thermal, ssd, and weight modification

[nipaph]

Hello everyone,

i’ve done some modification on the cube i7 book. First for the temperature issue i’ve used 0,5mm thermal pad ;
for the ssd upgrade doing some cuts,  I’ve used the 512gb crucial 2260 mx200. I’m pretty happy with it, more than 500mb/s read and almost 500 write speed.
and most important, i reduce the weight of about 300g, removing the metal plate of the keyboard.
Now the total weight is about 1100g instead of 1400g without mod. Now is a very ultrabook

Here: http://www.nipaph.com/hacking/cube-i7-book-hack/  you can find some pics and the explanation of the procedure. It is in italian, but there are the pics ang google translator 🙂

 

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[Wylver]

Very nice modification, glad to see you managed to fit a 2260 SSD inside.

What purpose does the metal plate in the keyboard have, holding the whole thing together?

[nipaph]

the principal purpose i think is to counterbalance the weight of the tablet, in fact at the maximum angle it fall back, but if you close it, let me say,  1 degree, it does not happen. So in my opinion is completely acceptable. 300g less i think is a good result.

[Wylver]

300g is quite a lot.

What about the trackpad, is the taped card a viable longterm solution?

Personally I still prefer it to be a little more balanced so it doesn’t topple over.

But very nice mod you did, and thanks a lot for sharing your experience.

[nipaph]

for sure there’ll be much more elegant solutions, it was the easiest one i found at the moment. I don’t know if it’ll be durable, maybe yes because it is also touching to the back cover…..anyway if it’ll not work i’ll find another solution.

the balance is ok for my taste, but anyone have different priority

[Katagiri]

What the size of the thermal pad you used on the heat sink? Thanks!

[Wylver]

He used the 145x145x0,5mm thermal pad from arctic cooling and cut it to size so it would fit the aluminum heatsink.

The heatsink is about 100x40mm

[nipaph]

exactly, the link is this

https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B00UYTTLI4/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=3370&creative=23322&creativeASIN=B00UYTTLI4&linkCode=as2&tag=nipaph-21

i used 0,5mm because i think with 1mm you could have problem to close the tablet

[Katagiri]

Thanks, I guessed right. I already ordered one for myself.

[Luigi]

Thank you for sharing you mod. I’m Italian, so I wrote a couple of questions directly in you website 🙂

[John Macie]

Great mods! Thank you for sharing and the pictures! Gonna try if I ever get my shipment, still waiting!

[nipaph]

i’ve answered to you.

[Franzli]

Very nice, I’ve been thinking about opening the keyboard myself. Good to hear that it doesn’t seem to become too unstable this way. Is there anything in particular to look out for when opening the keyboard, any tricky areas? I suppose opening works like for the tablet – with thin plastic tools and lots of patience?

[nipaph]

Exaclty Franzli, you have to open it like the tablet and pay attention by the cables. then you need a lot of patience. Apart of the easy screws, there are many plastic pins around all the plate, that you need to cut off, that helps you when you do some leveraging from below, to not force too much and not risk to deform or break the frame. There is also a big glue in the middle of the plate that you can remove with a flat screwdriver or something like that. The last thing after you remove the plate is to put something behind the trackpad to counteract the two buttons, i’ve used a magnetic card, as you saw from the pics.

[Jagd]

I can’t really see on the pictures, do you think there is enough space for a 2.5″ hdd in the keyboard? That would be a nice mod if it fits. 🙂

[Author]

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