I needed a place for the Pi that hosts Octoprint. Adding a touch display makes lots of things possible that would otherwise require booting up a computer.

The whole assembly is intended to be mounted on the outside of a printer enclosure. The hinge allows folding out the main body and adjusting its angle for optimum viewing, and saving space while not needed.

The main body is designed with plenty of extra space to house additional components, such as ventilation/power/light control.

An expansion port on the left side of the main body is reserved for customization, e.g. an emergency shutdown button or a handle. On the bottom, one expansion port is intended for cables, another for ventilation. The ventilation grill on the top is alright for passive cooling, but for beefier hardware, it makes sense to add heatsinks and a fan.

This model is designed to be mounted on the left side of an enclosure. To put it on the right side, mirror octoprint_enclosure_body.stl, octoprint_enclosure_back.stl, and octoprint_enclosure_front.stl while slicing.

Additional parts

Required:

• 16 M3 screws
• 10 M3 nuts
• 8 wood screws
• Raspberry Pi 7 inch touch display
• Any Raspberry Pi sufficiently powerful to run Octoprint and Octodash (or equivalent), e.g. 4B.

Recommended:

• 5V fan (30x30x7mm)
• 4 M3 screws + nuts for each extension port cover

Assembly

The parts fit together pretty intuitively. I recommend these steps:

1. Place the touch display on the inside face of octoprint_enclosure_front.stl.
2. Fasten the display to the front part by screwing octoprint_enclosure_body.stl to octoprint_enclosure_front.stl using M3 screws (5-10mm long).
3. Tightly screw octoprint_enclosure_horizontal_hinge.stl to the right side of the main body using M3 screws and nuts.
4. Set aside the main body for now, and screw the first copy of octoprint_enclosure_hinge_mount.stl to the printer enclosure using wood screws.
   • This is assuming the enclosure is made of wood - use other means of mounting on other materials.
5. Insert octoprint_enclosure_vertical_hinge.stl into the already mounted part.
   • Make sure that the part that can be tightened with screws faces forward.
6. Insert nuts into the nut-shaped holes of octoprint_enclosure_vertical_hinge.stl and add some screws, but don't tighten them yet.
7. Mount the second copy of octoprint_enclosure_hinge_mount.stl to the printer enclosure, so the hinge can still turn, but doesn't shake around vertically.
8. Connect the main body to the hinge, and tighten the two loose screws just enough to still permit adjusting the display angle, while also maintaining that angle.
9. Finally, route all the wires for power, printer connection, and whatever else needs to be wire up through one of the bottom expansion ports.
   • Now is also a good time to install the fan into one of the bottom expansion ports, and covering unused ports if choosing to do so.
   • Avoid getting tangled by managing your cables. I used a neoprene sleeve.
10. Finally, cover everything up by screwing octoprint_enclosure_back.stl to the back of the main body.

Software

Of course Octoprint. For the touch display, some options exist, of which I chose Octodash.

With standard Raspberry Pi OS, all that's necessary to get the touch display to work is enabling I2C using sudo raspi-config.