Because there isn’t already enough of custom designed Raspberry Pi enclosures, I decided to design yet another one. The reason is because I want to fit a hard drive inside of it, and make it as compact as possible. I of course want to use the latest Raspberry Pi, and Raspberry Pi 4 is more power hungry compared to its predecessors and is more prone to thermal throttling at 80°C. Given that I want to have a hard drive in the same enclosure, while keeping it small and avoiding fans, thermal design became a bit of a challenge. I was going through the Internet, looking at different solutions, and then I got an idea, which is probably not that original. The idea What if instead of fitting a heat sink on Raspberry Pi, you would make a direct thermal contact between the plastic enclosure and CPU? In this way, instead of using the air to exchange the heat between CPU and enclosure, you could use thermal paste, or thermal pad, which has much better thermal conductivity than air. But now, of course, the area of enclosure that is used to exchange the heat is significantly smaller. Typical 3D printing filaments …
3D printing my own wireless phone charger stand
I find wireless phone chargers to be convinient compared to using a cable. However, the need to position a phone, especially before going to sleep, is a bit irritating. I’m aware that docking stations with wireless charging capability exist, but they weren’t something that I had in my mind. They have an incline which makes them bulky, and it is still necessary to kind of position the phone in one dimension. Also, I can’t imagine having something like this being mounted on the wall. So, what do we do when we can’t find a product that would satisfy us? Of course we 3D print one! I have decided not to get into electronics this time and just bought 2 LIVBOJ wireless chargers at IKEA, which are a bargain at 5$ a piece. They are made in a regular cylindrical shape, which makes it easy to integrate them. When it came to 3D printing, I happened to have a ColorFabb WoodFill filament laying around, which I couldn’t find any use for. The print turned out pretty good, looking something like machined MDF from a distance. The two sides are connected together with two M3 screws and nuts. Later on, it has …