Creating a Laptop Dock Using 3D Printing and DIY Skills

Still allowing the tabs to be rotated so why were the washers necessary well they lift up the side pieces just enough to match the inside height of the laptop which allows the tabs to slide over it to keep it secure next we'll need a selection of cables which we can use to make what's essentially a docking interface I've got a USB extension to monitor cables and a power port extension with the laptop in position on the dock these cables can all be plugged in after which we can mold some tack around the area of each plug to prevent the glue we're going to use from touching the laptop or spreading too far you may want to make some grooves in the base as well to give the glue something extra to adhere to and it's a good idea to rough up the plastic on each connector for the same reason the glue I'm using is slow drying epoxy which has a working time of about an hour I'd recommend this over the fast drying stuff as those often set within 10 minutes which makes it a little bit stressful as you'd have to rush to get it all done in time so once it's thoroughly mixed it can be spooned into each tap mold as well as being added to the underside of each connector you need to take care when plugging these in so as not to let any glue enter the port at all which would be quite disastrous for obvious reasons once it's in place some more glue can be added up the sides for some extra strength they now need to be left until the glue is completely cured and it's important that they are in a very neutral position for this not being pushed in any particular direction so that they will be perfectly in place once set so once it has set the tack can be peeled away as much as possible which leaves the port solidly and securely in position so much so that the laptop can be slid in and out and they'll remain securely anchored as if set in stone now it's time to tidy up the cables so it can bundle them together with a cable tie and get some black cotton ribbon wrapping it around and round it so tightly bind them together this makes for a single exit cable that looks really smart so now there's only one thing left to do which is to make a covering piece to hide the connectors I made mine out of a single piece of aluminium and use some tin snips and files to make a little cutout in the middle which makes a small gap for two fingers to make the laptop easier to pull out to finalise this you might want to use some water and a very fine grit sandpaper to add micro scratches to its surface which should give it a brushed look once it's washed and dried very nice indeed this can then be screwed in place after which the dock is complete now you may have noticed the four holes on the base these are mounting holes to allow it to be mounted onto a wall for this it's just a case of using a pencil to mark their positions and adding some raw plugs which allows the dock to simply be screwed in place so with that we can now plug in all of the devices

I used a USB hub to give me four USB ports which was attached to the back of the desk for ease of access and for power I simply connected the laptops original power brick to the power port extension now the laptop can be slid in place which is super satisfying by the way and powered on as you can see it looks really neat especially compared to the other methods I showed you earlier and it keeps the desk free from clutter giving you more room it has a cool industrial look to it as well thanks to the brushed aluminium flanged hex screws and cotton covered cable by the way to keep the laptop from going into standby with the lid closed it's just a case of going into power options and changing it to do nothing we can even set up dual monitors with this and when you're ready to go the laptop can simply be pulled out and you can be on your way now it's worth noting that to successfully make one of these your laptop must have at least a monitor port a power port and a USB port along a single edge doesn't matter whether it's the back or one of the sides as if it is one of the sides you can make it so that it slides down vertically instead so I hope you've enjoyed this video and if you did don't forget to give it a thumbs up and maybe consider subscribing as well and if you're really keen don't forget to click that little Bell icon which will let you know whenever I upload a new project other than that I'm at you've been watching DIY perks and I really hope I see you next time good bye for now

If you'd like to see another laptop related project then why not check this one out in which I show you how to convert a smashed-up laptop into a beautiful desktop PC with pretty interesting results

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enlaptops are great for their portability but when it comes to getting some serious work done it's often a good idea to get it hooked up to a monitor and peripherals to help you get things done faster unfortunately plugging in all the cables can be a bit tedious and often ends up looking messy and while you can get sport replicators for some laptops these aren't particularly elegant and still take up a lot of room on the desk so to solve these problems we will in this video be building a super sleek wall-mounted laptop docking station that not only looks neat on the wall but is also super practical as the laptop can be just slid in place to connect it to all of your devices let's get to it so the first thing we'll need is a sheet of low density PVC plastic which is perfect for this project as it's lightweight easy to work with and comes in a variety of colors as its going to form the main base the first thing to do to it is cut it down to size and for aesthetics I'm going to round off the corners using a coping saw following it up with some sandpaper for neatness size wise this base needs to be three centimetres larger than the laptop in all directions which leaves room for all of the connectors that will be adding later in addition to allowing space for two supporting side pieces these can be made out of the same material and need to have some holes drilled through them for mounting purposes one thing to check here is whether either of the side pieces will block any vents on the laptop if they do mark the vents position on the offending side piece and carefully carve out a gap for it on the underside which should allow