[Music]
welcome to another video from explaining
computers.com
this time I'm going to show you how I
made this my Pi 500 makeup build and
what we have here is a raspby pi 5 in a
custom keyboard case and inside the pi
is booting from them.2 SSD and around
the back it's even got a fullsize HDMI
connector how exciting is that and I
know since the launch of the raspy Pi 5
people have been asking will they make a
pi 500 and so I thought I'd get in early
and build one
myself so let's go and see how this was
constructed
right here we are at the start of the
build with three of the most critical
components one of which is our raspber
PI 5 fitted with the official cooler and
I'm going to complete this project in
such a manner that the raspby pi 5 will
be entirely
removable also here I bought a chicklet
keyboard a generic chicklet keyboard and
the idea is I'm going to take this apart
don't quite know how yet but I'm sure
this will come apart so I'm going to
take out the mechanism so I can build a
case around the top of the keyboard fill
in all the gaps make it nice and neat
spray it up and then put the keyboard
mechanism back inside our final
construction that is the
idea also here I've got an SSD an m.2
SATA SSD Western Digital green one 120
GB I've already put raspby pios onto
this the pile boot from this SSD and it
would be nice if this be connected to
the pcie connector on the pi5 I can't do
that at the moment maybe well in the
future but for now as you can see it's
in a USB to m.2 sat SSD adapter and this
used to be part of a construction which
included this little case here and if
you think I've seen those before if
you're a longtime viewer of the channel
it's because I use these in my ultimate
raspby Pi 4 rig which involves lots of
brass and these type of things but I've
taken these from that project and a few
other things as well to make this
project and I also need for the project
a few more parts because I need to
extend out the connectors on the PIP at
the back of the case and also to connect
this thing to the PIP I can't just plug
it in you can do this and it works
perfectly well but it blocks all the
other connectors at least some of them
so what I've got is one of these a USB
extender which will connect this to the
P inside the case I've got two more of
those to extend out the other two USB
ports that want to go to the back of the
case one of which will be USB 2 one will
be USB 3 that'll be confusing have to
label that appropriately and then the
fourth USB B connector here will go to
obviously connector on the keyboard and
then I've also got an extension for
ethernet I've got an extension for micro
HDMI to what we can call proper HDMI and
then finally I've got an extension for
the power lead or the power connector on
the pi USBC connector this is rated for
power delivery I've checked this works
with the p and its adapter all works
fine so in theory all of this will go
inside our Pi 500 case talking of which
over here I've got an arrangment of
tools and materials including stand a
knive who's going to be very busy
cutting things for this project because
I'm building the case out of a ABS
plastic ABS sheet sometimes called
plastic car I had various bits of this
lying around but I've also bought a few
extra
pieces here's one of them this is a 30
cm square 3 mm ABS sheet and it's in
fact I've already cut out some parts if
I can just find them under here this is
going to be a top piece this is actually
going to be the base piece let's get rid
of the others shall we just show you
what's going on do that like that so oh
dear good job the floor was there to
catch that but anyway we're going to
have the keyboard something like that on
this piece like that and then there
going to be this bit at the back look
it's almost finished isn't it it looks
like an Amiga already and the pie will
it in the back like that and the
connectors will come to the back like
this yes you can see this is going to
work so I think it's now High time I got
on with some
construction greetings I've now taken
the keyboard apart which was a more
challenging task than I expected as I
anticipated it would separate into two
Parts but once you've got the back off
and carefully detached the ribbon cable
the top panel then needs pricing off
separately which to put it mly is
somewhat tricky but nevertheless I
succeeded in the
end I've also been cutting out more
parts scoring over and over and over
with stanle the knife before carefully
bending and folding and finally snapping
clean final
components and because I'm using us 3 mm
ABS sheet for thinner Parts I've also
been working along them with some pliers
to clean these snap and then separate
the final
part after that I got really really busy
with some liquid cement putting the top
together as we can see here things seem
to be going now quite well and if you're
wondering about the piece of wood it's
strapped on to stop the top of the
keyboard panel getting distorted during
the build as it's really important to
keep it totally flat or the mechanism
won't fit back in
properly over here I'm also making good
progress with the base of the case where
I've not just solvent welded various
parts together I've also done my first
pass of filling and sanding rounding off
edges trying to make it look like one
continuous piece of plastic there'll be
various passes required to to finish
that off and if you're wondering on the
top about these little wings on the
edges what are they for well if I bring
in the top of the case which by the
magic of film making has also had a
filling and sanding pass this drops on
like that and the idea is that I might
superglue some nuts here and here put
some holes in and the idea would be that
the top of the case would drop on and
I'd put some screws through to hold it
all together although I'm now starting
to think maybe I don't want to have
screws in the side of the final
construction so I'm rethinking that idea
and I also haven't put in yet the back
panel because clearly the back panel
needs to have cutouts in for all the
connectors at the back so that's quite a
complicated piece I want to work all out
before I actually fix it onto the top of
the case so I think the next thing I
need to do is to get the p and all the
connectors work out where everything's
going internally how it's going to mount
and uh then I can get on with the rest
of the
construction
greetings here I am back again yet more
filling and sanding has taken place and
around the back of the case we now have
a back panel and back panel connectors
very
exciting so let's show you what's going
on with this we just take it apart like
that and the first thing you may see is
I've added some pillars inside the the
top piece and this is because I decided
not to have screws to the sides holding
it together and so what I've done is to
build these little pillars and to give
you a closeup of these you can see they
have a nut held captively in their base
par vior design and partially held with
a bit of superglue and this means we can
