adafruit industries blog » enclosures/cases

MakerCase: Web App to Generate Laser Cut Cases For Your Projects! #3dthursday

Matt — Thu, 02 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Check out this super handy web tool for generating laser cut cases for your projects with Flat, Dovetail, or T-slot edge joins from Jon Hollander:

MakerCase is a web-based application for designing laser-cut project cases. It’s currently in open, quiet beta at www.makercase.com.

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

PhilB — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:57:17 +0000

ADA 9000 on Flickr by PaintYourDragon

“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.

adafruit.com/products/1185
www.therpf.com/f9/hal-9000-panel-2001-space-odyssey-pg-11…

VESA adapter for raspberry pi by kurt6string #3dthursday

Matt — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 05:00:00 +0000

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!

Thingiverse Thing 60671:

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.

Multiholder – Prototyping Board for the Arduino and Rasperry Pi (also fits the Pibow) by phenoptix #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Here’s a clever way to mount your Arduino or Pi + Pibow! Thanks for sending this in, phenoptix: “The fruits of my last week’s labours!”

Multiholder – Prototyping Board for the Arduino and Raspberry Pi (also fits the Pibow) by phenoptix:

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!

Now available on our website!

OpenSCAD/Customizer Adafruit Library #3dprinting

Matt — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:00:00 +0000

Now here’s a project that gets us excited!

For the month of February, talented educator Liz Arum created daily curriculum assignments aiming to help educators and instructors introduce new students to the extremely handy OpenSCAD parametric design tool — the tool used to make many of Thingiverse’s most popular items, from Emmett’s Blossoming Lamp and Screwless Heart Gears to Tony Buser’s wildly helpful pin connectors and Mars Exploration Rover.

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.

Check out her March Ideas challenge below:

Adafruit Library: OpenSCAD and Customizer

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.

Case for 3.5″ LCD from Adafruit by smallgod #3dthursday

Matt — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:00:00 +0000

Check out this great acrylic cut case for the Adafruit 3.5″ LCD, from jp kelly, Thingiverse Thing 41751 from the Adafruit forums!

This is a protective case for the NTSC LCD screen listed here on Adafruit.

It is designed like the PiBow in layers.

The parts are pretty delicate when you cut them but when put together it is a lot stronger than the LCD panel by itself.

Instructions

Use 1/16 “ acrylic.

I split cutting into 3 layers to allow cooling and to keep all holes in place until outside cut is made.

Parts 4 and 5 require you to fit the controller board through the slot.
4 Small holes on outside edge are for 3/4” x 2-56 screws.

MyMatics MaKey-MaKey Cases #makeymakey #makeymakeymonday

Matt — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 06:00:00 +0000

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!

Raspberry Pi Stress Test #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:48:23 +0000

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.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro” ? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.

We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

Adafruit’s Pi Command Center, Designed by Jason Welsh #3dprinting #thingiverse #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 16:47:58 +0000

Adafruit is thrilled to share the awesome “Pi Command Center” project we commissioned from designer Jason Welsh, launched over in the Adafruit projects on Thingiverse (Thing 38965):

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.”

Raspberry Pi Mounting Hole Positions and Template #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:30:00 +0000

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….

Bioscope from Simbits #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

Matt — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Okay, I’m totally obsessed with this pint-sized digital kinetoscope designed to resemble an early film projector, created by a collaboration between Simon de Bakker (Simbits) and Jon Stam (Commonplace Studio).

From the write up at Simbits:

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.

Pi Holder Aluminum Case for Raspberry Pi (video)

Becky Stern — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:32:10 +0000

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.

Comes with the following:

Aluminum Bottom Half of a Pi Case
Aluminum Top Half of a Pi Case
Clear Plastic Piece
Insulating Neoprene Foam Rubber
4 Screws
Allen Wrench
Thermal Paste Packet

Available with RasPi logo as well!

UPDATED PRODUCT – Large Plastic Project Enclosure – Weatherproof with Clear Top

adafruit — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 17:09:13 +0000

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!

Download a diagram with dimensions for the newer 75mm tall version! (Coming soon!)

Datasheet for DS-AT-1217

Exact weight: 380g
125mm x 175mm x 75mm / 5″ x 7″ x 3″ external size
IP66 weatherproof rating

In stock and shipping now.

Handsome Metal Raspberry Pi Case #piday #raspberrypi

Becky Stern — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Nice metal Raspberry Pi case by kikuon on Flickr.

Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products.

