11 ms·

Who needs a case? The 3D Printed Mil-Plastic is here

100 points by lvturner 6y ago

jay-anderson 6y ago
Nice. It'd be fun to have a military connector: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Military_connector_specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Military_connector_specif...
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  In case you didn't see the previous version of this: https://back7.co/home/raspberry-pi-recovery-kit https://back7.co/home/raspberry-pi-recovery-kit
  - metaphor 6y ago
    The devil always lurks in the details. 1. Choosing 5015 spec: as if this deprecated standard's threaded mating interface isn't super annoying to handle, you'll likely only encounter select insertion patterns of this circular interconnect spec on well-designed modern systems for high power interfacing, whereas this toy uses it for...low voltage GPIO. 2. Choosing AlCd olive drab finish: likely for no other reason than it looks "mil spec". Cd is a heavy metal useful as a sacrificial corrosion inhibitor that allows the interconnect to satisfy a 500 hr salt spray performance requirement...but Cd is toxic and can be absorbed through the skin via contact. You won't be seeing much of this once preferred finish on new designs these days. 3. Choosing front side receptacle mount: makes disassembly and servicing more difficult than it needs to be, especially given solder cup termination...made even more difficult to access by a seemingly nonfunctional spacer plate. 4. Interconnect spacing: clearly unfamiliar with 1472 human engineering requirements...I'm liable to suspect the designer has never actually attempted to mate both plugs simultaneously...may be in for a surprise, and if they happen to clear, it'd be by a gnat's ass and a significant encumberance to do so.
    - back7co 6y ago
      All good points. Reach out to me on social media and I’ll send you a few stickers!
rsync 6y ago
Does the author of this blog, anywhere, detail which 3d printer was used for these parts ? Unrelated: Very happy and satisfied to see Macmaster-Carr store links for several of the parts in the materials list. MC is the best. EDIT: In this post[1] the author mentions the Pruse MK3S[2] but I am not sure if that is what is used for all of the projects on the site ... [1] https://back7.co/home/learning-to-scale-small-manufacturing-with-enclosures-amp-big-blue-saw https://back7.co/home/learning-to-scale-small-manufacturing-... [2] https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/51-original-prusa-i3-mk3s https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/51-original-prusa-i3-mk3s
- jbay808 6y ago
  McMaster Carr is pretty great if you're American. For the rest of us, there's Misumi!
  - johnwalkr 6y ago
    They're both great! Mcmaster is the greatest website of all time. Sometimes the premium is 200% above other sources, but nobody cares because they can save so much time using Mcmaster. Misumi's configurable products that are machined to order are also a gamechanger, particularly on the Japanese site which has a lot wider variety. And they are hiring robotics engineers which should give interesting results.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      MC could really use a shipping estimator. I remember ordering a $10 thing and getting charged $40 after shipping, which I didn’t m or would happen until after it shipped. Other than that I agree.
    - tonyarkles 6y ago
      To add to the “greatest website of all time” aspect, they provide STEP files of a ton of those parts (maybe all of them?). When you’re drawing up a project like the OP’s in CAD, you can import the STEP file of the parts from McMaster and verify fit right there. If you’re using Fusion 360, there’s a button right in the app to browse McMaster and download the model! And... if you need a part with a particular shape but not necessarily the strength of metal... shhhh... you can just 3D print it yourself from the STEP file.
mtnGoat 6y ago
I wonder if the PETG case is as strong as a pelican. They are well proven pieces of equipment with good market, bring able to 3d print something of equal strength is a game changer.
- chewxy 6y ago
  PETG is slightly less strong than PLA - PETG has a bit of flex. I use PETG for raspberry pi cases because they get quite hot. Though having said that, PETG is fast becoming my favourite thing to print with.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    PETG isn’t that great tends to deform less and shatter more, ASA is better if you need temperature resistance and is only slightly more expensive than PETG these days and it’s also much more machineable. PLA these days also has quite decent temperature resistance in filaments that were designed for that, but even the most generic stuff should be ok for most electronic applications there shouldn’t be a spot that goes over 45c her alone 60-70 where you really begin to see issue.
    - ehnto 6y ago
      For a portable device like this I would be worried about leaving it in the car if it's PLA. You can easily see 70c inside a car on a hot sunny day. That said, you can heat treat standard PLA to make it resistant to temperature.
      - dogma1138 6y ago
        I wouldn’t leave a raspberry pi in a car that gets to 70c due to a very likely risk of damaging the BGA SoC and other soldered components.
        jrockway 6y ago
        The SoC doesn't thermal throttle until 85C. It is not going to desolder from being inside a hot car.
numpad0 6y ago
This is dope. Might make one for myself... Wonder why separate each fins? Outer frame looks like it can be printed in one go. To allow sanding after print?
- maxden 6y ago
  They mentioned they didn't want any supports, so presumably it means single fins?
lxe 6y ago
What am I looking at? A 3D-Printed Raspberry Pi case?
- PostThisTooFast 6y ago
  Heaven forbid a post on here describe WTF it's about. So tired of people posting obscure shit on here with no definitions, as if we're all noobs if we don't run around doing searches to do their work for them. If you can't be bothered to define WTF you're talking about, then we can't be bothered to read your post. It's that simple.
- sydd 6y ago
  I had the same problem with the article. The article gives me vibes like a shady Indiegogo campaign: - Very professional looking photos, full with filters. Still hard to figure out how it exactly looks. For example how big is it? 10cm? 20cm? The studio setting with nothing else in the background makes it hard to guess. - strange-non existing buzzwords like "Mil-Plastic"
