Easy Card Pi Zero Enclosure

This is a very simple enclosure for a Raspberry Pi Zero that you can make at home from card with minimal equipment. It can be decorated with a hand drawn or printed design and is suitable for school age children to make.

I have included a section at the end about making this type of box from card - a pillow box, so that you can make your own custom sizes.

I have included printable templates for both A4 and Letter size paper.

The essentials for this project are very few -

1) a printer

2) a Raspberry Pi Zero to put in the case

3) A sheet of card that can be printed in the printer

4) scissors

5) gluestick

6) printable templates available here

This project can be enhanced with a few optional pieces of equipment

1) a craft knife will make some of the cutting out easier (but just scissors are fine)

2) some kind of blunt point for scoring folds into the card (but the blunt side of the scissors will work)

3) colouring pens (or paint) to add your own design

For an interesting look use colouring pens or paint to decorate one side of the card with your own design.

If you have a colour printer the design could be printed on.

The box template is in the middle of the A4 or Letter page

Place your card in the printer - I have used 220gsm card. If you are careful even 100gsm paper will probably work.

If you have already decorated one side of your card make sure the cutting template prints on the other side.

Check the size looks ok by resting the Pi on the template.

With a blunt point or back of scissors score the curved dotted folds to make them easier to fold later.

Using Scissors carefully cut out the template.

The small semicircles at one end are optional but make opening the box easier

The 3 diamonds on one side are for the USB and HDMI ports. Cutting them with scissors is easy if you make the straight centre fold first

The rectangle for the GPIO is easiest to cut with a craft knife. But can be done with scissors.

All the dotted lines are folds.

The pictures should show how to make them.

Start by gluing the trapezoid tab on the long edge.

Then glue the end without the cut-out tab.

It may be easier to put the Pi Zero in place first and then glue.

If you let the glue dry you can slide it in from the remaining open end but the fit is tight.

The ends with the cut-out tabs can be glued or left (the SD card is at this end and you may want to access it.

If you haven't already decorated the case it can be done now with colouring pens.

I should point out that this will work on any printable and flexible sheet material.

If you print the template onto paper it could be used as a guide for cutting craft foam or thin plastic sheet. You will obviously need stronger glue for those materials.

The templates supplied make a pillow box for a Pi Zero.

They are known as nets - this is a 2 dimensional shape that can be folded to make a 3D shape

The pictures above show how to make a pillow box net on a drawing program (I use Affinity Designer but Inkscape - which is free - would also work)

1) start with a rectangle

2) add a 'lozenge' shape - in affinity this is done by starting with a crescent and pulling it

3) the lozenge should be lined up over the short edge of the rectangle

4) duplicate the lozenge and line the duplicate up at the opposite end

5)select all, group and duplicate the whole group

6) line the duplicate group with the first group

7) add a trapezoid to one long edge as a tab to glue

8) to get accurate measurements set up the page to your printer page size

9) the maximum length and width that can be enclosed are shown by the red arrows