Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
“ADA 9000″ faceplate created using Adafruit 100mm Massive Arcade Button with LED and an afternoon with a laser cutter, spray paint and a few bits and bobs. Not as detailed or authentic as the HAL replica that ThinkGeek used to sell…but about $480 cheaper!
Fist bump to Amadeus Prokopiak of the Replica Prop Forum for his amazing HAL 9000 blueprint.
Kurt sent in his great VESA adapter for the milled aluminum Raspberry Pi enclosure he bought from us — we are printing a couple of these for our in-house Pi units!
This is a VESA mount (100mm) that is meant to secure a Raspberry Pi housed in the milled aluminum enclosure from adafruit.
The raspberries enclosure is mounted to the adapter with three M3x6? mm screws. I couldn’t successfully print those, but the four M4x10mm screws needed to attach the adapter to the back of your monitor were successfully printed. This is a 100mm vesa adapter by the way.
I suggest using blue tape on the build platform. I printed directly to the plate and the model began breaking loose from the plate. I’d suggest a fairly high resolution as the nuts on the top have threads. You can print this in two pieces if you look at the .scad file. At the bottom you can change what prints. The file also includes some spacers (not printed by default) if you need them between the enclosure and the adapter (depends on how long your screws are).
So using the .scad file you could elect a low-res fast print for the flat base, then just print the nuts using a higher resolution after the base plate has finished. I just did it in one go with the settings mentioned above.
Lastly, if you look closely at the picture you’ll see an extra ‘reference’ mounting hole on the left top arm that is partly visible. It should have lined up with that screw on the aluminum case. It didn’t and I don’t know why, nevertheless I measured the offset and hardcoded a ‘slide this to the left 5mm’ fix. So when printed the pi should be a bit more centered. (and those holes aren’t needed and don’t need to be printed. But they’re hidden and will help me keep things in alignment for now.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
After spending a day tinkering with the Oomlout design a day dawning thought was to combine it with an earlier phenoptix creation the Pibow Proto-Plate. Just meant adding some extra width and eight more holes!
The MakerBot Customizer app is at heart a hosted version of the open source OpenSCAD app, with GUI tools to allow users to adjust parametric factors within OpenSCAD designs to produce their own custom objects.
Well, for her March 1st entry, Liz put up a Call to Action challenging those who have been exploring OpenSCAD to pool together to collectively build an Adafruit electronic parts library on Thingiverse to help the huge influx of DIY electronics hobbyists joining the 3D community to have the tools they need to make awesome mounts, bezels, cases, and interactive parts using a 3D printer.
You know about the MCAD library and about the Write library, but what about a library for all your favorite electronic components? The Adafruit library doesn’t exist. At least not yet, but it should. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just go to Thingiverse and open the Customizer App and get an stl for an electronic component? You could then download the stl and use it for a boolean difference or just to help you design your object that incorporates the component or components.
What might the interface look like? (see image above)
You don’t have to design all the parts. You don’t have to design two parts. Just design one part using OpenSCAD and upload it to . Tag it with Adafruit.
Don’t forget to use a digital caliper to get precise dimensions.
Need a case for your MaKey-MaKey? Check out this line of MaKey-MaKey cases that Michiel Bieshaar shared with us from his online store MyMatics:
Did you manage to get your hands on a Makey Makey but you are missing out on a good case / enclosure for it? Now you can order a nice case for your MaKey MaKey and enjoy it even more… Currently we are selling a case for the MaKey MaKey in transparent color and a case made out of wood.
Every Monday is Makey Makey™ Monday here at Adafruit! The MaKey MaKey – by Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum, made by JoyLabz! Ever played Mario on Play-Doh or Piano on Bananas? Alligator clip the Internet to Your World. MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Find out more details at makeymakey.com or watch the video at makeymakey.com. Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It’s a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything in between! If you have a cool project you’ve made with your Makey Makey be sure to send it in to be featured here!
One of the best things about participating in science is that you are asked to document and share your data. Here’s a great project from Zipfelmaus.com that shares details of a tough stress-test used to calculate thermal factors when putting a whole bank of these into a webserver project — well worth a read for anyone looking to create an enclosure or rack for an array of these!
We want to host a few of our blogs here at home. Before we start and build a rack to hold all of the Raspberry Pi’s required, we want to make sure that there are not thermal problems.
Thats why we wanted to stress test one of them.
We used the program stress to generate some load.
