KKSB Case for Raspberry Pi 5 with Space for Hats, Add-on Boards, Cooler, and NVMe Hats

Picked this case for a Raspberry Pi 5 with an AI Hat+ installed on it. There are no instructions, so you have to figure it out on your own. If you have a lot of electronics experience, it’s fairly straight forward. If not, maybe the following will help you out. This is what I had to do with the AI Hat+. Other Hats may be different. The case comes with two different length standoffs with a stud end. One set of 4 must be used to hold the Pi board to the bottom of the case. The 4 mounts inside the case are threaded and not through holes. So the Pi must be mounted from above. If your Hat is installed with the nylon standoffs it came with, you have to remove those and use the longer metal standoffs that come from the case. I did not use the shorter stand offs at all. The case also comes with a header pin extension. For the AI Hat, you have to remove the longer extension that it came with, place the shorter extension that came with the case, and then add the longer extension back on top of it. They won’t fit if you stack them the other way around. Getting the ribbon cable attached between the Pi and the Hat is tricky. Disconnect the cable from the Hat, but leave it attached to the Pi. Mount the Pi with the longer stand offs, and install the stacked header extensions. Next start the Hat onto the header pins while keeping the ribbon cable against the front of the case. Before pressing the Hat down onto the pins, get the ribbon started into the socket on the Hat. As you press the Hat down onto headers, feed the ribbon into the socket. It may take 3 hands to get things lined up during this process. After the Hat is in place, use the 4 metal screws to secure it to the top of the standoffs. Note that the AI Hat is a bit higher that the stock configuration, but that only gives it more space for air cooling. There is still a lot of space over the top of the Hat once the top of the case is installed. There are 4 stick-on rubber feet for the bottom of the case. There are 4 threaded mounting holes on the bottom and 2 on one end of the top. The bottom also has 2 plus-shaped slots that appear to be for blind mounting on a vertical surface with small pan-head screws. Overall, it’s an excellent case that looks great for my set up. Very functional addition to a Pi 5 for your project.

Works great to fit a M.2 hat with an accelerator card. Easy to assemble and seems to have plenty of ventilation. Good for the price!

I had my Pi in the official case, but the case top didn’t fit properly with the M.2 hat. I bought this case due to the extra space. This is a very sturdy case and the fitment was perfect. I had no issues removing any of the screws to disassemble the case. To assemble, I slid the M.2 hat just enough to expose the standoffs below, then tightened them with a 4.5mm socket. It was then a simple matter to screw the hat to the standoffs and reassemble the case. I never had to remove the ribbon cable between the Pi and the M.2 hat to install. I’m very happy with this case.

Overall this is just what I was looking for. The pi fits perfectly inside with plenty of room, at least for my pi with a poe hat. My only gripes are 1. the screw holes along the back are right up against the backside making it almost impossible to screw in. I solved this by tightening a screw into the standoff then using the screwdriver to tighten down. I was then able to hold the standoff in place while removing the screw. 2. there are a lot of very small screws to keep track of when taking this apart and putting back together. I think there are something like 12. The good news is feels extremely solid when put together. 3. There are no instructions in the box, you have to scan a QR Code on the box that I did not see until after I figured out what everything was for. It was not impossible by any means, just something to look out for. Like I said, very minor gripes.

I've used this case on a few rpi so far, It's the best option for most hats that have multiple input/output ports. Examples: Waveshare Isolated RS485 CAN HAT B which makes a great modbus master or slave and adds CAN, A decent NAS with an M2 hat, InnoMaker HiFi DAC Pro which makes a great MoOde media player if your audio equipment is good enough to take advantage of the extra quality... I wish they would make a case specifically for the InnoMaker HiFi DAC Pro so I don't have to keep dremmeling out a slot for separate power to the DAC

Excelente calidad, muy buenas terminaciones, muy adecuado para uso corporativo.

Sturdy, well made, and simple. It does not fit a majority of the hats and does not allow enough room. Also it could use some ventilation on the top of the case, especially if you are trying to cram a pcie hat in there.

Overall I feel like the case is well made, the outputs fit snuggle inside the cutouts of the case, etc. However, it was a nightmare to connect PCIe. Because of how the Raspberry Pi bolts down to the bottom of the case, and there are no screw holes on the underside, you can't easily preassemble the NVMe hat before putting it into the case. What I had to do was connect the PCIe ribbon before putting it into the case, then hold the NVMe board up at a 90 degree angle and try to get in 3 of the standoffs to secure the Pi down. Even that was a nightmare that took probably a half hour because for one of the standoffs I only had about 5 degrees to tighten it. I know that screws on the outside of the case are not aesthetically pleasing but if they had screws from the bottom this would have been 90% easier. I'm still giving it 3 stars because I think other HAT types or no hat at all would not be an issue. It's specifically PCIe that I would not recommend this case for. Unfortunately this is one of the few cases with plenty of room for NVMe hats so I suspect a lot of people will find it for that purpose.