gorgoiler 6y ago
”This is part sculpture” Hear hear. Ten out of ten for functional and appealing aesthetics. Industrial design is the best kind of design. Exit, to go hug a Mellor traffic light
jonah 6y ago
Fantastic aesthetic for all their projects. Mil-industrial-retro-future.
thinkloop 6y ago
Sidebar: If you scroll down on Android the address bar disappears as expected (which can cause lots of problems for height measurement and other effects but that's another sidebar), however if you click on the hamburger menu and scroll it doesn't, anyone know why?
ehnto 6y ago
This is really excellent. I was recently introduced to ApolloX filament and I'm looking forward to doing some parts for my engine bay. Tangential, but I have a really hard time finding projects like this to print, Thingiverse is really difficult to filter through the misc bits and bobs to find cool projects. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to discover truly interesting projects to 3D print?
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  As a tradesperson working in metal fabrication and driving a 4kW laser cutter as my primary role at work where I have the ability to cut up to 20mm carbon steels, 20mm stainless, and 8mm aluminium, and 10mm copper & copper alloys. Our other workshop can cut much thicker carbon steels with CNC oxy and up to about 50mm stainless with a CNC plasma cutter. All these tools are pretty much just glorified files and coping saws. Kinda need something you actually want to build in order for them to be of any use. They tie in nicely to creativity in general. My advice would be to pick up some other hobbies, wouldn't really matter what it is you'll soon start seeing things you could replicate or do better with customer design.
  - calebkaiser 6y ago
    This is really good advice for basically any creative endeavor. If you want to learn, then by all means do tutorials and popular projects, but when you want to get inspiration for new projects, there's nothing better in my experience than having other hobbies and joining other communities.
- petargyurov 6y ago
  This is somewhat related - I am working on https://makely.me https://makely.me - if you have a 3D printer you can earn money printing people's custom orders. Could serve as inspiration I guess.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
Forgive my ignorance, what is mil-plastic?
- cinntaile 6y ago
  It probably means military since the way it looks does make you think of military equipment and he mentions pelican cases as well. I don't think he means military spec though, to be clear.
- Animats 6y ago
  Marketing term. Real ruggedized items use terms such as "IP68" or "MIL-STD 810G".[1] [1] https://www.milesdata.com/blog/ruggedness-defined-understanding-ip-ratings-and-military-standards/ https://www.milesdata.com/blog/ruggedness-defined-understand...
- hoseja 6y ago
  In this case, olive color and ribs.
PostThisTooFast 6y ago
"Makers asked me over the last year about printing smaller parts for the Raspberry Pi Recovery Kit" Whatever that is.
Animats 6y ago
"Yes, this is closer to a desk toy than a field computer." That's disappointing. The boating crowd can't use this. It's not that hard to get watertight USB connectors.
- krisoft 6y ago
  A person in the world makes a thing, shows you the thing, and even nice enough to give you enough info so you can also make the thing if you want. Turns out the thing is not useful for something you picked out of thin air and that makes you feel disappointed? Where is this entitlement coming from? Why would it need to be useful for the boating crowd? I know a person who builds grandfather clocks. Absolutely useless on a boat. The cabinetry would warp in no time. Does that too disappoint you? Furthermore, the nice person who shared this design now, also shared previously a real watertight design. Your boating crowd can still use that. It wasn't removed or invalidated by this newer thing at all. > "It's not that hard to get watertight USB connectors." I really don't understand what you are saying. Are you saying that the author should have used watertight USB connections because someone might read their post later and that someone might have a boat? Please tell me that I'm misunderstanding what you wrote.
tedd-the-tiger 6y ago
I absolutely hate it when a blog doesn't have a date or has incomplete dates. When was this posted? Someone else here posted a link to a related post (https://back7.co/home/raspberry-pi-recovery-kit https://back7.co/home/raspberry-pi-recovery-kit). A "related article" has the title "Project Retrospective: Raspberry Pi Field Unit from 2015". No idea which year this was posted either. Too much whitespace and too much scrolling.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jasode 6y ago
  >I absolutely hate it when a blog doesn't have a date or has incomplete dates. When was this posted? Depending on the CMS authoring tool used, sometimes the raw HTML ("View Source") has meta info of the timestamp. In this particular case, the raw html has this: <meta itemprop="datePublished" content="2020-08-25T18:00:00-0700"/> Obviously, any meta timestamp is self-reported so you have to judge if it's a legitimate date (e.g. possibly cross-reference with archive on Wayback Machine, etc.). The web landing page also shows "Aug 25" in light gray underneath this story's photo: https://back7.co/ https://back7.co/
  - gruturo 6y ago
    Also it features a Pi 4 so it can't be older than June 2019. (but yes, I do share your frustration and sometimes spend more time looking for ANY date than reading an article...)
- leoedin 6y ago
  I agree with you in general. In this case, though, the article talks about "a few months over the quarantine" and "including a 3 month break due to life and COVID impacts". That makes it pretty easy to date!
  - mrunkel 6y ago
    But it won't in four years.
CapricornNoble 6y ago
This is awesome! I prototyped a similar device for my (now-zombie) startup targeted at the military market, but I only used regular ABS plastic to print the case. This makes me want to revisit that project....
sh1mmer 6y ago
My understanding (not having used a new one) is that current RaspberryPis get pretty hot. I’m sure it’s not as hot as a printer head (~200c) but I’d worry it might be enough on the inside of an enclosure made of lower-temp thermoplastic to cause warping.