NEW PRODUCT – Large Plastic Project Enclosure – Weatherproof with Clear Top

adafruit — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:22:53 +0000

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!

Download a diagram with dimensions! Datasheet for DS-AT-1217-1

Exact weight: 380g
125mm x 175mm x 100mm / 5″ x 7″ x 4″ external size
IP66 weatherproof rating

In stock and enclosing big stuff.

NEW PRODUCT – Small Plastic Project Enclosure – Weatherproof with Clear Top

adafruit — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:58:05 +0000

NEW PRODUCT – Small 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 80mm x 110mm x 45mm externally. You can fit a half-size Perma-Proto inside, or an Arduino. It will not fit an Arduino Mega, Beaglebone, Menta or Minty Perma-proto.

Download a diagram with dimensions! Datasheet for DS-AT-0811-S

Exact weight: 134.41g
80mm x 110mm x 45mm / 3.2″ x 4.4″ x 1.8″ external size
IP66 weatherproof rating

In stock and enclosing now.

Flickr Pool Friday – Raspberry Pi Minimalist

Becky Stern — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:00:14 +0000

This week’s photo is from Riley Porter, who made this Raspberry Pi computer – we spy a homemade Pi Box enclosure!

Want to be featured on Flickr pool Friday? Add your Adafruits to the Adafruit Flickr pool.

Adafruit Pi Box – Enclosure for Raspberry Pi Computers

Keep your Raspberry Pi® computer safe and sound in this lovely clear acrylic enclosure. We designed this case to be beautiful, easy to assemble and perfect for any use (but especially for those who want to tinker!)

The case comes as 6 pieces that snap together, made of crystal-clear acrylic. This ingenious design has no screws or standoffs and there are cute little feet cut into the sides so that it stands up above your desk. There are engraved labels on all the connector slots. You can use all of the connectors on the edges of the Pi: HDMI, Audio, Video, SD slot, micro USB power, Ethernet and the two USB ports. We also added a slot so that you can connect a 26-pin IDC cable to the GPIO breakout pins on the Pi and pass it though the case. For more advanced hacking, the enclosure is designed so that you can remove the top piece and plug any sort of cables you wish into the breakouts in the middle. The case is airy enough that no additional vents or cooling is required – we tested the enclosed Pi over a 24 hour period at full load with no significant increase in temperature.

Making Laser-Engraved, Wax-Filled Electronics Panels

Becky Stern — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 16:16:15 +0000

Laser Engraved, Wax Filled, High Contrast Panels for Electronics Projects

This technique for creating high contrast panels for electronics projects and prototypes using a laser cutter gives great results using cheap and easy to find materials.

Here are some photos of some items made with a method using just 3mm white acrylic and a black wax crayon. It’s easy, fast (though not as fast as SureLase) and looks dead smart.

Bent Wood Enclosures with Kerf Bending

Becky Stern — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 20:25:00 +0000

I’ve been seeing this a lot lately: use a laser cutter to make many cuts, allowing the wood to bend where the kerf has been removed. This is also known as a “living hinge” and has been popular, albeit labor intensive, since the advent of tablesaws (or earlier? Post a link). The above Arduino + radio enclosure was made from walnut by Shaun Crampton (via Hackaday) and he also offers a detailed tutorial for making a similar box of your own.

How To Assemble the Adafruit Pi Box (video)

Becky Stern — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 18:08:10 +0000

Learn to assemble this fastener-free and glueless acrylic enclosure for Raspberry Pi. Video on YouTube (please subscribe to our channel!) and Vimeo.

Adafruit Pi Box – Enclosure for Raspberry Pi. Keep your Raspberry Pi® computer safe and sound in this lovely clear acrylic enclosure. We designed this case to be beautiful, easy to assemble and perfect for any use (but especially for those who want to tinker!)

This product comes with the 6 acrylic pieces. Raspberry Pi computer is not included. No other cables or connectors or accessories are included.

What is the Raspberry Pi® ? A low-cost ARM GNU/Linux box.

The Raspberry Pi® is a single-board computer developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the intention of stimulating the teaching of basic computer science in schools. The design is based on a Broadcom BCM2835 system on a chip (SoC), which includes an ARM1176JZF-S 700 MHz processor, VideoCore IV GPU, and 256 megabytes of RAM. The design does not include a built-in hard disk or solid-state drive, instead relying on an SD card for booting and long-term storage. The Foundation plans to support Fedora Linux as the initial system software package/distribution, with support for Debian and Arch Linux as well – Wikipedia.

