Is there any way to use my pi-top as an external monitor? I haven’t used it for about a year now, and I need a second screen for my current laptop for twitch streaming. Any ideas other than just using a website like spacedesk? I would like to have a wired connection if possible. Is there any way to just salvage the monitor?
Best,
Eliot
Could I just use a htmi male to female cable from my computer, and plug it into the pitop hub 2.0? Could I use the power cord for the laptop to power the monitor?
I was curious if there was a software way to solve this, and I started Googling. Someone on the Raspberry Pi forums was able to hook up a pi to a second monitor and use TightVNC to get it working. That means you should be able to do the same thing with a pi-top.
Is it possible to plug into the HDMI on the Pi-hub from an external Raspberry Pi to use the Pi-top [3] monitor for the external Pi? I have an interactive sculpture with an embedded Pi 3b that I need to hook a monitor to so I can do maintenance/coding for it. Would rather not have to buy an external monitor. Thanks!
It’s possible but not straightforward, the only difficulty is there is a pin on the cooling bridge that is used by the hub PCB to determine if there is a Raspberry Pi in the device - it won’t turn on unless this is detected. You’ll have to:
I think this should get it working, but let me know what happens and we can debug if necessary
Thank you, that actually did the trick. 
But now it won’t turn off. 
Luckily, there’s enough space for a switch that could be wired in place.
This works to make the pi-top 2.0 an external monitor of a mini pc, as well. Thanks! But with that setup, the stock keyboard cannot be used. Is there a way to do this while retaining keyboard functionality?
By connecting the USB cable …
Use a USB extension, if memory serves me right it’s the upper connector (of the two in the back left corner)
Can confirm using this method the keyboard and trackpad work using a USB-A extension cable from the top USB port to a hub.
Had some other questions using the pi-top without a raspberry-pi
I’m interested in knowing more about the battery, too. I was thinking that it’s some standard industrial battery type, and I should be able to replace it with something that is similar or has more capacity. Unfortunately, I’ll have to remove screws to see if the battery is identifiable.
I’d be happy to code up an enhancement to the power management to detect situations like Zman’s, above, if that’s possible with the hardware. I’d love to produce a message like “Battery is present, but it needs to be replaced.” I could be clever about detecting some capacity but not enough to run without AC.
On pi-top 1s, which are different, I have some units with batteries that are not even detected as an existing battery, which isn’t terrible, since it probably is not usable, but I’d like to issue a similar message.
Appreciate the reply, it seems the battery is completely drained. My understanding of the V_IN pin is that it tracks the voltage of the battery or if plugged in the mains. When unplugged the pin indicates 0.01 volts. Maybe there is a way to externally charge it so the charge controller will sense and charge the battery. Have had to do that for a few power tool batteries.
Do you happen to know the input voltage range of the pi-top[3] at the barrel connector or some other way to power it? I would like to use a USB-C PD charger as they are much smaller and lighter and packed anyway. Without the need to charge the battery I can’t imagine it uses more than a few watts and must work down to about 11 volts which is the output of the battery.
EDIT: Also happy to remove the battery and send any relevant pictures for you. Removed the keyboard in order to ensure the battery was indeed connected and currently just taking up space and weight.
The batteries are non-standard. The cells itself are 3 poaches with the label U56800P and with that number I could find a vendor on AliExpress selling spare batteries for PiTop. I can’t tell how legit they are but they work - and they delivered faster than CEEED’s warranty replacement.
Oh and BTW: the Pi top [3]'s power supply is rated at 18V.
Thanks that is awesome information and I’m sure many will find that useful. Personally at this point not too interested in purchasing anything proprietary to the pi-top. It is awesome hardware and the summer sale was a steal at $45 dollars although took about 5 months to receive. Disappointed the battery came dead but not expecting CEED to replace it I’m sure they took a huge financial hit fulfilling the orders. Also between these forums and slickdeals it does not appear they want to continue supporting this device which is understandable.
