Timothy Cope's Latest Gaming PC Is a Marvel in Miniature — and Powered by a Raspberry Pi
Graphics cards might be in short supply these days, but a Raspberry Pi and some 3D-printable cases are a handy alternative.
With a global shortage of graphics cards, maker Timothy Cope has turned elsewhere for the parts to build his next gaming machine — using 3D-printed cases to turn a Raspberry Pi into a real battlestation.
"For my birthday I had a couple of Raspberry Pis, and so I started looking at cases to put them in," Cope explains in the introduction to his video. "I had come across a case that looked like a gaming PC. I saw that case and wondered what I could put together by sourcing different parts from across the internet."
For inspiration, Cope turned to Thingiverse — and quickly found two key designs, both published to the site by James Spalding and designed to accept a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer, 52Pi Ice Tower active cooler, and additional hardware. "I designed this during the coronavirus quarantine," Spalding writes of the first design, "and in some ways influenced by this ongoing experience.
"For one, there's potentially hours of experimentation potential as there are different fan options to test... if you're stuck at home bored with nothing to and a spare Raspberry Pi and some fans sitting around."
Lacking ready access to a 3D printer, Cope found variants of the two case designs on Etsy and set about building his Raspberry Pis into miniature gaming rigs. As well as the computers themselves, Cope added an NVMe to USB adapter board for high-performance storage and a 7in LCD panel to keep the miniature theme rolling.
Cope then discussed a range of modifications with the case's creator, agreeing to test out additional drive carries which stack under the original housing with room for additional hardware and a small OLED panel — and which connect to each other using embedded magnets. "One of the stackable units is an SD card extender," Cope explains, so we'd be able to just snap it on with the magnets and we can run out here to the back of the [Raspberry] Pi."
The full video, with links to all the parts used, is now available on Cope's YouTube channel.