Pi 4 Case Stl

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Analytics cookies. We use analytics cookies to understand how you use our websites so we can make them better, e.g. They're used to gather information about the pages you visit and how many clicks you need to accomplish a task. Raspberry Pi 4 Model B - 3D Printable Case With all of the excitement around the launch of the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, we here at Micro Center wanted to offer the community a chance to download and print your own case!

How to Design a Raspberry Pi Case for 3D Printing

So you’ve bought a Raspberry Pi but you still need a case to go along with it. You could get a standard case or better yet, you could design something yourself! Before you let your imagination go wild, sit back, relax and check out of these tips and tricks on how to get started on creating and 3D printing your own Raspberry Pi case.

Measuring for your Raspberry Pi case

Obviously, when designing a case for something, whether for a phone or a Raspberry Pi, you need to start off knowing its dimensions. The Raspberry Pi measures 85.60 mm x 56 mm x 21 mm (or roughly 3.37″ x 2.21″ x 0.83″), with a slight overlap for the SD card and connectors, which project over the edges. It weighs 45 g.

Designing your new Raspberry Pi case

If you don’t know where to start with designing a case for your Pi, here are a few ideas to help get you started:

  • Download a 3D model of a Raspberry Pi and design a case around it. To be safe, cross-reference the dimensions of the downloaded model with the dimensions mentioned earlier. Don’t know where to find one of these 3D models? Take a look at the list of resources included at the bottom of this post.
  • Don’t design a case that fits perfectly around the Raspberry Pi. You need to take into account the amount of clearance the material you’re designing for requires. For most materials, a clearance of about 0.4 mm should do the trick.
  • A case comprises a top and a bottom part. Start by designing the whole case first then cut the finalized model in two.
  • Try fixing the top and bottom parts without using screws. 3D printing offers a lot of possibilities for designing a case with snap fits(e.g. clicking, using pins).
  • Don’t forget to think about ventilation. Although only the size of a credit card, the Raspberry Pi still is a computer and computers need ventilation. Incorporate some holes in your design to allow for airflow. Many designers take advantage of the Raspberry Pi logo for this (see example below).
  • If you’re not already an avid user of commercial design software like SolidWorks, Pro/ENGINEER or Rhinoceros, try out free alternatives like 123D Design, Tinkercad or SketchUp. All have large communities that have already designed and shared Pi cases that you can freely use and learn from.

3D printing your Raspberry Pi case

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Whether you were thinking of making a simple housing for your Pi, a robot, or even a cabinet for retro game consoles, 3D printing will give you the freedom to realize something truly unique. Our material of choice for Raspberry Pi cases is polyamide because it provides the greatest freedom of design. The material can also be finished in numerous ways, from spray painting and color dying to fluffy velvet.

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Examples of 3D printed Raspberry Pi cases

Great snap fit!

The Raspberry Pi Information Case by Kristóf Várnai is a great example that includes some of the tips and tricks mentioned above. The top and bottom fit perfectly together and the logo cutout ensures adequate ventilation. The designer also added a cheat sheet on the bottom for GPIO and labeled all of the connection ports on the top part of the case.

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Raspberries for Everyone by Cody Reisdorf was the winner of our Raspberry Pi Case Challenge last year. To make sure we could easily get the Pi out, one of our design engineers added a small lever to the design. The lever has a small clip at the bottom so the Pi stays fixed in place when in the case and, when you want to remove the Pi, simply pull the lever and the Pi pops out.

Perfect fit!

You can also see in this design another example of a perfect snap fit connecting the top and bottom parts. We hope this helps you get started designing your perfect Raspberry Pi case. Do you have any additional tips or tricks you’d like to share? Please add them in the comment section below.

Further resources

3D files for Raspberry Pi model B

  • https://grabcad.com/library/raspberry-pi-model-b: STEP/IGES files
  • http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/9934/is-there-an-accurate-3d-cad-model-of-the-version-b-board: Links to CATIA, SketchUp and Pro/ENGINEER files

3D files forRaspberry Pi cases

Want to learn how to create other tech gadgets yourself? Read our articles about customizable iPhone cases, Apple Watch accessories, and GoPro mounts. Once you are satisfied with your 3D model, simply upload your 3D file to our website and get an instant quote for a perfect high quality 3D print. Learn more about our more than 100 different 3D printing material, color and finish options here.

EDIT: I published an updated version of the NAS in amore recent article.

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Network-Attached Storages (NAS) are very handy devices on a homenetwork. They offer a simple way to share or synchronize files, and canhost various useful services at the same time provided they are genericenough. A NAS being nothing more than a specialized file server, we willactually build a small home server than will be able to do anything.

The functions can be the following:

  • File server (FTP, NFS, SMB/CIFS...)
  • Streaming server (audio or video on the local network)
  • Personal web server (to host a website, synchonize contacts or sendfiles to people)
  • Local seedbox (to download torrent files)
  • Domotic hub (for instance by adding a Zigbee USB dongle)

Pi 4 Case Stl Cnc

The server will be pretty simple in its technical design: a RaspberryPi 2 modelB withtwo hard disks connected with USB adapters.

The Raspberry Pi is actually not able to power the two drives over USB,since we would need 500mA per drive, so 1000mA overall, and the Pi canonly supply 600mA over USB. There is a possible boot setting in/boot/config.txt called max_usb_current, which when set to 1raises the maximum current intensity over USB to 1.2A, but since it isapplied only during boot, our disks will still prevent the Pi toactually start properly. For this reason, we need a USB hub with a 2Aadapter to power everything and connect the drives to the Pi.Backfeeding would be quite a bad idea, so the Pi needs to be connectedto the hub twice, once as a device for power and once as the host.

In this kind of setup, always pay attention to use a genuine poweradapter that will be able to handle the load, some really cheap adaptersare rated 2A but might not be able to supply this current over a longperiod of time due to overheating.

I designed the case, front panel and lid withOpenSCAD to print them in 3D. You candownload the SCAD source files and the corresponding STL fileshere (licensed underGPLv3).

Raspberry Pi 4 Case Stl File

3D models of the case, the front panel and the lid generated with OpenSCAD

The case has 4 levels: a 4-port powered USB hub at the bottom, thentwo 2.5' hard disks, and a Raspberry Pi on the top. The lid has alocation for a 25mm*25mm fan, connected to one of the Pi's powerpins.

The models are designed to be printed without supports, so they can beprinted directly as is. My printer is a Prusa Air2 with anE3D-v6 head, and I usePLA.

3D printing the NAS case, the process is long so let's have tea in the meantime :P

The 3D-printed case from the top, front parts are printed separately and glued

Next, the front panel is glued to the case, the USB hub is installedwith two screws at the bottom, and the Raspberry Pi with four screws atthe top.

USB 2.0 hub in place into the NAS case, showing 4 USB ports on the front and the mini-B USB host port on the side. On the other side is the power input.

Raspberry Pi Case 3d Model

The Raspberry Pi in place on top of the the case with the USB power cable attached.

I chose to connect two 1 TB 2.5' hard disks with twoIB-AC6033-U3adapters from RaidSonic. They come with a case yet it can only fit 7mmdrives.

The final step is to attach the fan to the lid, connect it to one of thePi's power pins, and close the lid by clipping it in place.

Connecting the fan to the Raspberry Pi 3.3V pin

The NAS is now ready to run and can be configured! I chose to installRaspbian on the Pi's microSD card, andto set up the disks asRAID0 (ofcourse, never do so if you plan to store critical data). I might writearticles about configuration in the future, so stay tuned!