Electronics — Orange Pi housing

Orange Pi housing

How-to guide

The Orange Pi 5 closed into its printed housing, with the USB hub and the buck converter clamped to its roof.

Contributor barthel

AI-generated first draft. Written from the machine assembly tree in the parts calculator, not from an actual build, so nobody has put this housing together from this page yet. The parts and the screws come from the CAD assembly.

Parts needed

Printed parts

Computer

Wire harness

Heat inserts

Screws

4× 6mm
15× 12mm
1× 8mm

A an interchangeable alternative works (hover for what).

Tools needed

Hex key, 2 mm
Soldering iron or heat-set insert press

Prepare the Orange Pi before you start. The heatsink fan and the WiFi module both need both faces of the board reachable, and the housing closes around it. Not covered here.

An Orange Pi 5 v1.3.2 seen from above with the heatsink fan already fitted over the SoC in the middle of the board, a white spring pin clipped through the board at opposite corners of the finned block, and the red and black lead running from the fan to a small white 2-pin socket silkscreened FAN — A prepared Orange Pi: the fan on, and the module on the face you cannot see. Manufacturer photo (Orange Pi), not a Basically photo; the pale highlights are theirs.

The fasteners and quantities are in the parts list above and are called out inline at each step.

Fastener icons match the parts list: the silhouette is the head shape, the colour is the thread size. M3 M4 M5 M6

Step 1 Preparation

Press 8 M3 inserts into the base while it is loose: four in the low posts the Pi sits on, and four in the tall corner posts the roof screws into. See installing heat inserts. Nothing else takes one.

Orange Pi Housing base: 8 × M3

Render of the housing base on its own, seen from above and one end, with a red ring round each of the eight heat-insert bores: four in the low posts in the middle of the floor and four in the tops of the tall corner posts — Four in the board posts, four at the corners. Rendered from the CAD, not from a build.

Fit the plunger retainer now, while the base is loose. Its screw goes in from underneath, and once the walls are in you cannot turn the base over without dropping them out.

Sit the retainer on its landing, at the end of the base with the large opening in its floor, and fix it with 1 M3 × 12 mm countersunk up through the base from below. It cuts its own thread in the plastic, so take it by hand.

Render of the west end of the housing base seen from below and to one side, with the plunger retainer lifted above its landing, the countersunk screw below the base's floor, and a dashed line running from the screw up through the floor into the retainer — The retainer on its landing at the west end of the base, and the screw that holds it coming up through the floor from underneath.

Step 2 Screw the Pi down

Static caution: the Orange Pi is ESD-sensitive like any other bare board. Touch a grounded metal surface before handling it, and avoid doing this on carpet in dry weather.

Sit the Pi on the four posts with its Ethernet and USB-A ports at the end furthest from the large opening in the base's floor, and fasten it with 4 M3 × 6 mm socket / button head screws into their inserts. It fits the posts either way round, and only this way puts its ports behind the openings in the walls.

Exploded render of the Orange Pi held above the four posts in the base, with four button-head screws above the board again and dashed lines running from each screw down through the board into its post — The board goes down onto the four posts, then the four screws into their inserts. The large floor opening is at the far end from the ports.

Step 3 Drop the walls in

Each wall drops into its own groove in the base, and each one only fits one side, because its openings line up with the ports on that side of the Pi:

West, the short wall with a small square window for the power button plunger and a larger window onto the microSD card.
East, the short wall with the openings for the USB-A and Ethernet ports.
North, the long wall with the opening for the USB-C and HDMI ports and a block on its outside that carries the WiFi antennas. The two antennas came with the WiFi module and are already plugged into it from preparing the Orange Pi; feed them out through the slot at the bottom of the wall, under that block, as it goes in.
South, the long wall with the hex vent, and an opening at the bottom for a cable off the GPIO header.

Nothing screws the walls in. The roof holds them down in step 6.

Exploded render of the four walls lifted clear of the base, each a different colour, with a dashed line from each one down into its groove: blue with a rounded window, teal with a long slot, orange with two square openings, purple with a hex vent pattern — Each wall drops straight down into its own groove. Blue is west (the microSD window), teal north (USB-C and HDMI), orange east (USB-A and Ethernet), purple south (the hex vent).

Step 4 Fit the power button plunger

The plunger reaches the Pi's power key from outside the west wall, so the Pi can be switched on with the housing shut.

Lay the plunger in its retainer with its square face out through the small window in the west wall, and close the plunger cap over it with 1 M3 × 8 mm countersunk . The screw cuts its own thread in the plastic, so take it by hand. Press the face from outside and check that it reaches the power key.

Close-up exploded render of the west end of the base with the retainer already fitted in grey, the plunger held above it with its square face pointing out towards the west wall, and the plunger cap above both — The west bay, with the other three walls left out of the view. The plunger goes into the retainer, then the cap closes over it.

Step 5 Clamp the antennas

Sit the two WiFi antennas in the two channels in the north wall's block, and screw the antenna clamp over them with 2 M3 × 12 mm countersunk , self-tapping into the wall. Skip this step if the Pi has no WiFi module.

Render of the north wall seen from outside the housing, with two antennas standing in the two channels in the block on the wall and the antenna clamp pulled straight out from them — Seen from outside the north wall. The clamp closes over the two channels, so the antennas go in first.

Step 6 Put the roof on

Lower the roof onto the walls grooved side down. The groove runs all the way round the underside and the tops of the four walls sit in it; on the face that ends up outside, the four corner screw holes are countersunk. Fix it with 4 M3 × 12 mm countersunk into the inserts in the corner posts.

The microSD card stays reachable with the roof on, through the window in the west wall and the opening in the floor under it.

Exploded render of the roof lifted above the closed walls, grooved side down, with a dashed line running from each corner of the roof to the corner post below it — The roof goes on grooved side down, onto the four corner posts.

Render of the roof seen from underneath: a groove runs all the way round the inside of its rim, with four round bosses standing inside it and the hex vent showing through the middle — The underside, and the groove round it that the wall tops sit in. The hex vent goes right through, so it shows on both faces and does not tell them apart.

Step 7 Clamp the hub and the buck converter to the roof

The powered USB hub sits on the roof under the hub clamp, the closed rectangular frame, and the 24 V to 5 V buck converter under the buck clamp, the open U. Each clamp takes 4 M3 × 12 mm countersunk , self-tapping into the pilots in the roof: take them by hand and stop as soon as the clamp is down.

The hub clamp is drawn around the Waveshare USB3.2-Gen1-HUB-4U. The cables into the hub and the converter (W2, W3, U1, U2) are on connecting the components.

Exploded render of the two clamps lifted off the roof of the closed housing, a closed rectangular frame in blue and an open U-shaped one in orange, each with dashed lines down to its pilot holes — Blue is the hub clamp, orange the buck clamp. Each takes four screws into the pilots in the roof.

The finished result

The housing closed on the bench, with the hub and the buck converter clamped to the roof.

Render of the Orange Pi housing with the USB hub clamped on one side of its roof and the buck converter on the other, their cables and the Pi's USB leads running off the box, and the two WiFi antennas standing in their clamp on the long wall — The assembled housing, off the machine. Rendered from the CAD, not from a build.

Bolting it to the frame is on the installation overview, with the other two enclosures. Its power comes from the buck converter on its roof, fed 24 V from the PSU box rather than from the control board.

Next: connecting the components.