Pi in Disguise

The Raspberry Pi 5 is a hacker’s delight on the bench and inside of all sorts of electronics projects. The versatility of these single board computers has made them an essential component in every electronics hobbyist’s toolbox. But the more recent Raspberry Pi releases are much more than low-power embedded Linux machines. They have gotten to be downright powerful — to the point that they could even replace your desktop system. Well — depending on what you use your desktop for anyway — but they can definitely handle moderately-intensive computing tasks without batting an eyelash.

But let’s be honest — setting the bare circuit board on your desk is not really going to create the look you are going for. Mini PCs, on the other hand, have slick cases that would look great in a prominent place in a home office. Moreover, mini PCs also have cooling systems, better storage options, and cleaner ways of connecting peripherals so that wires are not running every which way from the computer. Of course you could just buy a mini PC, but they often cost several times more than a Raspberry Pi, and you already have five Raspberry Pis in a drawer, so that is not the best solution to the problem.

YouTuber The Wrench demonstrated a better solution for turning a Raspberry Pi 5 into a legitimate mini PC. Using the Sunfounder Pironman 5 case, everything the stock Pi is missing can be added in one fell swoop. It adds M.2 NVMe support for SSD disks so you do not have to worry about flaky and slow SD cards on the desktop, and it also includes a beefy heatsink for the processor and a pair of RGB LED case fans.

The case is made of metal and acrylic so that you can still get a view of your formerly free range Raspberry Pi. It also adds a power button and moves all of the ports to the back of the case — and bumps the HDMI connectors up to full-size, so no more adapters are needed. As a finishing touch, the front of the case is equipped with a small OLED display so that you can have a real-time view of resource utilization, or anything else your heart desires. Don’t let this new buttoned-down look concern you — the GPIO pins are still exposed so you can start hacking at the drop of a hat.

The Pironman 5 case comes as a kit, and is much more than just a case with lots of support boards and other components to be assembled, so it takes a bit of effort to put together. Don’t be too concerned though. It comes with detailed instructions and The Wrench does a great job of walking through the build in the video.

When complete, the Pi-powered mini PC looks like a legitimate gaming PC with the LED fans and see-through acrylic in the case. Of course looks aren’t everything — the Raspberry Pi 5 is a reasonably powerful computer but not a gaming machine. Unless your idea of gaming is retro console emulation, in which case it is a powerhouse of a gaming machine.

To see everything that the case offers, be sure to check out the full video. But first I feel compelled to give you a fair warning. Before the video is over, you will have a Pironman 5 in your shopping cart. Proceed with extreme caution.