Join for quick access. Enter your email below and we'll send confirmation plus sign you up to our newsletter.
By submitting your information, you confirm you are aged 16 or over,
have read our
Privacy Policy
and agree to the
Terms & Conditions. Geographical rules apply.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Join the club
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
Custom Raspberry Pi mini PC features dual monitor setup
The Raspberry Pi is one of the smallest single-board computers (SBC) around. It’s a go-to choice for many makers looking to create usable interfaces without an unnecessarily large footprint. Today we’ve got a really cool example to share of just such a creation but this time with a little added flair. Maker and developer Rizwan Pathan has put together what he claims to be is the world’s smallest dual-monitor Raspberry Pi PC.
The project was entirely scratch-built by Pathan and required a bit of planning to get things just right. The Pi is housed inside of a custom built PC case along with the monitors which feature housing and stands made by Pathan just for the project. To make things easier, Pathan designed the cases using Blender. He knew the project needed to not only look good with RGB LEDs, but to also provide effective cooling.
Instead of 3D printing a case like many other makers have in the past, Pathan opted to build them from the ground up. To do this, he sketched out the panels onto white sunboard sheets and cut them out. To make the RGB fans, Pathan used your average everyday CPU fan and spruced it up with some RGB LED strips.
Powering the operation is a 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 but you could get away with using a Raspberry Pi 5 if you’ve got one on hand. The monitors use two 7-inch touchscreen panels that connect using HDMI. For audio support, Pathan is using a PAM8610 digital amplifier board along with two 15W speakers. The audio system is connected using a 3.5mm audio jack soldered to test points on the Raspberry Pi PCB. For input, you can use either USB or Bluetooth keyboards thanks to the Pi 4’s support for Bluetooth devices.
As far as software goes, this setup would probably work best with Raspberry Pi OS but you could use a different operating system like Ubuntu. If you want to see this Raspberry Pi project in action or just get a closer look at the build process, check out the original video shared to YouTube by Pathan and be sure to follow him for more cool projects as well as any future updates to this one.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.
