4 Raspberry Pi accessories you can 3D print yourself

The Venn diagram of people who are interested in Raspberry Pis and people who like 3D printing is basically a circle. Both are really handy tools for people who are into DIY, so it’s only natural that there are plenty of projects out there that combine the two. So, if you have a Raspberry Pi and a ton of resin to burn, here are some ways to put two and two together.

A lot sturdier than the built-in one

Recently, the Raspberry Pi Foundation released two new products you can combine into an SBC mini-PC of sorts. The first was the Raspberry Pi 500, which was a Pi 5 tucked into a keyboard frame you could plug into a monitor as a PC you could bring anywhere. The second was, conveniently, a monitor you could use with the Raspberry Pi 500, but you could use it with regular SBCs if you wanted to.

The monitor comes with its own little stand, but it’s a little flimsy. So, why not make something a little more impactful? Turns out, mere days after the Raspberry Pi Monitor’s release, someone had cooked up a stand for it. If you’re not using a Raspberry Pi 500, you can stick the SBC on the back within the frame to keep it nice and tidy. It also comes with holes for wall mounts if that’s more your thing.

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Do one better than what you can buy

The best part of being a DIY enthusiast is that you can make your own solution to a problem. Such is the case as this, well, case, which was created after its inventor was sick of Raspberry Pi enclosures that didn’t work as well as they intended.

Armed with a 3D printer, they spent a month in the workshop going through prototypes until they finally hit a case that ticked all the right boxes for them. And now that they’ve cracked the formula, they’ve uploaded the schematics for anyone to print at home and save themselves a few bucks.

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Creating little retro PC cases for your Raspberry Pi

Adding a splash of the past

If you want to lean into the teeny-tiny nature of the Raspberry Pi, why not print off a small version of a retro computer and add your Pi to it? If you want to go the full mile, you can even change the operating system to look the part.

We’ve had the pleasure of covering two different printable PC cases for your Raspberry Pi. The first one was a miniature Dell computer that ran a Windows XP-lookalike operating system, complete with equally small “Intel Inside” stickers plastered on the outside. The second was a 286 PC 3D printable shell with the genius design choice of adding the SD card slot where the floppy disk drive was on the original model.

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Taking the Pi to the next level

Finally, we have this, quite frankly, amazing project by Michael Klements. I admit that I’m cheating a little bit by adding it to this list—after all, it’s not wholly 3D printed. The case itself was printed out, but the actual fans and water cooling loop within were store-bought components. It’s kind of tricky to 3D print a water pump, after all.

But I hope you can forgive my transgression when you check out just how sleek this case is. I mean, forget the water cooling for a minute; that’s a cool-looking case. And hey, if you ever feel the need to add an entire water cooling loop to keep the board the size of a credit card cool, it’d be an easy enough implementation.

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Raspberry Pis and 3D printers are a match made in heaven

If you love making your own devices, a 3D printer and a Raspberry Pi can do a lot when they work in tandem. From a tiny stand to a full-blown case, the limit is your imagination (and perhaps how much resin you have).