The €2 Laptop Stand
October 3rd, 2007
Update (04/10/2007): This article has been lifehacked. Thanks for all your comments!
Being a programmer, I crouch in front of computers a lot – obviously you want to avoid being a cripple with 30 and get an ergonomic workplace. Usually this means having a separately adjustable keyboard and screen in addition to my Macbook Pro. Currently i don’t have this luxury, so I came up with a really simple laptop stand to rise the screen-height and have a more relaxed wrist position.
This has been done before (a lot). Some of them are just clumsy, look bad, or can’t be applied to Apple laptops because of the limited bending-angle of their screens. I’m suprised nobody looked at the obvious, and constructed a stand from a ring-binder. Its very cheap, easy to build, portable, and in addition contains most of the clutter i need on my desk (post-its, pen, my two external drives). You can even bundle any cables through the metal hole present in most binders. And most important: It perfectly fits the color of my laptop! *g
What you need
- A stable ring binder, optimally with the latch not sticking out of the top to prevent scratches
- 40cm aluminium rail (0.5mm thick, 1.5cm depth/height), normally used for securing edges, its available in every utility store
- 40×1cm felt or fabric, to prevent scratches
- Double-sided adhesive tape
- Two small metal clamps, normally used for securing letters
- Optional: Some black anti-slide mat to cover the ring binder
Instructions
- Cut the aluminium rail to the length of the ring binder with a metal saw
- Round the cutting edges
- Place adhesive tape on one inner side of the rail
- Drill two holes towards the sides big enough to hold the metal clamps
- Fit rail to one edge of the ring binder
- Drill holes through the binder as well, and secure them with the metal clamps
- Fit the strip of felt on the other inner side of the rail (which will hold the laptop)
- Secure the sides of the clamps facing the laptop-bottom with tape to avoid scratches
Warning
If your laptop-bottom tends to heat up with high CPU-usage, a paper-based ring binder might pose a fire hazard. Consider using an aluminium binder, leave some room for ventilation, or cut venting-holes into the binder top.
Pictures
October 4th, 2007 at 04:15 PM
Awesome Idea :) Have to try one for my new Thinkpad
October 4th, 2007 at 04:25 PM
Need a hole where the computer fan is to help venting.
October 4th, 2007 at 05:32 PM
I love it. :-D Primo mate!
October 4th, 2007 at 05:43 PM
I definitely will be trying this out for my G4 powerbook. I have one modification in mind so that the optical drive is still accessible. I’m going to use a set of 90degree hinges instead of the aluminum rail, I figure this way it will also be a bit more portable and I won’t loose access to the front of the laptop, plus making it more useful for laptops with different configurations. The best part about your design is the added storage space beneath. With all the peripherals we all tend to carry these days…. Thanks for the great idea.
October 4th, 2007 at 06:02 PM
Great work… but how’s this for a freaky coincidence: just this morning I got so fed up with pain in my wrists and neck from prolonged laptop use that I built ‘yet another’ laptop stand, using two ring binders glued together so that if you looked at it side-on it would look like a letter A with a letter V next to it: AV . The binder which makes up the letter A is prevented from sliding open by – believe it or not – shoelaces, and a length of elastic holds the letter V one closed, forming a kind of pocket into which I insert the laptop keyboard. Advantage is that (if your laptop folds open almost flat, like mine does) you can have the keyboard at a much steeper angle than most stands allow.
October 4th, 2007 at 07:50 PM
My hands and iBook G4 thank you for the great idea. I like the white binder ;).
October 4th, 2007 at 08:11 PM
Should get better cooling if you hook up a small fan at the bottom.
October 4th, 2007 at 09:27 PM
Great idea. For mine at home (Dell C640) I placed two wine corks underneath the back of it. Since it has a somewhat rigid bottom this has worked great. Has also helped with ventilation as the laptop has it’s main fan underneath and to the edge.
October 5th, 2007 at 08:35 PM
Your “Pimped Up” laptop stand is way better than mine. I made same thing in August for mine Dell D620, but I was using two medium size binders secured by clear tape. http://mihalich84.livejournal.com/286698.html
After two months I found that middle part of top binder is bent inside so I think I’ll find binder like yours and make a stronger version.
October 8th, 2007 at 04:19 AM
Legendary Ingo! :D
October 8th, 2007 at 05:31 PM
Ergonomically, it’s better if you put the laptop on the binder with the screen at the low end.
October 8th, 2007 at 10:13 PM
Any suggestions for laptops that produce a lot of heat (Aluminum PowerBook G4) that don’t want to be all pressed down against one surface?
October 9th, 2007 at 12:19 AM
Alex: My laptop stand is a 2” x 6” x 1” piece of scrap wood cut diagonally corner to corner, forming two slim right triangles. I rest my laptop on the hypotenuses, so there’s a minimum amount of covered surface area and plenty of airflow. Before I had this arrangement, with my laptop laying flat, it would get too hot to use in the brooklyn summer. Now it stays quite comfortable if the fan is going in my office.
I just found the scraps laying around, so don’t take those proportions as gospel. Experiment. The angle is not really ideal, but the whole arrangement is really configurable – when watching movies, for instance, I can slide it further up for a steeper angle.