About Author

Lukas Henkel

Lukas is a passionate hardware designer with more than 10 years of experience in the electronics industry. As a co-founder of his own engineering services company, he has had the privilege of working on many exciting projects, taking on challenges ranging from precision analogue design to high-speed PCB layout and power electronics.

As a strong supporter of the open-source philosophy, Lukas has made it his goal to give anyone interested an insight into the construction and functioning of modern electronic devices. Driven by that goal, he has founded the company Open Visions Technology (OV Tech GmbH), which aims to bring highly repairable, fully documented state-of-the-art consumer hardware to the market.

Lukas firmly believes that with today's online access to know-how and tools, anyone with an idea, drive, and passion can create extraordinary things. He is looking forward to being part of an enthusiastic community and is excited to see how people bring their ideas to life.

Recent Articles

PIMX8 Project - Chapter VI

Pi.MX8 Project - Board Layout Part 4 Welcome to a new installment on the Pi.MX8 compute module SoM project! In this update we will be putting the finishing touches to our PCB design and getting the design ready for prototype production. In the last article we completed the routing of the signal layers. This was the most time-consuming part of the PCB layout for the Pi.MX8 module. However, we still have two tasks ahead of us that require just as much care: routing the power planes Read Article

Pi.MX8_Chapter_V

Pi.MX8 Project - Board Layout Part 3 Welcome to a new installment of the Pi.MX8 open-source computer module project! In this series, we delve into the design and testing of a system-on-module based on an i.MX8M plus processor from NXP. In the previous update, we completed the layout preparations. This included creating the impedance profiles, adding the design rules according to the board manufacturer specifications and defining areas where special design rules should apply. We have Read Article

Pi MX8 Chapter IV

Pi.MX8 Project - Board Layout Part 2 In the previous update, we looked at defining a suitable layerstack for the module as well as adding the fanout routing to all the components placed on the board. Based on all these preparations, we are now almost ready to route the first traces. Before we start connecting any components on the board though we have to define the impedance profiles and set up the matching design rules for the correct trace width. Setting up impedance profiles Read Article

Pi.MX8_Chapter_III

Pi.MX8 Project - Board Layout Part 1 Welcome to the third installment of the Pi.MX8 open-source computer module project! In this article series, we delve into the design and testing of a system-on-module based on an i.MX8M plus processor from NXP. In the last update, we looked at the schematic structure of the module and started preparing the preliminary component placement. Now that we’ve placed the components, we have a good idea of the density of the design and the demands this Read Article

LAE Part 2

Design Phase – Lid Assembly Electronics Part 2 Welcome back to the Open Source Laptop Project series! So far, we’ve discussed the functionality and component selection of the lid assembly electronics, we’ve taken a closer look at the schematic capture, and we’ve prepared the project for the PCB layout design. In this update, we’ll tackle the PCB design of the webcam board with some expected challenges ahead; e.g., dealing with the overall small form factor of the board or breaking out the Read Article

Pi.MX8_Chapter_II

Pi.MX8 Project – Schematic Structure and Component Placement Welcome to the second installment of the Pi.MX8 open-source compute module project! In this article series, we delve into the design and testing of a system-on-module based on an i.MX8M plus processor from NXP. In the previous update, we discussed the motivation behind this project as well as which features our module should have and which components we would like to use to implement them. This time, we will like to focus on the structure of the Read Article

PiMX8 chapter one

Pi.MX8 Project – Introduction and Overview The Raspberry Pi company has developed what is probably the most popular and widely used single board computer on the market. These powerful single-board computers have long been used not only in the maker and hobbyist scene, but also in the industrial space. As the application area expands, the form factor of these boards is emerging as a 'de facto' standard for single board computers and modules. The introduction of the compute module CM4 in Read Article

LAE Part 1

Design Phase – Lid Assembly Electronics Part 1 Welcome back to the open-source laptop project series! In the previous update, we discussed how to integrate the various sensors and the electronics assembly itself into the bezel of the laptop display. We’ve decided which PCB technology we would like to use, and what the mounting hardware for the webcam PCB looks like. In this update, we will focus our attention to the electronics and PCB design of the webcam module. Fully assembled webcam Read Article

Lid Mechanics Part 3

Design Phase – Lid Assembly Mechanics Part 3 Welcome to the third part of the open-source laptop lid assembly design! In the last installment, we looked at one possible way to integrate the webcam module and all the connected sensors into the bezel of the laptop lid. We have identified several challenges with the approach presented in the previous article. The additional assembly and manufacturing complexity associated with using a flexible PCB led us to another option using only a rigid Read Article

Design Phase - Lid Assembly Mechanics part 2

Design Phase – Lid Assembly Mechanics Part 2 Welcome to part two of the open-source laptop lid assembly design! In the last installment, we took a closer look at the basic design concept of the laptop lid and how we can integrate various sensors into the display screen. We will follow down this same path, exploring two ways to integrate the sensor PCB above the display panel. This will have a direct impact on the remaining mechanical design of the lid, so let's see how we can approach this Read Article

Open source laptop part six

Design Phase – Lid Assembly Mechanics Part 1 Welcome back to the open-source laptop project! In this update we are going to delve into the mechanical design of the laptop lid. Previously, we've explored which display panels are available and which would be the best fit for our application. Our search was successful as was the testing of the panel! Now the hard part begins: fitting everything into a system that is not only robust and functional, but also looks good. While the title of this Read Article

Lid Assembly Design Part II

Concept Phase – Lid Assembly Design Part 2 We are continuing the journey through lid assembly design on our Open Source Laptop project. Designing a test adapter — Layout Now we have to put all of our work in an actual hardware design. The layout of this board is straightforward, as we only have one high-speed interface to pay special attention to. The DisplayPort interface can de-skew up to 20UI per specification. UI is short for Unit Interval which is the reciprocal of the bit rate. For Read Article

Lid Assembly Design Part I

Concept Phase – Lid Assembly Design Part 1 Welcome back to the open-source laptop project! In this update we will move one step closer to the design phase of the project. This is the first hands-on experience with one of the core components of the laptop — the display panel! We will decide which display panel to use, how we can integrate it into the lid, and we are going to design, assemble, and test a small DisplayPort to embedded DisplayPort adapter to light up the screen for the first Read Article

Laptop part III

Concept Phase – Cooling and Airflow Part 1 In this installment of the open-source laptop project, we will take a closer look at the cooling system. First, we will focus on the airflow inside the device and find out what we need to consider to meet the requirements defined in the previous article. {"preview_thumbnail":"/sites/default/files/styles/video_embed_wysiwyg_preview/public/video_thumbnails/O0xn2-kPL4o.jpg?itok=SkZpEUXp","video_url":"https://youtu.be/O0xn2-kPL4o","settings":{ Read Article

laptop part 2

Concept Phase – Initial CAD Design This installment of the open source laptop project development log will walk you through the early concept and brainstorming phase. The first step is to collect the ideas and requirements for the end device and condense them as best as possible into a simplified draft. It is not important in this stage to pay too much attention to the technical details—it is about laying a foundation i.e. creating a framework that can be subdivided and refined in Read Article

laptop

Introduction to Open Source Laptop Project Ever dreamt of designing your own open-source laptop? For a while now I´ve been fascinated by this idea. As you can probably imagine, this is a monumental task that will require a lot of time and resources. Working alone on a project of this size makes matters even more difficult. So, why embark on such an adventure–especially with a product design that has already been manufactured and sold by the millions for years on end? {"preview_thumbnail" Read Article