I have a Raspberry Pi 5 and bought the recommended plastic case, which was perfect. However, I decided to increase the storage capacity and bought a board for an M2 solid state memory to fit on top of the motherboard. With the HAT, it wouldn't fit in the plastic case and I had to get a new case. I looked at several cases and bought the KKSB case. I also bought a second Ri Pi 5 and a second KKSB case because I was so pleased with the result. I liked the case and, being metal, I assumed it would dissipate the extra heat of the M2 memory better than plastic. Morever, the reset switch activator worked well ... a previous case simply had a hole that you had to poke something through to do a reset ... a dreadful omission. I was was very happy with the result. My only niggle was that getting the motherboard plus HAT into the case was a very tight fit because the tiny screw holding the M2 memory in place jutted out a little and it took a little pushing to get the HAT in the case. This was not a significant problem. Note that I did not use the GPIO and its extender, so I can't comment on that. For my application, which is learning ARM AArch64 programming, I am hoppy with this case because it is effective, low cost, and robust.

I was not able to properly close the box with an nvme top, it was a useless order for me. It doesn't properly fit with a rasberry pi and a hat added. the screw and poles are not providing a good solution to attach a nice top.

Ein gutes, stabiles Gehäuse für den Raspberry Pi 5, wenn man auch eine ssd unterbringen will. Man muss sich allerdings klar sein, dass man viel schrauben muss.

An excellent case for the Pi, my only beef was that I already had the HAT mounted and had to pull the pi apart to fiddle around with the screws to get it mounted properly in the case. The standoff screws that came with and are needed to mount into this case properly are a touch too long for the HAT that I have, and the ribbon between the Pi and the HAT was a little shorter than it needed to be for the standoffs. The HAT is a tiny bit longer than the case allows for, so I can't screw the top of the case closed on the side where the M2 screws down - which is OK for me because I swap out the M2 drive regularly and it just means less screwing to worry about.

Actualización del comentario con ventilador de 1cm de altura: Le he instalado el ventilador Noctua NF-A4x10 5V PWM que es de 1cm de altura y 4cm de lado y queda más espacio para ventilar y mejoran las temperaturas comparado con el noctua de 2cm de altura que quedaba muy ajustado con poco espacio para tomar aire. Ver fotos. Los 48mm de altura usables para hats son desde la base del PCB de la rpi5 hasta el techo interno de la caja KKSB. Fijaros en la foto donde van los tornillos del frontal y el trasero ya que la caída del frontal y trasero no es recta en toda su longitud dentro de la caja. Tenedlo en cuenta a la hora de instalar hats del mismo tamaño que la rpi5 y caigan a esa altura de los rebordes hacia adentro de la caja. El logotipo K en el frontal lo hubiera hecho cortado con laser simulando el logo lo que favorecería la ventilación y el wifi ya que queda justo la antena wifi de la rpi5 detrás del logo de KKSB. Excelente caja. Muy contento con la compra. Comentario inicial: Caja de KKSB con 14 rendijas verticales y 9 rendijas horizontales en 3 grupos de 3 en cada lateral. La caja está muy bien construída y luce fantástica. He conseguido meter milagrosamente la siguiente receta: 1) Ventilador Noctua NF-A4x20 (4x4cm y 2cm de altura) con los cables adaptados al conector fan de la rpi5. 2) 40mm Active Cooler for Raspberry Pi 5.No es el active-cooler oficial si no uno adaptado a ventiladores de 4cm. 3) 52Pi Raspberry Pi 5 N04 M.2 2280 PCIe a NVMe. 4) Cable Raspberry Pi 5 PCIE FPC con diferencial 90R Mcuzone de 5cm. 5) NVME 2280 con disipador Thermalright M.2 2280 PRO. Sobra menos de 1mm. Toda una suerte. Ver fotos. Yo le hubiera dado a la caja dos rendijas más en la parte trasera una encima de los puertos de conexión y otra un poco más arriba para mejorar la circulación del aire y poder pasar cables desde dentro de la caja hacia atrás. También hubiera puesto 2 agujeros más en el techo para poder poner accesorios en el trasero del techo también. Y lo más importante, 4 mm más de altura sería perfecto y los milagros no serían necesarios. Una obra de arte. 48mm de altura usable dentro de la caja. Excelente caja para la rpi5. 19 euros a fecha de abril del 2024.