air to flow freely through the vent so before we screw these side pieces in place we need to make two little tabs that will later act as locks to stop the laptop from falling out they can simply be made out of a thin sheet of aluminium using some tin snips and must be heavily sanded down to round off all the edges so that they won't scratch the laptop when deployed these can then be attached to the side pieces using some m5 flange head screws these are supposed to slide through the side pieces easily but I made my hole slightly too small so they were a little stiff now we can add a few washers to act as spacers and tighten them onto the base note the holes here need to be smaller so that the screw bites in securely as the tabs are likely going to rotate the screws at this point which we don't want we need to back off the screws slightly and add some glue to the underside which when dry should keep the screws in place while still allowing the tabs to be rotated so why were the washers necessary well they lift up the side pieces just enough to match the inside height of the laptop which allows the tabs to slide over it to keep it secure next we'll need a selection of cables which we can use to make what's essentially a docking interface I've got a USB extension to monitor cables and a power port extension with the laptop in position on the dock these cables can all be plugged in after which we can mold some tack around the area of each plug to prevent the glue we're going to use from touching the laptop or spreading too far you may want to make some grooves in the base as well to give the glue something extra to adhere to and it's a good idea to rough up the plastic on each connector for the same reason the glue I'm using is slow drying epoxy which has a working time of about an hour I'd recommend this over the fast drying stuff as those often set within 10 minutes which makes it a little bit stressful as you'd have to rush to get it all done in time so once it's thoroughly mixed it can be spooned into each tap mold as well as being added to the underside of each connector you need to take care when plugging these in so as not to let any glue enter the port at all which would be quite disastrous for obvious reasons once it's in place some more glue can be added up the sides for some extra strength they now need to be left until the glue is completely cured and it's important that they are in a very neutral position for this not being pushed in any particular direction so that they will be perfectly in place once set so once it has set the tack can be peeled away as much as possible which leaves the port solidly and securely in position so much so that the laptop can be slid in and out and they'll remain securely anchored as if set in stone now it's time to tidy up the cables so it can bundle them together with a cable tie and get some black cotton ribbon wrapping it around and round it so tightly bind them together this makes for a single exit cable that looks really smart so now there's only one thing left to do which is to make a covering piece to hide the connectors I made mine out of a single piece of aluminium and use some tin snips and files to make a little cutout in the middle which makes a small gap for two fingers to make the laptop easier to pull out to finalise this you might want to use some water and a very fine grit sandpaper to add micro scratches to its surface which should give it a brushed look once it's washed and dried very nice indeed this can then be screwed in place after which the dock is complete now you may have noticed the four holes on the base these are mounting holes to allow it to be mounted onto a wall for this it's just a case of using a pencil to mark their positions and adding some raw plugs which allows the dock to simply be screwed in place so with that we can now plug in all of the devices I used a USB hub to give me four USB ports which was attached to the back of the desk for ease of access and for power I simply connected the laptops original power brick to the power port extension now the laptop can be slid in place which is super satisfying by the way and powered on as you can see it looks really neat especially compared to the other methods I showed you earlier and it keeps the desk free from clutter giving you more room it has a cool industrial look to it as well thanks to the brushed aluminium flanged hex screws and cotton covered cable by the way to keep the laptop from going into standby with the lid closed it's just a case of going into power options and changing it to do nothing we can even set up dual monitors with this and when you're ready to go the laptop can simply be pulled out and you can be on your way now it's worth noting that to successfully make one of these your laptop must have at least a monitor port a power port and a USB port along a single edge doesn't matter whether it's the back or one of the sides as if it is one of the sides you can make it so that it slides down vertically instead so I hope you've enjoyed this video and if you did don't forget to give it a thumbs up and maybe consider subscribing as well and if you're really keen don't forget to click that little Bell icon which will let you know whenever I upload a new project other than that I'm at you've been watching DIY perks and I really hope I see you next time good bye for now if you'd like to see another laptop related project then why not check this one out in which I show you how to convert a smashed-up laptop into a beautiful desktop PC with pretty interesting resultslaptops are great for their portability but when it comes to getting some serious work done it's often a good idea to get it hooked up to a monitor and peripherals to help you get things done faster unfortunately plugging in all the cables can be a bit tedious and often ends up looking messy and while you can get sport replicators for some laptops these aren't particularly elegant and still take up a lot of room on the desk so to solve these problems we will in this video be building a super sleek wall-mounted laptop docking station that not only looks neat on the wall but is also super practical as the laptop can be just slid in place to connect it to all of your devices let's get to it so the first thing we'll need is a sheet of low density PVC plastic which is perfect for this project as it's lightweight easy