Raspberry Pi Zero cyberdeck squeezed into a mint tin

An enthusiast going by Exercising Ingenuity has built a portable computer around a Raspberry Pi Zero, fitting it inside a standard Altoids mint tin. The project combines the Raspberry Pi community's long-running habit of mounting boards in these containers with the current cyberdeck-building trend.

Inside the tin, alongside the Raspberry Pi Zero itself, sit a 2-inch LCD display left over from another project and a UPS HAT with a battery for off-grid power. The keyboard is hand-wired on a protoboard and runs off a Waveshare RP2040 Zero microcontroller. To save space, the maker removed unused components from both boards and soldered parts directly together instead of using wires. A USB hub also made it in, adding an external USB port.

The display caused trouble: it refused to work with the latest Raspberry Pi OS. The builder had to roll the operating system back several versions and tweak settings in raspi-config to get it running.

Holding the electronics in place required 3D printing. After several design iterations, a flexible filament mount was created that bends to fit inside the tin — necessary because the rolled metal edges are slightly thicker than the rest of the material, so a rigid insert cannot slide in from the top.

Fifteen GPIO pins are broken out on the case for hardware hacking. Port and pin labels are engraved into the tin, and the 3D-printed faceplate is painted beige as a nod to vintage computing gear.

The build first appeared in issue 167 of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine, now available to read online for free. It is not featured in the latest issue.