Adafruit Designs 3D Printed Mount, Plus Add-Ons, for Its Crickit PCB

We often see 3D printing used to fabricate various mounts, whether they’re for your OtterBox iPhone case, your GoPro video camera, or your Garmin unit. In today’s world, it’s common to go hands-free with your assorted devices…who wants to hold something when you can prop it up on a unique and kicky little mount or stand instead?

We often enjoy writing about the various 3D printed projects conducted by Adafruit, from the gaming-centric (HD video goggles and GameBoys) and artistic to the more unique, such as customizable hat graphics and a detachable drone trophy.

Now, the New York-based open source hardware company has published a how-to video on its latest project – a 3D printed mount for its Crickit PCB. Not to be confused with the Cricit cutting machine, which many of my craftier friends covet, Crickit is Adafruit’s robotics platform, an add-on to the company’s popular Circuit Playground Express that helps you make your own creative robot projects.

“Sometimes we wonder if robotics engineers ever watch movies. If they did, they’d know that making robots into slaves always ends up in a robot rebellion,” Adafruit wrote. “Why even go down that path? Here at Adafruit, we believe in making robots our friends!

“So if you find yourself wanting a companion, consider the robot. They’re fun to program, and you can get creative with decorations.

“With that in mind, we designed Crickit – That’s our Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit.”

Adafruit’s Crickit is powered by its “I2C-to-whatever bridge firmware,” also known as seesaw. Only two data pins are needed to control all of the inputs and outputs on the Crickit, as the rest of its sensors, timers, and PWMs are offloaded to its co-processor. The kit comes with all sorts of fun goodies, all powered via 5V DC, like a Class D audio amplifier, four servo controls with precision 16-bit timers, and eight signal pins.

So, if you have your own Crickit board, but want to secure it to another project in order to keep your hands free for other important tasks, Adafruit has the answer with its simple, multi-purpose 3D printed Crickit PCB mount.

The design also has several additional add-ons you can create, so you can mount it in a variety of ways on multiple surfaces, like acrylic, cardboard, and wood. The first has openings for multiple terminal blocks and various ports so there’s still room for wires and cables, while the second features a slot for inserting a removable tripod screw.

The third add-on is designed to secure an AA battery pack. For this one, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve secured the pack to the mount before you add the Crickit.

The final add-on is perfect for prototyping LEGO projects, which will require some screws to secure the PCB.

“If you’d like, you can design your own custom add-ons or modify our existing designs,” Adafruit said in their how-to video. “The design files are free to download and they’re linked in the description of this video.”

Happy mounting!

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[Images: Adafruit]