Raspberry Pi Zero Case

This is my first design. I have printed several cases from Thingiverse but have never seen this simple design on the site.

I’ve bought several cases from Pimoroni and Adafruit for my Raspberry Pi 3 and Pi Zero. Having acquired 20 Pi Zeros for my classes in Papua New Guinea, I had to come up with cases for them.

My favourite laser cut, Pi Zero case is the one I bought from Adafruit (https://www.adafruit.com/product/2883). Using engineering drawings from https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/mechanical/README.md, I recreated this design for 3D printing.

Some older Pi Zero boards (i.e. most of mine) had soldered tags for the Mini HDMI port that protrudes from the back side, hence the slots on the Pi Zero Base.stl file. Newer Pi Zero and all Pi Zero W boards are flush on the back side and do not need the slots.

I have also produced versions which include the Raspberry Pi logo, from WarHawk8080 (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2545778).

I have printed the case in PLA, PETG and ABS.

The open, honeycomb effect is made by setting top and bottom layers to zero in your slicer and using a 20% honeycomb infill pattern. I like this effect and would assume that this will allow better cooling of the Pi Zero.

The holes are for 3mm bolts as they are usually easier to come by than the 2.5mm that the Pi is sized for. You can either (very carefully) drill out the mounting holes of your Pi Zero to 3.2mm or (as I do) run a 3mm tap through them and screw the nylon bolts through. I have had no problems using either method – but of course accept no responsibility if you break / crack your Pi Zero board, drill a hole in your hand, or bring about the end of the universe as we know it by following my advice.

The SketchUp files are included for any Tinkerers out there.