Quinn Nelson of Snazzy Labs wanted to create a truly small Mac Mini and that required the use of a 3D printer. Put simply, all of the components needed to be removed from the original case and then put into the smaller one. What may surprise you is that the fan was removed as well as the large power supply, which was replaced with a MagSafe 2 connector from a 2015 MacBook, paired with a Microsoft Surface charger.
What he ended up with was a Mac Mini that is 78% smaller than the original machine, and all of the extra heat management that Apple included can be safely stripped without any issue since the MacBook Air M1 runs the same setup. Unfortunately (or fortunately), Apple will most likely never release an even smaller Mac Mini due to the market for such a machine already being small.
- All-Day Battery Life – Go longer than ever with up to 18 hours of battery life.
- Powerful Performance – Take on everything from professional-quality editing to action-packed gaming with ease. The Apple M1 chip with an 8-core CPU...
- Superfast Memory – 8GB of unified memory makes your entire system speedy and responsive. That way it can support tasks like memory-hogging multitab...
The M1 [Mac Mini] is mostly comprised of components from the old Mac Mini’s parts bin…the largest of which is this hilariously overkill 150 watt power supply. The same holds true with the cooling assembly. With these monster components removed from the case we’re left with a very svelte logic board that has all of its IO [Input/Output] soldered directly onto the PCB,” said Nelson.
