3D printing your own HTPC case design

I came across this 3D printing article in a magazine, and immediately had to think about how an own HTPC case design may be possible with this. Or any other small extension, adapter or whatever non-existant custom 'something' to mount your hardware.

The article was about the 3D printing shop shapeways: http://www.shapeways.com/
There weren't very many details in the article about materials, prices (except that it was quite affordable) and possible dimensions. So I decided to take a look at the website.

They seem to offer a lot of possible materials to choose from. From plastics, ceramics to stainless steel, from alumide to glass.

Maximum dimension are (currently) 70x38x58cm, so large enough for a HTPC case.

I found very diverse stuff on there (they allow to sell your own design on the website):

Some examples:
sata to IDE caddy adapter:






iphone cases:




A stainless steel example:




Anyway: Whatever you can think off ('imagine') can be 3D printed.


Now I'm curious: Has anyone on here ever seriously considered something like this? Or maybe even done it? Or maybe have a case design floating around that is just collecting dust?

i'm waiting for my 3d printer to turn up in March (invested in a kickstart start-up project). The first thing i'm going to do with it is build a custom case for the Raspberry-Pi that should be out by then.

Anastrophe Wrote:i'm waiting for my 3d printer to turn up in March (invested in a kickstart start-up project). The first thing i'm going to do with it is build a custom case for the Raspberry-Pi that should be out by then.

i was thinking of doing this, some form of bracket that can go into the VESA mount on the back of a TV