MMU2 content: RPi NAS case  

MMU2 content: RPi NAS case

I'd like to say this is finished, but I leave things unfinished way too SQUIRREL!!!!

😆

I was talking to a friend that was building out a Ceph NAS system for his work and we got to joking about building a cheap RPi cluster. As that was a squirrel that got my attention I designed up a (bad) case in TinkerCAD based on a RPi 4, 4 2TB 2.5" drives, and a hacked up USB power supply to run it all. What I came up with is:

It was printed on a MK3S+MMU2S using PushPlastics PLA (black, silver, maroon) and Amazon PLA (green) at a 0.2mm layer height. Each tray and the top were separate prints, but the case itself was a single 100+ hour print with 1200+ tool changes (at least 1 per layer after the first 3mm) and ZERO tool change failures.

The top two sleds have 2 drives each. The middle sled is the RPi and there are 6 2mm translucent "pins" in the front that I at some point want to hook up to LEDs for various status lights (disk activity, network activity, and power). The bottom is the power supply which is a hacked up 8 port (7 USB and 1 USB-C) USB charger that has a LCD that shows the power draw for each port.

Both sides look identical, though behind the side being shown is a place to slide in a floor register filter to cut down on dust a bit. The far side will have 4 40x10mm fans to handle the cooling.

My first attempt at the print failed due to design issues. Initially the internal fence holding the filter in place had no cross bracing and each post was on 3x3mm, so about 70mm up they were moving too much and getting messed up. I also was having to use supports for the fan covers I selected and found that removing the supports was going to damage the covers. Unfortunately when I tweaked the designs to address these issues, I didn't test the new covers I grabbed off Thingiverse and they apparently have a different definition of what 40mm means than the rest of the world. So the fans don't fit at the moment, but some creative sanding will fix it.

Still to do:

1. Reprint the RPi sled as it is sitting too close to the internal wall and I can't plug it in.
2. Finish the wiring for the USB/SATA adapters.
3. Fix the fan mounts
4. Install NAS/RAID software and configure it.
5. Probably reprint most of the power sled so the face matches the rest of the sleds (I printed it as a separate part to avoid supports, but I now realize that was stupid).

When I'll actually get around to doing those things is anyone's guess though 🙄 I got tired of waiting to show what a happy MMU can produce though so decided to go ahead and throw it out there.