After weeks of searching for a raspberry pi rack enclosure i found this model for a 3D printed Raspberry Pi Blade Center / Rackmount from http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1606631 that can fit 14 raspberry pi in 2U rack space.
It will need some adjustments for the rack mounting ears to optimize the rack space.
Material Required:
| ☑ | 3D Printer | |
| ☑ | Printing filament | I’m using 1.75mm black PLA |
| 19 in, 1/4in screws | can’t find this one yet | |
| ☑ | 4x 1/4in nuts | |
| ☑ | A bunch of Raspberry Pi | I have 4 for test |
| ☑ | A bunch of Micro USB Cables | |
| About ∞ hours of 3D Printing | In progress, around 9h/day |
Components to print:
| Component | Print time | To print | Printed |
| Raspberrypi_blade_center_G_wire_clamp-fix.stl | 8h56′ | 14 | 2 |
| Raspberrypi_blade_center_mount_C-fix.stl | 7h 53′ | 2 | |
| Raspberrypi_cart_G-fix.stl | 1h 39′ | 14 | 2 |
I started to print at high speed witch produced bad results and very curly edges. After playing with a lot of settings instead of 28′ of printing now it takes 3h28′ to get a good result for the card.
3D printer settings used
Without the raft settings the cart will be very curly, also a higher printing speed will result in a bad model.
During the test i used all the black filament i had so i wasted a whole weekend without printing.
Finally the refill is here
Printing Progress
After 3h28′ of printing i manage to get a nice cart.
Tuning the 3D printer settings
After some tests i changed the settings to:
- Infill density = 25%
- Heated bed temp = 40C-50C
- Layer height = 0.2
- Shell thickness = 1.2
- Raft extra magins = 10mm
This will print the cart in 1h39′ with good quality.
Heated bed printing problems
Printing using the heated bed is a little risky because the contact between the platform and the power source are a little loose and this is making the contact wires to overheat. Printing couple of hours it’s risky so i took couple of precautions to avoid a 3d printer fire:
- I only print when i am at home so i can keep an eye on the process
- I keep the heating bed temperature between 40-50C to avoid overheating
- I keep a fire extinguisher in the room just in case
