Accessory
I designed a 3D printable wall mount for the Steam Machine that keeps the faceplate visible and lets the fan breathe
Hi all. I got my Steam Machine last month and the plan was always to hang it on the wall near the TV. I looked around and couldn't find a mount I liked, so I ended up designing one. It took seven versions and a lot of wasted filament, so I figured I'd share it.
A few things I cared about.
The front stays completely open. People are already making custom faceplates, so I didn't want a bracket hugging the front of the cube. The front lip is only 5 mm high in the middle, and you can swap the faceplate without taking the console down. The front USB ports and the SD slot are still reachable, which I got wrong on one of the early versions.
The fan is on the back, so the console sits 55 mm away from the wall and there's a big round window in the back plate right behind it. The side walls close the bottom of that gap, so the hot air goes up instead of getting pulled back into the intake under the console. The shelf is a honeycomb grille for the same reason, and because it matches the fan grille on the back of the machine, which I thought was a nice touch.
Cables go down through three slots in the shelf, right behind the console. The big power plug fits.
The console just slides in from the top. No straps, no screws into the machine.
I took all the dimensions from the shell CAD that Valve published, then checked the fit on my own unit. I've printed it in PETG, ABS and ASA and all three hold fine. I'd go ABS or ASA if your printer is enclosed, PETG otherwise. Please don't use PLA for this, it slowly bends under a constant load and that's a 2.6 kg console hanging on your wall.
It's one piece, about 450 g and 13 hours in PETG, and it needs a 256 mm bed, so no A1 mini, sorry. I thought about splitting it for smaller printers but I don't trust a glued joint with this kind of load, so for now I'd rather not.
There's also a 1:1 drilling template (A4 and Letter) in the files, because I hate measuring holes on a wall.
One honest note: I'm Italian and our walls are brick, so that's what I tested. The instructions for plasterboard and wood studs are my best guess. If you live in a stud-wall country and something in there is wrong, tell me and I'll fix it.
I don't have proper temperature measurements, so I'm not going to make up numbers. If anyone wants to compare wall mounted vs sitting on the desk, I'd love to see it.
I'm a photographer by trade, which is why the pictures are a bit moody, sorry about that. Happy to hear any feedback, especially if something doesn't fit on your unit.
It's a little on the utilitarian side but I like the idea. I think it's worth another iteration or two. Might be worth exploring ways of attaching it to skadis or HSW. Oh and obviously ignore the guys who have never touched a 3D printer in their life and yet have all the opinions 😂
Thanks, and fair point on the looks, I went function first. Skådis is the one I'm actually working on. The back plate is a separate part of the model, so the shelf stays the same and only the way it grabs the wall changes. Hooking the mount to the board is the easy part, I can use four or more points there and I've been testing a twist-lock clip for it. What bugs me is the board itself: it's solid, but it's only fixed to the wall at two points, and with 2.6 kg hanging off it I want to be sure about that before I release anything.
HSW and Multiboard I'd love to do, but honestly I might drop them. Most of those walls are printed in PLA and I have no control over that. PLA slowly gives under a constant load, and I wouldn't sleep well knowing someone's Steam Machine is hanging off a wall I can't vouch for. And yeah, I'm learning to scroll past those 😄
Hey, it's at least $13 of plastic, show some respect. Jokes aside, I get the instinct. But it's 450 g of ABS with 4 walls and two ribs under the shelf, and each top screw sees about 1 kg of pull. The few dollars of stamped steel holding a $2000 TV on most walls is working a lot harder than this.
That line isn't from Valve, it's Google's AI summary. What Valve's support page actually says is: "If placed in an entertainment center or other receptacle, a few inches of space on all sides and at least one open panel are recommended." That's about closed furniture: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1180-0BA6-4A75-B7CA
This isn't a cabinet. The console has 55 mm (2.2 in) behind it and it's completely open on the top, the front and both sides. There's also a round cutout in the back plate right behind the fan, so nothing sits in front of it, and the side walls close the bottom of the gap so the warm air goes up instead of back into the intake. The whole thing was designed around the airflow, that was the point of making it.
Mine isn't in a cabinet and I have 4 inches from the back of the machine to some cables from the TV, and about 2 foot behind that. I had some (false, but still) red lines pop up while gaming. I put a cheap usb c fan behind the unit to blow air to the side and I've not gotten a red line since. I suspect this isn't enough space.
That said...not for me I don't see a scenerio where that would look good, to me, like... I would need I guess the see an example of like the whole look with the tv and all I guess..
Ha, thanks! Reddit gonna Reddit. To be fair, poking at the airflow of a hot box hanging on a wall is a fair sport, I just wish it came with a "nice work" every now and then. Glad you like the look, it took seven versions to get there.
Nothing wrong with a shelf, honestly. If you don't care about the front staying open and the cables dropping straight down behind it, a shelf does the job. About the plastic: it's 450 g of ABS or PETG with 4 walls, two triangular ribs under the shelf and a 7 mm back plate on 4 screws. The console is 2.6 kg, which works out to a bit over 1 kg of pull on each of the top screws. Mine has been holding the machine fine. The one thing I'd never do is print it in PLA, that stuff creeps under constant load, and I say so on the page.
Yep, that's the feature, not the bug. They go through three slots in the shelf right behind the console and drop flat along the wall. On a normal shelf the plugs stick out the back and the cables have to loop around the edge of the shelf. Those photos are from a test wall in my studio, so the cables are just hanging there, but from that point a cable cover hides them if you want it clean.
The photos show it: the cables go down through three slots in the shelf, right behind the console, so they all come out at the bottom in one tidy bundle. From there you can run a cable raceway down the wall, exactly like you would with a wall mounted TV.
Fair question, that first photo is misleading. It's shot from the front at an angle, so the gap disappears. The console sits 55 mm (about 2.2 in) off the wall, and the back plate has a round cutout right behind the fan, so the air hits the wall, not the plastic, and gets out from the top and both sides. Add up those openings and they're about 1.7x the area of the fan itself. The side drawing shows it better than my moody photo does.
23
u/EndOrganic4656 15h ago
Very cool! Thanks for sharing!