16 December 2012

Raspberry Pi enclosure


I picked up a Raspberry Pi model B and needed an enclosure for it. Some image searches online yielded a nice design that I wasn't willing to pay for, so I made my own.

I have absolutely no clue what the timber is. If I had to take a wild stab I'd say it was cherry. (edit: Dad reckons it's Cypress, which I think is right. It's commonly used as a construction timber, and the color varies from pink through to nearly indistinguishable from regular pine.)

Here's the finished product with 2 coats of Tung oil.

After some testing I decided to put in some airflow holes on top and bottom. Several hours of use showed that it was capable of making the box warm, though certainly in no danger of combustion or anything crazy. Problem solved.






And here's a bunch of construction pictures in reverse order...


Blah the gap between the pieces is from the timber contracting after having hogged out the core. The two blocks mated perfectly before now. I sanded it all back, however when I applied the tung oil, I got expansion in the OTHER direction (curled back out). /sigh /reSand













Some damage from the routing. Easy glue fix.


BLARGH!! Broke my router bit. :( Ended up switching to a larger bit which hogged the timber out more cleanly anyhow.

The piece is too small to clamp directly, so I've locked it in place with an enclosure of scraps, with guides on 2 sides to keep the router inside the desired boundaries.
I want to hog-out "this" much.

My bench-top sander looks an awful like a regular belt sander turned upside down.
I cut the desired block out of a 4x4inch upright post which previously held up our deck roof.