We did not however not use the HD option, because we did not want to damage the SD card.
With four 3D printers (so far) in-house, a new staff member from the heart of the 3D community, and #3dthursday, Adafruit has started getting into desktop 3D printing in a big way, especially where these fabrication tools interface with electronics!
Desktop 3D printers excel in the creation of custom enclosures for compact, dedicated electronics projects. We had seen Jason Welsh’s outstanding Folding Arduino Lab (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:32839) when it launched this past fall and reached out to him with a special challenge — to create a practical, modular case for the Raspberry Pi to share with our community!
Jason Welsh who created this design can be found on thingiverse at http://www.thingiverse.com/jasonwelsh, check out his other designs there. He also operates a youtube channel where he instructs many in the field of 3D Modeling, Design and Electronics, which can be found here http://www.youtube.com/cannedmushrooms. He invites you to come on by anytime and learn some new tricks.
Jason Welsh: “I hope this design helps you expand your imagination and guides you in all manner of nerdy ways while dishing out your Pi.”
Awesome resource for creating enclosures and cases for your Pi from the Raspberry Pi Spy. I’m definitely going to make use of this for my 3D-printed Raspberry Pi enclosures!
One of the improvements made to the Revision 2 board was the addition of two mounting holes. These give hobbyists some extra options when it comes to mounting the Pi. There are only two holes so care is still required to avoid putting the PCB under unnecessary stress but some holes is better than none.
The holes are 2.9mm and have been designed to accept 2.5mm (M2.5) screws or bolts. My local DIY store didn’t sell bolts this small so I ordered some off the internet….
Inspired by an early movie projector of the same name, the Bioscope is a medium to experience memories in relative time. It consists of a hand-held device, to be viewed with one eye, which resembles an old film camera. By rotating the handle, the digital (or digitized home) movie is animated frame by frame, forward or in reverse, relative to the speed and direction that is used to turn the dial.
Bioscope demands users to actually (and manually) engage to see a movie. The act of seeing is subjectively constructed through each frame and view, hereby engaging us to notice the discrete relationships which manifest personal meaning.
The Bioscope synthesizes the intrinsic qualities of the digital and the analogue, such as appropriation and remixing seen in digital culture, as well as direct interaction and spatial experience seen in physical things. It enables people to collect from electronic archives, to take ownership and generate new relations.
Internally the Bioscope uses a Raspberry PI main board and a custom shield for power, charging, backlight and tilt sensing.
Here’s a video showing you how to put together the Pi Holder! It’s a milled aluminum case that also doubles as a heatsink. On YouTube (please subscribe!) and Vimeo.
Pi Holder milled aluminum case for Raspberry Pi - This gorgeous and indestructible Raspberry Pi™ Case is as awesome as it is functional. Made in the U.S.A. by Barch Designs from Solid 6061-T6 Aircraft Grade Billet Aluminum which protects your Raspberry Pi from damage and also keeps your Pi running extra-cool by acting as a thermal heat sink (Please note: heat sinking is not required to use the Pi, but some people like having their Pi run cold).
The Pi Holder case is milled by Barch Designs on a CNC machine to exact tolerances. This allows just enough room for the Raspberry Pi to slide down into the case. Any bigger and the Pi would be loose and any smaller it would bind up.
UPDATED PRODUCT – Large Plastic Project Enclosure – Weatherproof with Clear Top. Store your project safe and sound in this nice weatherproof box with a clear top. We picked up this box because we like the machinable ABS plastic body and tough clear polycarbonate cover, the built in weatherproof gasket seal, and the easy-open screws that can be taken apart as many times as you wish without worrying about cracking or stripping.
Update! As of July 30 we now carry a ‘shorter’ version of this box, 75mm tall instead of 100mm This box measures 125mm x 175mm x 75mm externally. You can fit nearly anything inside, including a full-size breadboard. See photos above for some scale examples!
NEW PRODUCT – Large Plastic Project Enclosure – Weatherproof with Clear Top. Store your project safe and sound in this nice weatherproof box with a clear top. We picked up this box because we like the machinable ABS plastic body and tough clear polycarbonate cover, the built in weatherproof gasket seal, and the easy-open screws that can be taken apart as many times as you wish without worrying about cracking or stripping.
This box measures 125mm x 175mm x 100mm externally. You can fit nearly anything inside, including a full-size breadboard. See photos above for some scale examples!
Printable catalog (PDF)
FEED