screw a bolt into these pillars and on
the base of a case I've cut some holes
which accommodate the head of the bolt
and I put another piece of ABS inside
the case with a smaller hole so we can
drop a screw in in a nice recess fashion
as you can see so everything holds
together at least when you're looking at
the top of the case without having any
any bolts and your screws in
view the back panel that saids has got
some screws holding it in place this
back panel is made out of shiny ABS this
will be a final surface and this is
clearly therefore removable by just
taking out the screws and so one of the
reasons it's screwed in this so I can
remove it and do the painting and then
pull it back in but also it might be
useful in the future to have this back
panel removable because I might want to
add things to this Pi 500 I might for
example want to put some wires onto the
pi to to take an output from its
composite video pads and put a composite
video connector on the back maybe even
an audio connector things like that
that'll be very easy if I've got a
removable back
panel in terms of things inside the case
as you can see we've now got back panel
connectors these are super glued onto
little blocks as we can see here and I
did them like this so they're easy to
actually position in place like this and
like this and they will of course
eventually be uh glued in place but
right now they're just held down with
Blu Tac so I can actually check the fit
this is what's going on here a fit
test the pie itself is also held in
place with with bolts against through
from the base of the case and I've had
to mess around a lot to figure out
exactly where to put the pie its
position is largely determined by where
the cables would let me put it and I've
had to keep making it lower and lower
and moving it more and more towards the
back so that none of these cables will
collide with the keyboard when that goes
back in and this SSD is currently just
hanging around it'll go in probably
somewhere quite like that in the end but
anyway this is roughly how things will
will fit inside the case how they do fit
inside the case and earlier I did
connect everything up and check it still
worked and it did which was a very good
news although of course the thing we
don't know is what will happen with the
keyboard I tried it out with another
keyboard just plugged into on the back
connectors but the actual keyboard will
go of course back in up the top when
this is finished I don't yet know how
that's going to work but hopefully it
will work that's the one big unknown in
this project will the keyboard work will
I put it back together when this thing
is is practically
complete anyway that's what's going on
right now I'm pleased how this is H
coming together so I'm not going to take
all the parts out of it continue with
filling and sanding and then priming and
painting and things like that and we'll
end up with a final Pi
500 so the top paint color has now been
applied and we've ended up with this and
I always find it very satisfying to go
on a build Journey from initial
construction to the final
result the keyboard mechanism has
clearly been puted back in and all the
keys still work that's always a great
relief when something like that happens
and we take a look underneath like this
you will see that the underneath has got
four little sticky pads on and these
were the little sticky feet that were on
the
keyboard also under here we can see the
screws that hold in the supports for
maintaining the pine position inside the
case we'll see those in a second and
here are the holes for the screws I've
got one of them here but actually hold
the case together I've not put these in
because I thought you'd want to see
inside so let's flick it over like that
and take off the top of the case very
careful it comes up was it like that and
uh
like this there we are it's a good fit
there we are and of course the keyboard
is connected as you can see the keyboard
is uh back inside and the wire comes out
the back I could have shortened this
wire but I didn't in the end and inside
you can see I have now cemented in the
back panel connectors the p is secured
in position properly the SSD is in place
it's all basically okay so allow you to
put it back together put that there goes
back in
like that I think I've learned that
corner is the last one to drop in like
that and if everything is lined up okay
cross your fingers for me in theory I
can now put back in the
screws there we are I'm still being very
careful of paint that is less than 24
hours old but uh we do have our finished
Pi 500
and overall I'm really pleased with how
it's turned out although as I said
earlier there remain possibilities for
additions including adding composite
video and audio outputs a power button
and connecting the boot SSD to the P
pcie
connector but you cry does it work well
let's get everything connected up with a
monitor and a mouse and things like that
and I'll I'll turn on the
power there we go we won't see a lot
we'll see the Mona coming to life
because it's on the same switch I just
turned on as the pi the pi though I can
just about hear it's fan coming on
briefly as it does when it first boots
up we don't have a power indicator on
this case that's something I can add
also in the future but things do seem to
be working I think yes oh look we booted
to the Pi's desktop that's a that's a
good sign and our capot light does work
it might just be able to see cap stop
comes on and off and uh let's just check
the keyboard is working let's just
launch for example a terminal and do an
LS b l k if I can type from this angle
Ander there we are yes we have a working
P
500 and you might have noticed that on
the back panel we have some ventilation
holes and it will be interesting to see
how warm the P gets under load so let's
run the test I created in my initial Pi
five cooling video which uses sysp to
run the CPU calls at full load for 20
minutes
and there we are a somewhat varied but
certainly satisfactory result it appears
that the pi5 is not going to get too hot
inside the pi 500
case so there we are I've completed my
Pi 500 and is it perfect absolutely not
always when you do a build like this you
get to the end and you go Ah that's how
I should have put it together you want
to start again and I'm also still
debating what color this should be I've
painted it rough with a color of an
Amiga 500 but I'm still thinking should
this have been black or blue or red or
something like that I don't know anyway
regardless of what color this should be
I very much enjoyed putting it together
it's been an interesting project and if
I've inspired you to think about a build
I have put links to everything I've used
down in the video descript description
and I'm also going to post pictures of
this in the community tab here on
YouTube including
Dimensions but now that's it for another
video if you've enjoyed what you've seen
here please press that like button if
you haven't subscribed Please Subscribe
and I hope to talk to you again very
[Music]
soon