I’ve seen some awesome designs online such as @forksand’s https://imgur.com/gallery/8vrawzn
However, I don’t have access to (nor expertise with) 3D printers or CNC, so is maybe anyone selling these things?
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I haven’t seen anyone selling these cases online, but getting a single case printed should be easy.
In the past I’ve used services like shapeways.com. @forksand’s git repo includes the .STL files for the design. You should be able to upload them to shapeways or some other 3d printing service and they’ll print it for you.
My experience with shapeways was generally positive, but they are a little bit pricey.
Where I live in Santa Cruz, California, there are local services that will do the same thing at a slightly reduced price. And there’s a local “Maker Lab” where, if I had time, I could buy a membership and use their 3d printer. And our local community college just put in a new 3d printing lab and are offering classes in how to use it.
And I recently found this site: https://www.3dhubs.com/ - if you upload the .STL part, they’ll get several local service bureaus to bid on how much it would cost to print. I’ve not used them before, so I don’t know what typical prices or build quality is. But it wouldn’t hurt to get a quote, I bet.
I know it’s not exactly what you’re asking for. It’s always a lot easier if someone’s selling the part you want on Amazon or DigiKey. But in this case, you may have to download the .STL files from @forksand’s repo and upload them yourself.
Good Luck! (and if you do use shapeways or a local company to do the printing, I would love to hear if it was a positive or negative experience.)
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Thank you for the suggestions, didn’t know about any of them, that helps a lot !
I’ll have a look and report my experiences here.
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As I was looking at @forksand’s .STL files yesterday, I figured I would send it out to 3dhubs to get fabbed as an experiment. I would actually like to have an enclosure for the dev board I use, and I was sort of interested in whether 3dhubs would do a decent job. I’m supposedly going to get a 3d printed part in a week; i’ll let you know how it works out.
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We’re not actively selling any of the cases at present. That said, we could do a few for developers as we have the resources. Feel free to contact info@forksand.com with your needs and we can work something out.
Both Shapeways and 3dhubs.com are well established and good resources. The latter is probably less expensive than the former. There are a lot of libraries, universities, hackerspaces, makerspaces, etc. that have 3D printers available for public use. There may be one it your area. That is probably the least expensive route.
The engineer we contracted to design the case may be able to do printing for it as well:
https://www.coloradoprintingproject.org/
Also note, we moved our repo from Github to our own Gitea server recently. So the most up-to-date files are here:
https://code.forksand.com/forksand/hifive-unleashed-case
There’s a case for the microsemi expansion board too.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
-Jeff
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There’s this case as well, designed by someone else:
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So this last week I used 3dhubs.com to print @forksand’s case. The total (including shipping) was something like $46.00 for three parts in the pictures below. I was very impressed by the guy who printed my case in “wood grain” ABS:
Ryan Plummer
Saltcritters, LLC
Reelsville, IN
Dude kept me informed on every stage of the build process and asked questions where appropriate. Eventually gave me a $5 refund on the shipping price as the parts were slightly less heavy than initially estimated.
I’m less happy about 3dhubs’ website. When initially creating an account, it seems to have lost the password and the “forgot my password” functionality didn’t work (hitting the “forgot my password” link forwards you to the “create an account” page.) But support was responsive, though they sent me a password in clear text which violates the PCI DSS guidelines.
Other than the fact there was virtually no security for a site that takes credit card numbers, it was great.
I misunderstood @forksand’s design and only printed one clip (looks like you’re supposed to print two.) And there’s a mild misalignment of the top and bottom parts in the opening for the micro USB connector, but it still completely works, so it’s just a cosmetic problem. And for all I know, it could be an issue with the printing and not the design. The parts fit together fine without adjustment, but I went ahead and cut off a small bit of the lip on the inside bottom so the card would fit more snugly in the enclosure.
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Awesome, thanks for uploading pics!
We have a new clipless version uploaded in the last few days too:
https://code.forksand.com/forksand/hifive-unleashed-case/src/branch/master/stl/clipless_version
We’re printing the new ones in Taulman Alloy 910.
Thanks,
-Jeff
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The new revision has so much of ventilation 
I like the CPU support as well, I should probably make MK II of mine with thicker support, I was just worried about interference with the heat sink and SMT components on the PCB.
Hey,
I printed out the “clipless” versions in Alloy 920GF (glass filled nylon, totally awesome material). But I see the seams didn’t quite line up due to a design issue in the CAD file. A new version has been pushed, I’m printing it now.
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