100 points by lvturner 6y ago

Nice. It'd be fun to have a military connector: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Military_connector_specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Military_connector_specif...

Rebelgecko 6y ago
In case you didn't see the previous version of this: https://back7.co/home/raspberry-pi-recovery-kit https://back7.co/home/raspberry-pi-recovery-kit
- metaphor 6y ago
  The devil always lurks in the details. 1. Choosing 5015 spec: as if this deprecated standard's threaded mating interface isn't super annoying to handle, you'll likely only encounter select insertion patterns of this circular interconnect spec on well-designed modern systems for high power interfacing, whereas this toy uses it for...low voltage GPIO. 2. Choosing AlCd olive drab finish: likely for no other reason than it looks "mil spec". Cd is a heavy metal useful as a sacrificial corrosion inhibitor that allows the interconnect to satisfy a 500 hr salt spray performance requirement...but Cd is toxic and can be absorbed through the skin via contact. You won't be seeing much of this once preferred finish on new designs these days. 3. Choosing front side receptacle mount: makes disassembly and servicing more difficult than it needs to be, especially given solder cup termination...made even more difficult to access by a seemingly nonfunctional spacer plate. 4. Interconnect spacing: clearly unfamiliar with 1472 human engineering requirements...I'm liable to suspect the designer has never actually attempted to mate both plugs simultaneously...may be in for a surprise, and if they happen to clear, it'd be by a gnat's ass and a significant encumberance to do so.
  - back7co 6y ago
    All good points. Reach out to me on social media and I’ll send you a few stickers!