Unfortunately 18v is not part of the PD standard
What I really would like to do is power the pi-top at 15 or 20v using a PD decoy then found a DC to up to 45w charger. This would allow a single 65w USB-C PD charger or battery pack to power the pi-top and a connected device through a pass-through hub. This would also make the pi-top much lighter. We know the pi-top can work between 11 and 18v because that is the battery to charge voltage just wondering how to ultimately wire that. Will try and if find anything report back as maybe others are in similar situations.
Thanks!
Looking at the block diagram https://forum.pi-top.com/uploads/default/a118e83ce4494e3a7e66591fc13f793eb17eff0e the battery is an 11.1V smart battery which communicates to the hub via I2C.
Sniff the I2C connection, and/or disassemble a dead battery to get to know the management IC. Take an 11.1V setup of your choice, add said IC and you should have your new smart battery.
Note: do at own risk!
Thanks again all, this is all very helpful information.
Thought I would share that I removed the battery and one of the three cells is dead. Two are at the expected 3.8v the other is 0.02v.
Did my best to figure out the battery connector pin-out. The figure is looking down through the connector on the pi-top. Used a multi-meter to determine which pins are linked (bar through them) and found the BATT_IN gets +18v when the pi-top is on.
Assume the top row is BATT_OUT and the rest are I2C with one being ground.
EDIT: Just went for it and fed 13.8v to the top row and GND and the pi-top boots perfectly!
So the top row is BATT_OUT. This allows one to power the pi-top with less than 18v. Probably down to ~9V given each cell low voltage cutoff should be around 3v.
Just to add some more rambling in all of this tinkering it seems the input HDMI stopped working. The LCD backlight comes on but no devices will display. Removed the FPC cables and the HDMI had a suspect connector. Went ahead and removed the LCD panel and found the part number to be:
N140HCA-EAC Rev.C1
Searched around and purchased a driver board for this panel that has HDMI and USB-C native input and is powered by USB at 5v 3amps with either micro or USB-c connectors. Also confirmed the pi-top hub allows the keyboard and trackpad to work when not powered so a cheap low wattage USB buck converter can power these at 18v. In summerary personally I believe this is the perfect solution to use the pi-top without a raspberry pi as a lapdock or screen for any device.
This controller board sounds interesting? Where did you get it from?
Initially I didn’t want to go this route because of the cabling between body and display. The cable is split in two and I’m not sure one wide cable would fit.
But depending on the board or might work out.
This is the board I ordered, has not arrived yet so can’t confirm it works yet. Good point on the cabling however I have removed the original and it is a single 30 pin connector on the panel. From the single connector there are the 2x15 pin cables to the hub.
The seller was very responsive and shipped same day.
The driver board arrived today and works perfectly with the Pi-top display.
It triggers Dex without any external power.
It is also better than I thought (and the seller indicated) as the micro-usb supports OTG so the pi-top[3] keyboard and track pad can be plugged into this port and sends this to the USB-C attached device. No extra power is needed to the pi-top hub for this to function.
Another bonus, a charger plugged into the USB-C power port fast charges the phone.
This is everything I had hoped to accomplish with the pi-top, display USB-C and HDMI while easily using the keyboard & mouse with one USB-C power input.
I received another pi-top with working battery, just some more random information regarding power draw of the pi-top using a Kasa smart plug with energy monitoring:
0.2 W - or less Keyboard/Mouse
3.95 W - Sceen On and battery charged
24 W - Screen On charging
20.4 W - Screen Off charging
Lastly I don’t believe HDMI input was ever bad, noticed with this second pi-top the ground to mimic the PI can be good enough to power on (bright LED) but there is no display. Making this connection better results in the expected display.
Good day, Zman,
Thank you for your posts. I would like to use Samsung Dex on my Pi-top 3. Are you able to provide detailed instructions as to how to install/connect the EDP driver board your previous post mentioned?
I can’t get the Pi-Top 3 screen to display anything from the Pi 3b+ that I have (the Pi seems fine–displays on my TV when connected…) but it wasn’t really my intention to use the Pi-top with a Pi anyway. I bought it to [hopefully] use for Dex.
I’m pretty much a newbie here and would appreciate any assistance you cound provide.
Thank you
