mostly because there’s so many scams to sort through but they can still be a good source for random stuff.
Ebay if you have already exhausted other resources but its the highest priced option for used gear.
POWER
Some common power supply options:
USB battery bank
Laptop power brick + voltage converter
Li-Po cell + Battery management and voltage boost board (avoid geekworm brand products they are fire starters)
OPERATING SYSTEM “OS”
Time to research what the best linux OS for your SBC is (The Answer always ends up being Debian). “Linux” it’s that thing you’ve heard of but maybe never bothered to try out because you don’t want to use a command prompt, good thing is thats hardly been the case for the past decade and linux is a great alternative perfectly suited to daily use.
Windows and OSX are not not great options but if its what you truly want then make sure you get an X86 SBC since Windows on ARM isn’t great and OSX forget about it. There is no legal OSX install available for use with non apple products and win10 is full of adware/spyware/keyloggers by default.
The more mainstream SBC’s will have a wider selection of prebuilt Linux OS’s to select from and more community support so if you are new to it or have a tight budget go with a Raspberry Pi 4/5, 4 or 8GB RAM version as the brain of your Cyberdeck and Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Rasbian) is a excellent choice, it’s fast, responsive, overall just easy to get started with and fine for daily use. Also its a derivative of debian like most Linux distros.
NOW GET STARTED
Join the Cyberdeck Discord (Link top right) and start your very own project log to keep yourself organized, productive and share your progress with everyone. You will find a very helpful group of people and all the inspiration you could imagine. We are an all inclusive group, everyone is welcome there’s no gatekeeping at the Cafe we were all noobs in the beginning.
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FYI the Reddit, r/cyberdeck has no affiliation with us and if you’ve ever visited you already know it’s not a real friendly place and you’ll find no help from anyone there.
Affiliate links
Love em, Hate them, be indifferent its ok, we use them to help pay hosting costs and keep the hardware flowing for new decks and contest prizes. Hit one of the amazon links before checking out for any order and you’ll be sending 4% of the total our way instead of bezos pocket.