Raspberry Pi Pod and micro:bit base

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Rating: ****1/2

A much-delayed review of the version 2 beta case from IP Adelt. I was naughty as I didn’t do a review after I used it. Sorry guys! It was a free beta test, and I’m very happy to have been part of the test. (I did send comments via live chat, so my guilt isn’t too high!) This is an excellent way of testing a case as the RPi is very community-based.

I was going to do a video review, but to be honest theirs was far superior. To view their in-English assembly video, please visit:
http://www.ip-adelt.de/index.php?id=142

Review (personal opinion)
I really like the case, which is really an “enclosure” due to the material it’s made from. It is plastic and, while not a protective ‘hard’ case is fairly sturdy and does a good job. It’s see-through, as you can see, which is nice as you can still see your Pi-Goodness ™ inside with lights n stuff.

It came flat, attached to a cardboard sheet. I pressed out the bits of plastic (which is easier than, say, all Airfix kits). It was a slight bitch to assemble. Now, I don’t mean that you shouldn’t buy one, not at all. The instructions were occasionally confusing as to which bit folds which way, but I think they’ve probably fixed that in the new instructions. It will always be difficult to show assembly on a product that you can see through!

When assembled, the various tabs and flaps go to make a very solid-feeling box. I wouldn’t want to sit on it, but you can drop it and know the Pi won’t disintegrate. To give you an idea on how well-made and high-quality it is, I assembled and re-assembled it 4 times, and not gently, and not once did any of the holes or tabs tear. Quite impressive for a ham-fisted person like me!

Anyway… as you can see, it’s decorated with the Raspberry logo and also their logo which is very Tron-like!

The Pi itself slides in and sits on a ‘shelf’. This adds a bit of height to it, which can be a pain if you want to put it inside something else, but should be no problem if you just want to use it standalone. Having said that, the shelf does act like a ‘spring’ so if you do drop it, it provides a cushioning effect, unlike some of the more solid cases.

All the ports were in the correct place, with the exception of the HDMI port which was workable, but was offset by about 3-4mm. This has been fixed for the new version in the shop.

The only thing I didn’t like, and this is a problem in almost all the cases, is that the SD card sticks out for easy access. Happy to say, however, that the GPIO pins are easily accessible via a hole in the top.

Overall, I’d give the case a solid 4/5 for the beta test. I’ve just ordered a new model (see below)

You can buy one!
To buy the case, please go to their shop. It costs €2.95 (about £2.30) and does a decent job of protecting your Pi. I just did and I’m going to write how to do it as the site is in German and Google Translate fails to do an auto-translation. I’ve got to commend IP Adelt on their very responsive customer service – they have live chat, a well-monitor Twitter account and fast fulfilment process.

Instructions for English people trying to read German and failing…

1. Go to this page in their shop
2. Click on the link to add to basket: In den Warenkorb
3. Click on the Checkout button:  zur Kasse gehen
4. This is the billing address page.
5. Fill in your address details. The fields are, from top-to-bottom and left-to-right (some are optional!):
1. Title (Herr is Mr, Frau is Mrs)
2. First name
3. Surname (no, Nachname doesn’t stand for Nickname!)
4. Company
5. Email address
6. Street (two fields)
7. Town
8. Postcode
9. Country (Vereinigtes Königreich is United Kingdom! Vereinigtes Staaten is USA)
10. Telephone (for UK, do +44 1234 567899 which is the International code/number, note the missing leading zero)
11. Fax
6. The radio box is to do with shipping – “An diese…” is to use the above address for shipping. “An andere…” is to specify another address to ship to.
7. To continue, click “Weiter” which is the button at the bottom right of the screen.
8. If you’ve clicked the “Another address” radio button, you get the Billing Address page, which is another form, almost identical to the billing address page. There is a checkbox at the bottom that you can tick to copy in the billing address details if you want to.
9. The Zuruck button will take you back to the billing address page. Weiter takes you onwards.
10. The next screen will tell you your packing and shipping charges. When I wrote this, the shipping charge was the not-unreasonable €4.50 (taking the entire charge to €7.45 which was approx £5.75 at the time)
11. Weiter takes you to the payment screen which is limited to Paypal.
12. Click Weiter again to take you to the final screen.
13. The first box is the general Terms and Conditions. The second is the Returns Policy. If you want to read these, cut and paste into Google Translate which does a pretty good job.
14. You need to check both boxes and click on “Bestellung abschlieBen” which basically means “Complete this order”
15. You get taken to PayPal. With any luck, it’s the English version. If you get the German version, it’s the same form with email address and password on the side and the link to create an account. I will not be covering this here as I already have an account. I pretty much logged in, pressed Pay Now.
16. My final amount was actually £6.08.
17. After you’ve paid, click on Return to IP Adelt GmBH which is the right.
18. Wait to be redirected.
19. You get a big Thank you for your Purchase!!! In German.
20. Make a note of your order number. You get receipts from PayPal anyway.