Reverse CAD Atari ST case.

[chakobsa]

It would be amazing to be able to buy new cases for the ST. This is an area which is sadly missing for Atari retro users.

Amiga users are very lucky. I have new black replacement cases for my A1200 and A500 and it just completes the refurbishment of our wonderful machines.

[exxos]

IIRC Amiga guys found the original molds.

[Marcopolomint1]

Yeah sorry I saw the posts on the splits and rejoins also and it’s a technique we use a lot in prototyping but like you say it’s the efforts and accuracy of the rejoin and how you split. Normally I’ll create what’s called an A-surf and split early on in the CAD feature tree.

But in terms of consumer grade finish the surface texture you put on (which is put on the moulding tool) can’t be achieved by FDM/SLS/SLI of any type that technology allows yet. Basically you can’t print a VDI30 surface finish.

BUT if your goal is geometry accuracy and material, finish and colour are not important then prints are fine. I was just looking to the production/commercial route which I’m familiar with.

My gut feel is it’s viable…but to cover the tooling cost at say 500 units you need £30 margin on each case set to break even at the soft tooling costs I believe are in the right ball park.

[Marcopolomint1]

So just to close off this thread from my point of view and think from what I can tell, a production quality moulded case would be nice to have but unlikely to attract the kind of investment needed for even the soft tooling method I suggest.

[alexh]

IIRC Amiga guys found the original molds.

That's not true. A1200.net paid tens of thousands to remake them from scratch. I think their Kickstarter raised like £150k for the A1200 case and Indiegogo raised £159k for the A500 case

The only original molds I know that were found were those of the Atari Jaguar that following the close of Atari were sold to a company making dentistry equipment who used them to encase dentistry devices until they sold them to Atari enthusiasts.

[rubber_jonnie]

Just as a side note I saw a post somewhere (I can't recall if it was on here or elsewhere) about a 3D printed case ordered from PCBWay I think. It was very expensive too.

I know that's a lot of 'I thinks' BTW...

It didn't turn out well, very poor quality and ultimately unusable, so just be aware you might not get the result you want from a 3D print house and it may well depend on the quality of your model.