Chromebook Laptop Stand

This is yet another laptop stand and looks like a lot of the others you can find on Thingiverse. With my daughter's school being online-only due to COVID-19 I am trying to set up her desk with ergonomics in mind. It's terrible to be looking down at a laptop screen all day and the Chromebooks that her school uses are so small that they seem even worse. I initially searched for a stand to print online but wasn't able to find anything sized specifically for Chromebooks, which seem to be at the smaller end of laptop sizes. The 2 different Chromebooks shown in the photos are 11.5" and 12" in length. I also wanted to see if I could come up with an aesthetic that I liked, and I got close enough on this try. I don't see why this wouldn't work for a 13" Macbook but I don't have one available to test it with.

This stand elevates the screen to a nice height for viewing while sitting straight up and, while it was really intended to be used with a separate mouse and keyboard, it seems to be stable enough to type and use while standing. The top of the feet are straight so a small keyboard can be stored there when not being used, although it would probably stick out to the sides a bit since the keyboards I've found are wider than a Chromebook. Depending on how you prepare the holes for the rods, it should also be possible to take this apart and make it portable, but that was not the original intent.

I used 8 mm x 250 mm steel rods to join the two sides. Originally, I planned to use some leftover 8 mm rods from a 3D printer but they cause the legs to be too far apart for our use and I wasn't in the mood to cut them to length, however, you can really use any length rods you like. The ones I used were available on Amazon for $11/pair.

The stand is the largest size I could make it and still fit onto the print bed of a Prusa MK3, but if you have a larger print area you could scale this up for larger devices. You could also print a single wide leg rather than 2 separate legs if you don't want to bother with the rods but that would take a while to print and I don't like the way it looks. No need to remix, just increase the Z-Axis height in your slicer to something near the max height for your printer and grab some coffee (that would be a long print!)

Notes:

I used 5 top and bottom layers as well as 5 perimeters. If you plan to ream the holes, more perimeters ensures you have plenty of material to work with and perimeters overall help to increase the strength and stiffness of this design. The holes in this model are sized at 8 mm, which prints smaller than needed. This is intentional since I own an M8 reamer and use the reamer to open the holes to the correct size. If you don't have a set, I really recommend a set of M3 thru M8 reamers from eBay for about $10. You don't need anything fancy to ream out plastic and it really does help assemble things that get shafts and screws thru them without endlessly printing prototypes to find the proper hole size. If you don't have a reamer, you can increase the X-Y size of the model just a bit to compensate but you'll have to figure out how much is needed for your printer since each printer is a bit different. Be careful not to increase the size larger than your print bed.

Post-Printing =============

After printing, I carefully ream the holes to M8 to get a nice snug sliding fit. I did not need to use a hammer or anything to assemble this. The fit is snug enough that it doesn't require any glue. If you use an 8 mm drill instead of a reamer, you will get a looser fit and, although I haven't tried it, this should probably work as long as you go slowly. Slide the rods in until they are flush with the outside face and you're done!

How I Designed This

We have one of those adjustable height stands for a 17" laptop that was overwhelmingly large when we tried to use it with a Chromebook. So, I used that to determine the proper height and angle for the top surface, then went to Fusion 360 to see if I could come up with something that looked nice. One of my design goals was to make it stiff enough to type on without needing any additional braces since i'm not crazy about how braces look. I also didn't want it to rock or wobble when sitting on a desk so there is a slight elliptical curve on the bottom of the feet so they contact the table in only 2 places on each leg. This way, if there is any warpage from printing or your printer doesn't make a perfectly straight edge it will still be stable. Lastly, we planned to use an external keyboard since it's difficult to use the laptop on the stand while sitting at a desk so I wanted to make enough space on the bottom that a keyboard would fit, and this was another reason why I really wanted to avoid additional support braces between the top and bottom legs.

Category: Office