Cthulhu's Beard® Twisting Turning Tentacles Wire Dock

Most consumer notebooks and even some business ones do not have a docking port. Which is a shame, since a dock is, in my opinion, essential for a decent notebook.

That's ok, for decent used business machines are available for good prices, but not those with a decent gaming performance. But some (rare) notebooks have a very nice feature which allows one to build a DIY dock-ish thingy: all important ports at the backside. Basically, the idea is to build a giant plug-o-plugs.

I do that with cast resin. Its like mud for the grown-ups!

A bunch of extension wires and adapter or extension plugs are used to bring the ports at least a centimeter or two away from the notebook's backside.

The mold is made from cardboard, and its done while everything is plugged in. There is very nearly zero tolerance when one wants the plugs to connect easily.

Somake certain to seal all the things! Or you get epoxy in your connectors.

So, lets pour!

I mix my casting resin with about the same amount of saw dust. Just add some until it gooey. Makes for a nice color. Be fast, this stuff sets within minutes!

And take care to SEAL ALL THE STUFF!

I warned you!

Your very own DIY docking station. Should work with every notebook with all ports on the backside.

Do you remember my words of warning? Some (most? many? a lot?) notebook power supplies actually have three (in word: 3) wires. Ground, VSS and some kinda data stuff. Did you count how many wires i had?

Oooops. Yeah. Fail. It sort of worked, but wont charge the battery and clocks down to the lowest clock rate possible. Darn! So, what do?

I actually cut out the power plug and connecter, and used hot snot and some cling foil to place the supplies plug directly into place. Had a spare supply, so easy. But not nice anyway. Learn from my fails!