3d Printable Cable Box Model
The models were used to make a 3-d printed cable box replica to house a Raspberry Pi 5 for a cable simulation built using FieldStation42.
To use the models, clone the repository and print both sets:
CableBox-main.stl - Contains the main box, trim pieces and foot screws.
CableBox-bottom.stl - Conains the bottom of the box.
- 3x4 Matrix Keypad
- 4 Digit 7 Segment TM1637 LED Display Board
- Raspberry Pi 5 - with active cooler
- F2F Jumper Wires
- 6"+ Micro HDMI to HDMI Adapter (pigtail)
- Plexiglass (1/8th inch)
- 4 M2.5 screws and nuts
- 4 M2 screws and nuts
- Superglue
The put it all together, follow the steps below. At the finish, you should have a box that looks like this:
Print both models above. I used PLA with a .4 mm nozel on a textured plate - but ABS should work.
The printed model contains mounts for the raspberry pi 5 on the top of the box. There are cutouts in each mounting post for an M2.5 nut to fit into - secure it with superglue.
After the superglue is dried, just use M2.5 screws to secure it to the post.
Its important to use a pi with an active cooler - otherwise it will likely heat up and throttle perfomance.
The keypad mounts using M2 screws and nuts in the corners of the cutout on the top of the box.
The display mounts in the cutout in the front of the box using superglue. The fit should be fairly tight, but it also works as long as it is glued to one of the two sides. There is room for improvement in this part of the design for sure.
Optional: cut plexiglass to SIZE and fit in front of the display.
Fit black trim piece over the display area.
In this step, you'll connect all the wires. Your setup should look like the picture below at the end of this step:
The following table shows the connections betwen the Rasberry Pi 5 and the TM1637 LED Display Board.
| Raspberry PI | LED Display |
|---|---|
| A 5v | VCC |
| GND | GND |
| GPIO17 | CLK |
| GPIO18 | DIO |
The following table shows the connections between the Raspberry Pi 5 and the 3x4 Matrix Keypad. For more information on the pinouts for this keypad and the Raspberry Pi 5, see this Adafruit Learning Guide.
| Raspberry PI | Keypad |
|---|---|
| GPIO20 | C2 |
| GPIO05 | R1 |
| GPIO26 | C1 |
| GPIO19 | R4 |
| GPIO21 | C3 |
| GPIO13 | R3 |
| GPIO06 | R2 |
The following diagram shows an overview of the connections.
Additional documentation with images is in-progress.
In this step, just connect the micro-HDMI to HDMI pigtail to the Pi's micro-HDMI output and the power cable to the Pi's USB C connector and run them through the openings on the side closest to the connectors. You will probably want to use use something to prevent the cables from being pulled, so I use some thick copper wire. A think ziptie or some tape wil work also. When this step is completed, it should look like the picture below.
Use the foot screws in the first print to secure the bottom piece from the second print.
To use the cable box script, you will need to install the python drivers for the LED display and matrix keypad. The script is located in the FieldStation42 repo at fs42/pi/cable_box.py (link).
For the matrix keypad, you you first need to install Adafruit Blinka libraries.
Next, install the matrix keypad driver using pip3 (after you activate your virtual env)
source env/bin/activate
pip3 install adafruit-circuitpython-matrixkeypad
Use pip to install tm1637 LED drivers
source env/bin/activate
pip3 install raspberrypi-tm1637
If you get an error along the lines of:
RuntimeError: Cannot determine SOC peripheral base address
Run the following:
sudo apt remove python3-rpi.gpio
pip3 install rpi-lgpio
For ideas about how to use this at startup, see this wiki page.