I have a Fractal Design case and I have a Raspberry Pi. I love them both. I was therefore flummoxed when I discovered people have been making mini versions of the Fractal Design North case for their Raspberry Pi without me knowing about it. Not rubbish little matchbox things reminiscent of a kindergarten project, either, but glorious, officially Fractal-designed mini luxury PC cases.
The mini cases, called North Pi, look fantastic when built. Take this one made by Reddit user manky_tw, a dinky little thing with a wood-panelled front, windowed side-panel, vented rear, and part-open top for port plugging. It’s a handsome little rig, with all the class of a luxury ATX machine, but pocket-sized.
This isn’t just a one-off project by a single Reddit user, either. No, this thing’s got Fractal’s proverbial stamp on it, and the company has an instruction manual (PDF warning) for making one.
The manual seems pretty easy to understand and follow, too. There’s little actual step-by-step instructing—it’s more, “This part is 3D printed from this file name and fits into the chassis here.”
Yes, unfortunately a 3D printer is required to make a North Pi chassis for your Raspberry Pi, and if you want the best finish you might want some extras like paints and fans. All the 3D print files are free to download, however, from the North Pi page above.
And if you ask me, now’s a pretty good time to undertake such a project with the latest Raspberry SBC to grace the consumer market, the Raspberry Pi 5. This is because, as I argued in my Raspberry Pi 5 review for a different site, in my opinion the Pi 5 is the first Raspberry Pi that can serve as a veritable desktop PC for day-to-day use. (My 8 GB version, at least, can certainly serve as one.)
Using a 1080p monitor, my Pi 5 has no trouble performing a standard slew of day-to-day tasks such as browsing with multiple tabs open, watching videos (even 4K ones, if they’re downloaded), and text editing. And by “no trouble” I mean with no lag at all.
So, if you’ve got a 3D printer handy, a North Pi would make a wonderfully fitting home for your Raspberry Pi 5. Now I just have to cross my fingers that Fractal makes a wider case that can fit a Pi 5 donning an NVMe base and SSD.
