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aegidius · (This post was last modified: 2019-07-01, 05:49 by aegidius.)

Here's another HTPC case I designed for 3D printing.
- Raspberry pi 3 or 3B (running LibreELEC with TVHeadend)
- tuner PCB from Sony PlayTV
- HDD with USB connection (from a portable, just remove the case)
- PiDrive cable for power (hard to get these days, unf)
- optional DVD

The case has several parts that allow you to build:
- Pi with HDD
- server with Pi, HDD and tuner
- client with DVD
- all-in-one, although power and I/O bandwidth are suboptimal for this (and the case part for it is a bear to print too)

It needs a safe-power-off circuit, especially for a client, but you can shut a client down from LE/Kodi's main screen.

All the 3D printed parts can be seen and downloaded from here. There is a base case, a couple of different intermediate layers, and lids.

**PatK** · 2019-07-04, 21:36

Great stuff, love how you've handled the cords; is this design theme going to translate into Pi 4 at one point?

aegidius · 2019-07-04, 22:58

(2019-07-04, 21:36)PatK Wrote: Great stuff, love how you've handled the cords; is this design theme going to translate into Pi 4 at one point?

Yeah all it needs is different holes for the HDMI plugs - afaik the PCB is the same form factor. I'll have to get hold of one and see.

The Pidrive cable is really good to keep power neat and tidy, shame it's out of production and hard to get these days. Perhaps someone can start making them again?
A powered USB hub works fine but it's bulkier and requires a second power supply. I don't have as neat a solution for the DVD drive cabling.

aegidius · 2019-09-02, 03:52

A Pi4 version of the base is up on minifactory now. It's not as well resolved because you can't get a Pidrive cable with a USB-C end on it, and the Pi4 gets too hot without a fan. I'm doing fan versions of the lids now so that may help with cooling (good for any Pi) and providing a safe switch-off circuit.

The other PITA thing about the Pi4 is that the network socket has been swapped to the other side, which doesn't agree with my layout at all.
For my uses the Pi4 is not really required - I would have much preferred a SATA3 socket over the dual 4K mini-HDMI's.