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3D-Printed Raspberry Pi 5 Cases to Make This Weekend!
Sure, in an ideal world every Raspberry Pi 5 owner would visit our lovely little store and purchase a Raspberry Pi Case, but we understand that off-the-shelf options can be limiting, especially if you need something particular for your project.
3D-printed Raspberry Pi cases aren't a new concept, however the release of a new headline board always creates a spike of new designs popping up - which usually gets us busting out the filament!
Raspberry Pi 5 isn't even a year old yet and we've already found endless creative designs to play with. Here are our team's favourites...
Fractal Design North Pi
Would you just look at that? Fractal are known for lush enclosures but they've really out-done themselves here. You can't buy it (yet?) as it's a concept, but that just makes it more fun and exclusive for us smug 3D printer owners.
The North Pi concept was first seen at Computex 2024, and since then they have released the 3D print files and instructions to make your own at home.
There are a lot of printed parts and you'll need some other hardware such as M2.5 heat set inserts, screws and fancy wood strips, but we reckon it'll be worth it.
See also:
Swap Pi (Fractal-inspired)
There's a similar project over on GitHub called the Swap Pi, inspired by the North Pi design above, but with a different approach using fewer parts, with a pull-out design to easily get to your board (it's also on Printables if that's more your thing).
Again, additional hardware is required such as heat set inserts, as well as a Micro-HDMI adapter board (sorry folks, we don't sell this one yet. Maybe someone will make a version to fit the Waveshare Multifunctional Adapter?).
We like how this not-Fractal case can mount NVMe boards at the rear, and there's even a running list of compatible boards (care: some untested) on the GitHub site along with fitment notes.
More Fractal-inspired models to try:
Dual SSD Case for Raspberry Pi 5
All the cool kids are buying up NVMe drives and fancy PCIe HATs to get the fastest possible storage for their Pi 5 projects, but many of us still have a drawer stuffed with unused 2.5" SSDs.
Get those drives to work with this nifty Dual SSD 3D-printed Raspberry Pi 5 case design from Printables user OzRocky.
The case can mount two 2.5" SSDs and uses USB to SATA adapters to connect them to your Pi 5. SATA SSDs aren't exactly 'slow', so despite NVMe via PCIe being the new king of storage, this will be great for media storage on something like a Raspberry Pi Plex server.
An Updated Classic
Printables user Stamos made a very popular case design for the Raspberry Pi 4 and has kindly uploaded a new version for Raspberry Pi 5 (based on the RPi STEP files alone...impressive!).
These cases from Stamos are one of those go-to options if you need a simple, well-designed home for your Pi 5. Plus if you fancy some filament colour changes, you can play with the vent colours like many of the examples uploaded in the 'Makes' section.
We like how the case snaps together, because having to source fixings and parts sucks a bit of the fun out of creating things with a 3D printer.
Retro 3D-Printed Raspberry Pi 5 Case
This RTX/Radeon GPU-inspired Retro Raspberry Pi 5 case has been designed around the Raspberry Pi Active Cooler, with aggressive features focussing on the intake fan.
The look really works well, and no doubt will be perfect for cooling too. This is a good candidate for your funky two-tone filaments or well-planned colour changes.
It's snap together as well meaning no fixings required, nice!
Pineboards HatDrive! Bottom 3D-Printed Case
Remember when we mentioned the cool kids and their NVMe drives earlier? If you're part of the super-fast-storage generation, you've probably grabbed yourself an NVMe HAT such as the Pineboards HatDrive! Bottom.
Cases for these bottom-mounted boards are thin on the ground (we even designed our own laser-cut layer case to fill the void), but if you own a 3D printer - you're in luck!
This 3D-printed case for Raspberry Pi 5 and HatDrive! Bottom is actually a remix of Stamos' case design (above), reworked to make way for the bottom-mounted HAT. Remix culture = awesome!
Retro Tower Desktop for Raspberry Pi 5
Old is the new...new? Something like that. It's 2024 and despite humanity's progress, we still can't get enough of ancient games, 90s clothes, bad haircuts and things that are 'smoking in the office' beige.
For all you lovers of old, this retro tower 3D-printed Pi 5 case is the ultimate find.
OK, it needs a lot of other parts to complete the build, but once it's done you'll have working IO and power LEDs, a floppy-style SD slot and proper rear ports.
Now, who sells beige filament? Desert Olive comes close, but it's not quite miserable enough.
Raspberry Pi 5 Enclosure Case with Drawer
This isn't the prettiest case in this rambling blog post, but it does offer a clever little addition that will save you hours of searching and frustration.
It's the drawer that makes it a winner - a simple little place to store MicroSD cards and your USB readers/adapters/thingys. Anyone who has used a Raspberry Pi will know that SD cards like to go and hide at exactly the moment you need them.
This 3D-printed Raspberry Pi 5 case solves that problem, and that's good enough for it to make the list!
3D-Printed Case for Pimoroni NVMe Base
The NVMe base, made by our friends at Pimoroni just up the road in Sheffield, is undoubtedly one of the most popular NVMe add-ons for the Raspberry Pi 5.
The problem is - just as with Pineboards - there aren't many case options for the bottom-mounted add-on. You could grab our layer case which works for this board, but if you have some filament spare, this 3D-printed case is another good choice.
The case has plenty of ventilation, can house the Raspberry Pi Active Cooler, and just needs a simple set of ~M2.5 screws to complete it.
See also:
Argon Neo 5 Enclosure Cover with 1.69" LCD
This one is interesting because it combines a very well-designed 'off the shelf' Raspberry Pi case with the wonders of 3D printing and a little LCD display.
Printables user WarsawMaker has topped an Argon Neo 5 case with a 3D-printed cover to house a Waveshare 1.69" LCD Display Module.
The result? A gorgeous hybrid of metal and plastic, with all your Raspberry Pi stats and details readily available. It's brilliant...just remember to follow the advice and print out of PETG filament to avoid any melty moments.
Grab the case files here from Printables or check out the Hackaday feature and GitHub page.
That's yer' lot!
This is just a small sample of the endless stream of interesting 3D-printed designs for Raspberry Pi 5, most of which came from Printables as we simply like their site design and account features.
If you'd like to share other interesting models you've found, or even ones you've designed yourself, drop us a comment below.
~ Rich
Product Manager/Director/Keeps the coffee machine working
1 comment
sbag
this is an awesome list and great write up, thanks for sharing
this is an awesome list and great write up, thanks for sharing