Portable Touch Screen Computer With Raspberry Pi 4

In previous instructables I have shared, how you can get started with Raspberry Pi and how to set up Raspberry Pi in headless mode. I recommend you to check it out before you start with this project, below I have listed the instructables:

1. Beginners Guide to Raspberry Pi
2. Control Raspberry Pi Without Monitor.

In this post I will be showing you, how to set up and use Raspberry Pi 4B with Official 7" touchscreen display and make a portable mini computer within 1Hr.

So without wasting any more time, let's get right into it

Here is a list of all the materials you will need for this project.

1. Raspberry Pi 4B..........................(Amazon US/ Amazon UK)
2. Micro SD card 8GB or higher......(Amazon US / Amazon UK / Banggood)
3. Raspberry Pi 7" Touch Display....(Amazon US / Amazon UK)
4. 7" Display Case..........................(Amazon US / Amazon UK)
5. Keyboard & Mouse.....................(Amazon US / Amazon UK / Banggood)
6. Power Supply of 5V 3A...............(Amazon US / Amazon UK)

To make it truly portable use a Power bank.

Here are links to the one I use....(Amazon US / Amazon UK)

Before we get started, we need to do something very important. We need to prepare a bootable SD card for the Pi. If you do not already know how to do that, then check out the following instructable: Beginner's guide to Raspberry Pi.

I recommend using a SD card with 8GB or higher storage capacity. I personally use 16GB Class 10 cards as those are affordable, fast and have enough storage for most needs.

After the OS is flashed successfully, here's what we need to do. This is very important step.

1. Go to SD card and open boot folder. In here we need to open a file named "config.txt".
   Open it with Notepad or I prefer Notepad++.
   Here we need to add a line of code that will flip/rotate the screen as per our need (For the case I have used, I had to flip the display 180)
2. Go to the bottom of the file and on a new line add the following line:

lcd_rotate=2

After adding this line save and exit the folder and carefully eject the Card from your PC and insert it into the pi.

Now if you have the new Raspberry Pi LCD, it comes pre-assembled like mine. For older ones you will have to mount the display driver board on he back of display first.

1. Next we have to connect the ribbon cable to the driver board as shown in the image. Just pull the black connector and insert the cable (Contact pad facing up) and the press the black connecter back in. This will lock the ribbon cable in place. Make sure you keep it straight as we don't want to create any short cicuits.

2. After that, take two jumper cables that come with the display. Ideally black and red, and we just need too for powering the display.

3. Connect black to the left most pin labeled "GND" and red one to the right most pin labeled "5V/Vcc". Make sure you double check these connections before moving forward.

4. Now place the raspberry pi on top matching the mounting holes. Make sure you place the DSI connector side of Pi to match with the DSI side of display driver. Then fasten the pi with the display board with the 4 screws provided.

5. Now we have to connect the ribbon cable to the Raspberry Pi. Refer the image above. Here too make sure the cable is straight and connected firmly.

6. Finally connect the red wire to 5V pin and black wire to GND pin of raspberry.

With that been done, we can now power up the pi and start using the Touch screen interface but to make it more beautiful and easy to carry we will add it to a case.

The case has only 2 parts, the body and the back cover that is removable so we can access the GPIO.

1. First place the display on the table flat so that the USB side of Pi faces left.

2. Place the case on top and align it so all the USB and other jacks match the appropriate cutouts.

3. Align the four mounting holes of the case with the holes on the back of the display and fasten them with the screws provided with the case.

4. Finally snap the back cover on and the portable Raspberry Pi computer is ready to use.

To power the Raspberry pi, we need a 5V 3A stable power supply. I recommend using the official power adapter by Raspberry pi. Or to make it portable, we can use a good quality power bank.

I like using this along with my mini wireless keyboard as the Raspbian OS is not exactly touch friendly. But in future I plan on trying on different operating systems like Kali Linux and Android to check compatibility.

Hope you like this instructable and learnt something from it. If you did, please consider checking out my website:
ProjectHub.in for Custom Projects, Tutorials and Reviews.