to work with and comes in a variety of colors as its going to form the main base the first thing to do to it is cut it down to size and for aesthetics I'm going to round off the corners using a coping saw following it up with some sandpaper for neatness size wise this base needs to be three centimetres larger than the laptop in all directions which leaves room for all of the connectors that will be adding later in addition to allowing space for two supporting side pieces these can be made out of the same material and need to have some holes drilled through them for mounting purposes one thing to check here is whether either of the side pieces will block any vents on the laptop if they do mark the vents position on the offending side piece and carefully carve out a gap for it on the underside which should allow air to flow freely through the vent so before we screw these side pieces in place we need to make two little tabs that will later act as locks to stop the laptop from falling out they can simply be made out of a thin sheet of aluminium using some tin snips and must be heavily sanded down to round off all the edges so that they won't scratch the laptop when deployed these can then be attached to the side pieces using some m5 flange head screws these are supposed to slide through the side pieces easily but I made my hole slightly too small so they were a little stiff now we can add a few washers to act as spacers and tighten them onto the base note the holes here need to be smaller so that the screw bites in securely as the tabs are likely going to rotate the screws at this point which we don't want we need to back off the screws slightly and add some glue to the underside which when dry should keep the screws in place while still allowing the tabs to be rotated so why were the washers necessary well they lift up the side pieces just enough to match the inside height of the laptop which allows the tabs to slide over it to keep it secure next we'll need a selection of cables which we can use to make what's essentially a docking interface I've got a USB extension to monitor cables and a power port extension with the laptop in position on the dock these cables can all be plugged in after which we can mold some tack around the area of each plug to prevent the glue we're going to use from touching the laptop or spreading too far you may want to make some grooves in the base as well to give the glue something extra to adhere to and it's a good idea to rough up the plastic on each connector for the same reason the glue I'm using is slow drying epoxy which has a working time of about an hour I'd recommend this over the fast drying stuff as those often set within 10 minutes which makes it a little bit stressful as you'd have to rush to get it all done in time so once it's thoroughly mixed it can be spooned into each tap mold as well as being added to the underside of each connector you need to take care when plugging these in so as not to let any glue enter the port at all which would be quite disastrous for obvious reasons once it's in place some more glue can be added up the sides for some extra strength they now need to be left until the glue is completely cured and it's important that they are in a very neutral position for this not being pushed in any particular direction so that they will be perfectly in place once set so once it has set the tack can be peeled away as much as possible which leaves the port solidly and securely in position so much so that the laptop can be slid in and out and they'll remain securely anchored as if set in stone now it's time to tidy up the cables so it can bundle them together with a cable tie and get some black cotton ribbon wrapping it around and round it so tightly bind them together this makes for a single exit cable that looks really smart so now there's only one thing left to do which is to make a covering piece to hide the connectors I made mine out of a single piece of aluminium and use some tin snips and files to make a little cutout in the middle which makes a small gap for two fingers to make the laptop easier to pull out to finalise this you might want to use some water and a very fine grit sandpaper to add micro scratches to its surface which should give it a brushed look once it's washed and dried very nice indeed this can then be screwed in place after which the dock is complete now you may have noticed the four holes on the base these are mounting holes to allow it to be mounted onto a wall for this it's just a case of using a pencil to mark their positions and adding some raw plugs which allows the dock to simply be screwed in place so with that we can now plug in all of the devices I used a USB hub to give me four USB ports which was attached to the back of the desk for ease of access and for power I simply connected the laptops original power brick to the power port extension now the laptop can be slid in place which is super satisfying by the way and powered on as you can see it looks really neat especially compared to the other methods I showed you earlier and it keeps the desk free from clutter giving you more room it has a cool industrial look to it as well thanks to the brushed aluminium flanged hex screws and cotton covered cable by the way to keep the laptop from going into standby with the lid closed it's just a case of going into power options and changing it to do nothing we can even set up dual monitors with this and when you're ready to go the laptop can simply be pulled out and you can be on your way now it's worth noting that to successfully make one of these your laptop must have at least a monitor port a power port and a USB port along a single edge doesn't matter whether it's the back or one of the sides as if it is one of the sides you can make it so that it slides down vertically instead so I hope you've enjoyed this video and if you did don't forget to give it a thumbs up and maybe consider subscribing as well and if you're really keen don't forget to click that little Bell icon which will let you know whenever I upload a new project other than that I'm at you've been watching DIY perks and I really hope I see you next time good bye for now if you'd like to see another laptop related project then why not check this one out in which I show you how to convert a smashed-up laptop into a beautiful desktop PC with pretty interesting results\n"