Macintosh Mini - Maclock conversion project

caver01

Tinkerer
Oct 30, 2021
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This new interposer board plugs in between the Pi and Waveshare

OK, this is really making the whole project accessible to anyone. That’s pretty cool. I have had several people I work with suggest stuff like “wow, you should make these“ or “You should sell these” or “I wanna make one. . . was it hard to do that?” to which I have to admit that you can’t just buy one, that there is plenty of tiny soldering work, and suddenly, tasks that I find fun and interesting myself start to come out and I realize this isn’t really a project normal people can take on!

Your boards are definitely making it easier!

My Pi didn’t have headers, so when I added them, I simply skipped the relevant pins. Then, once attached to the display I went in and soldered my wires in the locations needed. No bending, but certainly fiddly, especially as I needed to reconcile GPIO pinouts with diagrams turned upside-down and backwards. Talk about double, triple, quadruple checking. . . that was my biggest challenge when the only way to know if I did it right was the final test. This eliminates the guesswork. Nice!
 
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caver01

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Oct 30, 2021
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The previous design is still available on my GitHub, but I ordered the first batch of production samples today. I ordered a bunch, so if anyone is interested in buying one or two (assuming they work), I'd be open to that.

I continue to get comments on the Maclock/MacintoshMini, so although I have a working build, I'm probably not the only one wondering. . . did your updated prototype board work?

I was also thinking about the capacitive switch under the top surface. I unplugged mine and just taped it up out of the way, but a switch is a switch! Has anyone thought of a good use for it? Maybe to instantly black the screen like sleep mode? I know, the rotary does the dimming.

What would be cool is capacitive mouse steering and tap to click. Like the surface of an appleTV remote. Now THAT would be handy.
 
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caver01

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Oct 30, 2021
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OH! I just had an idea for the Capacitive "switch" on top. . .

What about using it as a mouse click and setup an accelerometer-based mouse input akin to this:

The idea is that you pickup the MacintoshMini and "steer" the cursor by tilting, then click with a tap on top.

I know, just connect your mouse, but this could be pretty cool if it could be constructed out of a tiny microcontroller with accelerometer/gyro. Load up firmware so it behaves like a USB mouse and plug it in, close up the mini. Use your external USB port for a keyboard if you ever need one.
 
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wells

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Oct 27, 2021
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did your updated prototype board work?



tl;dw: maybe! it turns out I ordered the wrong connectors. I used JST SH plugs on the board, but the Maclock uses Molex PicoBlade (or clones) which are bigger... so now I need to splice some JST 1.0 to PB 1.25 mm pigtails to plug them in properly.

Also, maybe getting a bit ahead of myself, but I finally feel ready to share:

I put together a little shop and I'm going to start selling kits for the Maclock → Macintosh Mini conversion (and a few other projects I've got in the works 🙂). Yall are the first people I'm sharing it with, and it's not finished yet, but you can check it out here: https://shop.wells.ee/products/macintosh-mini/
 

JDW

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And just when we all thought it couldn't get any better, you go and offer fantastic DIY kits at really great prices! Very nice! 🕺

I assume that neither kit includes the battery because Maclock already has one inside that can be used with the kit, correct?
 

caver01

Tinkerer
Oct 30, 2021
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@wells I know sound isn't the main reason most of us probably would build one of these, but I am curious if the audio distortion improves at all with your embedded audio chip. I ended up pulling the battery power on mine which helped (using the adafruit module) but it still makes faint clicks and noises during activity if you listen carefully. I know others have opted to use USB audio which eliminates the problem. I also read somewhere about a filter circuit someone made to improve a similar issue on an unrelated Pi project.

Of course, I am as happy as can be with this just as it is and it's putting a lot of smiles on faces around me, but it keeps getting better. Nice!