Giant 3D Printed SD Card That Works!!! (Contest Special)

Hello everyone. You will see something unique and exciting in this instructable, and you might not have seen this before probably. We will make a functional Giant "SD Card" with a storage capacity of 512 GB that connects to a computer via USB.

So we will technically create an enclosure for an already-existing USB hard disk drive. Thus, we will be able to make it functional by enabling it to actually store a good amount of data.

This is not a technical project, but it is a great 3D design challenge as we are accurately upscaling an SD card in its size!

Sounds interesting, let's dive right in!

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Supplies

We don't need that much stuff here so it's gonna be simple:

• A hard disk drive (any capacity)
• 3D printer (or) 3D printing service provider
• Some yellow paper
• Sticker for front panel (completely optional)
• Some screws
• Double-sided tape
• Screwdriver

Gather these and move on!

Step 1: Story (Contest Special)

Well, I was randomly scrolling through the list of contests at Instructables and then I found something cool. There was this amazing contest called the "Big vs Small Challenge" where we had to either upscale a small object or vice versa.

This caught my attention and I started thinking about the same. I started looking for small objects around me (I was particularly interested in upscaling something small because I had been working on many small-sized projects lately). Fortunately enough, I found an SD card lying on my table and that is what led to this complete project.

Though upscaling an SD card by just making a huge hard disk drive enclosure might not be the greatest and the most productive idea out there but still it is a great design challenge to give a try. Also, I upscaled the SD card exactly five times without losing the ratio. I did this while also making a comfortable compartment for the hard disk drive to be placed.

Step 2: Upscaling the SD Card

I took some serious measurements of the SD Card for about an hour, only to later discover that the exact dimensions are available on Google 😑. I have attached them above for you!

Well, coming to the point - I took all the dimensions and then exactly upscaled them 5 times, except for the thickness as that would be too thin even after a 25x upscale and the hard disk drive wouldn't fit in.

I even upscaled the connector slots that are available on the back of an SD card, used for data transfer so that the project would look even more professional. I also upscaled the sticker that is present on the front of an SD card in the same ratio.

After taking the measurements and calculating the required dimensions of the new giant "SD card", I moved ahead to designing it in Tinkercad.

Step 3: Giant SD Card Design

3.1 Design Challenge

When you design something out of your own imagination, you have a lot of room to play with. But, in this kind of a project where we need to replicate or upscale a design, it gets way more challenging as you are bound to a specific size and you need to make something look like another thing that already exists.

3.2 My Way Out

I kept this in mind and I had already taken the measurements of the small SD card and calculated upon what the new upscaled dimensions needed to look like. This made the process a whole lot easier.

So what I generally do for these kinds of enclosures is I first design the bottom part and the lid as one solid piece and then I duplicate it and then convert one of them into a bottom part and the other into the lid by slicing them up into halves. This is the exact workflow that I followed with this project too.

I tried to replicate every tiny detail as much as possible. I also put some screw holes so that we could later screw the lid neatly and firmly in place.

I used Tinkercad for designing the enclosure of the hard disk drive / the giant "SD card" as it is an amazing 3D CAD software for beginners but still supports some high levels of designing!

After completing the design, I exported the models as .stl files and uploaded them to IAmRapid to get an instant quote and ordered the parts right away.

Now let's make the giant "SD card" functional.

Step 4: Making Things Functional

So now we are going to actually make the SD card functional. For this, I am adding a hard disk drive inside the gigantic "SD card", as I might have already mentioned.

I am using a Seagate hard disk drive with a storage capacity of 512 GB. We just want it to store data, doesn't matter how much though. I have made a nice comfortable place in the enclosure for the hard disk to neatly fit in.

I just used some double-sided tape to get through easily and that was quite enough to just fix in the hard disk drive firmly in the enclosure and so that it wouldn't keep moving around in the little extra space it had.

Then I just used some screws and closed the enclosure.

Step 5: Final Touches

Now comes some really un-useful but interesting part of this Instructable. You might have seen by now how far I had gone with this project. I went one step further to even get custom stickers designed just so that the gigantic "SD card" would look more professional.

I designed a custom sticker for the front panel. I gave it a cool name - "NutDisk". I designed it in Canva and got it custom printed from Vistaprint. For the backside of the "SD card", I just cut out some strips of yellow paper and glued them in place.

These upgrades were totally necessary, at least that's what I felt :)

Step 6: The Actual Usage

Well, this gigantic "SD card" connects to any computer via a USB cable and the working of it is pretty straightforward (everything is just hyperbola, it is a simple hard disk drive 😋).

I had added a dedicated USB slot opening in the design for the USB cable to comfortable pass through as you can see in the images above.

If not as an SD card this project can totally serve as a cool thing lying around in your house and that is the main reason to even build this in the first place. It can also act as a cool looking hard disk enclosure. I recommend you try this out as it would be a great recreational project.

Thanks for reading :)