rsync 6y ago

Does the author of this blog, anywhere, detail which 3d printer was used for these parts ? Unrelated: Very happy and satisfied to see Macmaster-Carr store links for several of the parts in the materials list. MC is the best. EDIT: In this post[1] the author mentions the Pruse MK3S[2] but I am not sure if that is what is used for all of the projects on the site ... [1] https://back7.co/home/learning-to-scale-small-manufacturing-with-enclosures-amp-big-blue-saw https://back7.co/home/learning-to-scale-small-manufacturing-... [2] https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/51-original-prusa-i3-mk3s https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/51-original-prusa-i3-mk3s

jbay808 6y ago
McMaster Carr is pretty great if you're American. For the rest of us, there's Misumi!
- johnwalkr 6y ago
  They're both great! Mcmaster is the greatest website of all time. Sometimes the premium is 200% above other sources, but nobody cares because they can save so much time using Mcmaster. Misumi's configurable products that are machined to order are also a gamechanger, particularly on the Japanese site which has a lot wider variety. And they are hiring robotics engineers which should give interesting results.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    MC could really use a shipping estimator. I remember ordering a $10 thing and getting charged $40 after shipping, which I didn’t m or would happen until after it shipped. Other than that I agree.
  - tonyarkles 6y ago
    To add to the “greatest website of all time” aspect, they provide STEP files of a ton of those parts (maybe all of them?). When you’re drawing up a project like the OP’s in CAD, you can import the STEP file of the parts from McMaster and verify fit right there. If you’re using Fusion 360, there’s a button right in the app to browse McMaster and download the model! And... if you need a part with a particular shape but not necessarily the strength of metal... shhhh... you can just 3D print it yourself from the STEP file.

mtnGoat 6y ago

I wonder if the PETG case is as strong as a pelican. They are well proven pieces of equipment with good market, bring able to 3d print something of equal strength is a game changer.

chewxy 6y ago
PETG is slightly less strong than PLA - PETG has a bit of flex. I use PETG for raspberry pi cases because they get quite hot. Though having said that, PETG is fast becoming my favourite thing to print with.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  PETG isn’t that great tends to deform less and shatter more, ASA is better if you need temperature resistance and is only slightly more expensive than PETG these days and it’s also much more machineable. PLA these days also has quite decent temperature resistance in filaments that were designed for that, but even the most generic stuff should be ok for most electronic applications there shouldn’t be a spot that goes over 45c her alone 60-70 where you really begin to see issue.
  - ehnto 6y ago
    For a portable device like this I would be worried about leaving it in the car if it's PLA. You can easily see 70c inside a car on a hot sunny day. That said, you can heat treat standard PLA to make it resistant to temperature.
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      I wouldn’t leave a raspberry pi in a car that gets to 70c due to a very likely risk of damaging the BGA SoC and other soldered components.
      - jrockway 6y ago
        The SoC doesn't thermal throttle until 85C. It is not going to desolder from being inside a hot car.

numpad0 6y ago

This is dope. Might make one for myself... Wonder why separate each fins? Outer frame looks like it can be printed in one go. To allow sanding after print?

maxden 6y ago
They mentioned they didn't want any supports, so presumably it means single fins?

lxe 6y ago

What am I looking at? A 3D-Printed Raspberry Pi case?

PostThisTooFast 6y ago
Heaven forbid a post on here describe WTF it's about. So tired of people posting obscure shit on here with no definitions, as if we're all noobs if we don't run around doing searches to do their work for them. If you can't be bothered to define WTF you're talking about, then we can't be bothered to read your post. It's that simple.
sydd 6y ago
I had the same problem with the article. The article gives me vibes like a shady Indiegogo campaign: - Very professional looking photos, full with filters. Still hard to figure out how it exactly looks. For example how big is it? 10cm? 20cm? The studio setting with nothing else in the background makes it hard to guess. - strange-non existing buzzwords like "Mil-Plastic"

gorgoiler 6y ago

”This is part sculpture” Hear hear. Ten out of ten for functional and appealing aesthetics. Industrial design is the best kind of design. Exit, to go hug a Mellor traffic light

jonah 6y ago

Fantastic aesthetic for all their projects. Mil-industrial-retro-future.

thinkloop 6y ago

Sidebar: If you scroll down on Android the address bar disappears as expected (which can cause lots of problems for height measurement and other effects but that's another sidebar), however if you click on the hamburger menu and scroll it doesn't, anyone know why?

ehnto 6y ago

This is really excellent. I was recently introduced to ApolloX filament and I'm looking forward to doing some parts for my engine bay. Tangential, but I have a really hard time finding projects like this to print, Thingiverse is really difficult to filter through the misc bits and bobs to find cool projects. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to discover truly interesting projects to 3D print?

