Hi everyone, this is my first project log and it's a pretty short one. The brief: To build a nice looking, tidy case for my Pi which uses very little (or no) desk space and a low budget. The solution: To construct a modified picture frame to hang on the wall, with cables trailing to the appropriate sockets beneath. So here's the initial concept and CAD model; After coming up with this, I went shopping for frames and came across this for £10, which ended up being the total cost of this project. Into this little frame, I had to find a way to fit all the appropriate cables, so I started by laying them all out. Clockwise from top left; HDMI, USB to micro usb (for power), 3.5mm audio jack to phono, Cat5 ethernet (grr) and in the centre is the receiver for a wireless keyboard and mouse. Then I plugged them all in and sketching some rough dimensions; After marking these up onto the spacing section, I warmed up the . I plan to finish this log in 3 or 4 posts, tomorrow's update will be on fabrication so stay tuned for the interesting bits.
I like this idea alot! would be great for a micro-atx or mini-itx build too (although psu might be a bit big to make it look good )
Haha yeah I was about to say, you're right about there being a lack of space too, hopefully all will become clear in the next update.
So, fabrication. I decided for the point of neatness to feed the cables round the perimeter of the frame. After my first stab at it, the results were pretty meh. Then with a massive I realised I hadn't accounted for the height of the sockets on the Pi itself. So I had another stab at it, cutting deeper into it. As you can see, dremelling freehand is a bad idea, especially when things haven't really been planned. Anyway, fortunately I had a craft knife and some sandpaper to hand to fix it up and slowly began to make it pretty, here it is after some initial work. I then cut out the main cable exit hole in the bottom of the larger frame section, as can be seen on the right, with the inner frame on the left and the glass in the middle. I then plugged everything in and prepared to assemble. Tomorrows update - first attempt at assembly.
Well this went well, guess I'll just wrap it up in this post. So I fitted the glass and internal frame to the external frame, plugged in all the cables to the Pi and forced them into the appropriate channels. They were then all bundled and fed out of the bottom of the frame. As cables do, they tried to straighten out again inside the frame, leaving this messy looking thing. So to fix it, I cracked out the glue gun and stuck all the cables down. Which led to the finalised case. Tada. Happy to answer any questions.
This is a really cool idea! Nice work. I know the Pi is really low power, but does it generate ANY heat? Do you envision any issues with cooling? A cool idea to build on this would be to have all the cables go out the back into the wall...but it of course means cutting holes in your wall...and not everyone wants a permanent mount ;-) I also like the idea of a ITX or mATX build in a picture frame as one of the other posters mentioned. Take the PSU out of the case and it could look a little nicer...though cooling becomes a much bigger issue then as well.
Thanks I'm contemplating whether or not to put a heatsink on the CPU, but I don't think it generates that much heat at all so it should be okay. The reason I didn't feed the cables directly into the wall is that I spend 9 months of the year at uni so it would be kinda impractical, plus various homeowners wouldn't be too pleased. I've been toying with the idea of an ITX build but the funding isn't really there, if/when I do decide to do one I've got a few more concepts to try out, or I could find a way to adapt this one. The frame is actually quite thick, about 50mm, so when scaled up slightly that leaves plenty of room for something like a pico psu and a couple fans.
Lovely little mod there only thing id be tempted to do is trunk the cable coming out the bottom bar that its spot on. Re the heat mine sat on average low 40s (c) when running on my desk thats surface temp from my ir thermometer. You can fit a ramsink quite happily on there although this also fits
Yeah I'm currently looking into suitable cable management, any suggestions? All the obvious options aren't really suitable. And on the cooling front, I may just add one or two vents and let convection currents deal with it.
