Meet the new SBC Case Builder 2.0

The dire need to always find a suitable case to match your design needs especially as it is almost becoming difficult to rely on SBC vendors to provide you with one, has in recent times brought about the invention of some laser cut enclosures with Inkscape and likewise the development of SBC Case Builder tool.

Going further from the SBC case builder tool which was released earlier this year, a second edition of the SBC Case Builder has been released but this time with some creative features such as a customizer GUI and support for variable height standoffs, etc. With the SBC Case Builder 2.0, you can automatically generate various types of 3D printable enclosures using OpenSCAD.

“It utilizes the SBC Model Framework project to automatically generate cases based on the data for any of the 58 current SBC contained within the framework,” the developer’s GitHub page explains. “This allows legacy, current and future SBC to have multiple cases available on day one of their inclusion in the framework. There are multiple base case designs (shell, panel, stacked, tray, tray-sides, round, hex, snap, fitted) available and each allows for different styles within the design. All case openings are created automatically based on SBC data and the dimensions of any case design can be expanded in any axis allowing for the creation of larger cases. If you reposition the SBC in a case, you will see i/o openings created or removed appropriately based on its proximity to the case geometry. These cases might be useful for prototypes or other in house uses to quickly and easily create standard, specialized and custom SBC cases through different case designs, styles and accessories.”

This framework however was focused on ODROID boards and you have to type the parameters in a configuration file. However, the newly released model of the software changes this, offering an easy-to-use graphical interface that allows for the dynamic adjustment of any of the case attributes. The new SBC Case Builder 2.0 features accessory multi-associative parametric positioning, accessory customization framework, variable height standoffs, and extended standoff SBC collision detection capabilities.

SBC examples that are currently supported with verified case designs include the NVIDIA Jetson Nano developer kit and Hardkernel ODROID C1+, C2, C4, XU4, XU4Q, MC1, HC1, HC4, M1, N1, N2 and N2+. Other SBCs such as the Orange Pi Zero/Pi Zero2, the Asus Tinker board, Tinker board S, Tinker board 2 and Tinker board R2, the VIM1 to VIM4 boards, the Rock Pi 4C/4C+, etc, are also supported but have unverified designs created from public mechanical drawings.

The developer has made a short demo showing how new cases can be created and saved and existing ones easily modified. He also gave some direction on how to use the graphical user interface. Source codes as well as other useful details are also available on GitHub.

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