Raspberry Pi® is a trademark of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Flickr Pool Friday – AVRs in Storage Box

Becky Stern — Fri, 11 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Keith LaFaille uploaded this photo of his Adafruit bi-fold storage box all filled up with antistatic foam and AVR chips.

Want to be featured on Flickr pool Friday? Add your Adafruits to the Adafruit Flickr pool.

NEW PRODUCT – Smoke Translucent Enclosure for Arduino – Electronics enclosure

adafruit — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:37:12 +0000

NEW PRODUCT – Smoke Translucent Enclosure for Arduino – Electronics enclosure. We are very excited to have one of the first (and we think the best) Enclosure for Arduino & project box now available in gray translucent plastic, the future! Here are all the details:

Dimensions: 3.6″ x 5″ x 1.35″
Injection molded gray translucent plastic
Enclosure is easy to machine, drill, cut and shape to what you need
Brass screw inserts (can be used and reused many times, very durable!)
Fits standard Arduinos and 16 x 2 LCDs
Fits Arduino with Adafruit Protoshield on top with .45″ clearance
Pop out plates for GPS, buttons, sensors, switches, knobs, etc!
Holds up to 4 AAA batteries internally using 2xAAA holders. AA’s can squeeze in but the case wont close nicely so we suggest AAA’s
Comes with screws for the LCD, Arduino and case
Made in Canada!

Comes with all parts shown.

Want some ideas of how to use it?

We have a tutorial showing how we made a portable data-logger. Lots of details on how to attach an LCD, drill and add mechanical connections, etc.

In stock and shipping!

NEW PRODUCT! Bi-Fold Compartment Parts Box

Becky Stern — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:39:49 +0000

NEW PRODUCT! Bi-Fold Compartment Parts Box! We looked long and hard for a high-quality, sturdy, durable-latching parts box and we have it! This handy box has outer dimensions of 6.25″ x 3.5″ (159mm x 89mm) – 4.1″ including hinges (104mm), long compartments are 3.35″ x 1.15″ (85 x 29mm) and for short compartments are 1.65″ x 1.15″ (42 x 29mm). Perfect for small parts and more! We tested dozens of other latching lid boxes, this is the best one. This box is NOT anti-static, but you can use foam or anti-static bags inside if needed.

In stock and shipping now!

The Talking Breathalyzer

johngineer — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:23:42 +0000

(be advised, the above video contains a few mild swear words)

The folks at opengadgets have created a little project called the “Talking Breathalyzer”:

A customizable Breathalyzer that talks and tells you how much you’ve had to drink. It’s also open source and can easily be modified with your own text on the LCD screen and audio MP3 files.

When tethered to a PC with a USB cable, it has additional features including character animations, Breathalyzer Tweets, text to speech, weather and stock read-outs, and a Photobooth feature.

This website contains instructions on how to build the Talking Breathalyzer yourself. A pre-assembled Talking Breathalyzer will also be available by mid Septemeber 2011 from Seeedstudio. The Talking Breathalyzer is not a professional Breathalyzer and should be used for Amusement Purposes Only.

You can check out the schematic here, and download the source here.

Inexpensive Enclosures From Junction Boxes

adafruit — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:58:51 +0000

Inexpensive Enclosures From Junction Boxes, Daniel writes -

I had a need for a cheap, standard enclosure for a humidity and temperature monitoring project. While there are many, many options for enclosures out there, few are cheap AND locally available. It occurred to me that electrical junction boxes are widely available, inexpensive, and consistently dimensioned.

NEW PRODUCTS – Waterproof OtterBox cases!

adafruit — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 05:00:51 +0000

We love these! Waterproof OtterBox cases! Make your project stand up to serious abuse with an otterbox, a true waterproof drybox that is also tough enough to get run over. Made of clear polycarbonate, you’ll be able to keep an eye on any indicator LEDs.

We have these in 3 sizes: small (#1000), medium (#2000) and large (#3000). They’re ideal for projects with wireless components like GPS loggers, GPRS/GSM cellular or xbee but can also act as a portable “pack & hack” project box.

Comes with a lanyard and there are slots on the side for strapping the box onto something. Its a tough box so it will be hard to drill into it.

Waterproof, crushproof & watertight
Perfect for protecting your electronic project indoors and outdoors
Patented drybox, designed to handle full submersions—up to 100 ft
Clear (stickers are removable

In stock and shipping now!