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
As a tradesperson working in metal fabrication and driving a 4kW laser cutter as my primary role at work where I have the ability to cut up to 20mm carbon steels, 20mm stainless, and 8mm aluminium, and 10mm copper & copper alloys. Our other workshop can cut much thicker carbon steels with CNC oxy and up to about 50mm stainless with a CNC plasma cutter. All these tools are pretty much just glorified files and coping saws. Kinda need something you actually want to build in order for them to be of any use. They tie in nicely to creativity in general. My advice would be to pick up some other hobbies, wouldn't really matter what it is you'll soon start seeing things you could replicate or do better with customer design.
- calebkaiser 6y ago
  This is really good advice for basically any creative endeavor. If you want to learn, then by all means do tutorials and popular projects, but when you want to get inspiration for new projects, there's nothing better in my experience than having other hobbies and joining other communities.
petargyurov 6y ago
This is somewhat related - I am working on https://makely.me https://makely.me - if you have a 3D printer you can earn money printing people's custom orders. Could serve as inspiration I guess.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

Forgive my ignorance, what is mil-plastic?

cinntaile 6y ago
It probably means military since the way it looks does make you think of military equipment and he mentions pelican cases as well. I don't think he means military spec though, to be clear.
Animats 6y ago
Marketing term. Real ruggedized items use terms such as "IP68" or "MIL-STD 810G".[1] [1] https://www.milesdata.com/blog/ruggedness-defined-understanding-ip-ratings-and-military-standards/ https://www.milesdata.com/blog/ruggedness-defined-understand...
hoseja 6y ago
In this case, olive color and ribs.

PostThisTooFast 6y ago

"Makers asked me over the last year about printing smaller parts for the Raspberry Pi Recovery Kit" Whatever that is.

Animats 6y ago

"Yes, this is closer to a desk toy than a field computer." That's disappointing. The boating crowd can't use this. It's not that hard to get watertight USB connectors.

krisoft 6y ago
A person in the world makes a thing, shows you the thing, and even nice enough to give you enough info so you can also make the thing if you want. Turns out the thing is not useful for something you picked out of thin air and that makes you feel disappointed? Where is this entitlement coming from? Why would it need to be useful for the boating crowd? I know a person who builds grandfather clocks. Absolutely useless on a boat. The cabinetry would warp in no time. Does that too disappoint you? Furthermore, the nice person who shared this design now, also shared previously a real watertight design. Your boating crowd can still use that. It wasn't removed or invalidated by this newer thing at all. > "It's not that hard to get watertight USB connectors." I really don't understand what you are saying. Are you saying that the author should have used watertight USB connections because someone might read their post later and that someone might have a boat? Please tell me that I'm misunderstanding what you wrote.

tedd-the-tiger 6y ago

I absolutely hate it when a blog doesn't have a date or has incomplete dates. When was this posted? Someone else here posted a link to a related post (https://back7.co/home/raspberry-pi-recovery-kit https://back7.co/home/raspberry-pi-recovery-kit). A "related article" has the title "Project Retrospective: Raspberry Pi Field Unit from 2015". No idea which year this was posted either. Too much whitespace and too much scrolling.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jasode 6y ago
>I absolutely hate it when a blog doesn't have a date or has incomplete dates. When was this posted? Depending on the CMS authoring tool used, sometimes the raw HTML ("View Source") has meta info of the timestamp. In this particular case, the raw html has this: <meta itemprop="datePublished" content="2020-08-25T18:00:00-0700"/> Obviously, any meta timestamp is self-reported so you have to judge if it's a legitimate date (e.g. possibly cross-reference with archive on Wayback Machine, etc.). The web landing page also shows "Aug 25" in light gray underneath this story's photo: https://back7.co/ https://back7.co/
- gruturo 6y ago
  Also it features a Pi 4 so it can't be older than June 2019. (but yes, I do share your frustration and sometimes spend more time looking for ANY date than reading an article...)
leoedin 6y ago
I agree with you in general. In this case, though, the article talks about "a few months over the quarantine" and "including a 3 month break due to life and COVID impacts". That makes it pretty easy to date!
- mrunkel 6y ago
  But it won't in four years.

CapricornNoble 6y ago

This is awesome! I prototyped a similar device for my (now-zombie) startup targeted at the military market, but I only used regular ABS plastic to print the case. This makes me want to revisit that project....

sh1mmer 6y ago

My understanding (not having used a new one) is that current RaspberryPis get pretty hot. I’m sure it’s not as hot as a printer head (~200c) but I’d worry it might be enough on the inside of an enclosure made of lower-temp thermoplastic to cause warping.