exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

cool, removable back panel is a nice idea.

btw, have you seen the transparent case designed by #10p6 for @Suavek RE-Falcon030?
www.facebook.com/people/RE-Falcon030/61579261690144/

exxos wrote: 02 May 2026 10:15 Nice! Removable back panels was where I wanted to go next for our case remake.

Yes, nice idea. We did do that a while back @exxos on three areas:

Removable Slot in Rear Panel - viewtopic.php?p=49863#p49863
STE Joystick port cover - viewtopic.php?p=75437#p75437
Floppy panels - viewtopic.php?p=75447#p75447

One point what I was trying to make a while ago, is splitting the top section into multiple chunks for starters.

EG:


The hole are not in the right place, but its only a draft idea anyway.


The new join supports running front to back didn't render fully to the back but oh well.. again its more "thinking out loud".

Overall idea is that printing a large area can mess up easily. But in 3 sections , if one sections gets messed up, or broken, it doesn't need the whole lot doing again.

The keyboard cutout *almost* is flat to 3D print.. but that would likely need some tweaking and would still need fixing locations adding, which could be tricky as the keyboard could be in the way.


Overall idea being the keyboard area would be easier to print on if it was all lay flat to start with.

Plus as @Icky posted above, removal back panels etc was already considered and designed.

To be clear, this is all just thinking out loud at this point. Finishing the files, designs and concepts, along with trial printing and testing, will take months if not years to complete. We're flooded with so much work already that there simply aren't enough hours in the day.

Some people are likely to grumble about certain aspects of this, but 3D printing is the cheapest option available. A few folks have already printed cases and the results haven't been great. Making the case modular, though, solves several problems at once. It reduces the overall size, makes each part easier and cheaper to print, and means that if a print fails you only need to redo one section rather than the whole thing. It also means a broken part can be easily replaced on its own.

Shipping is where it gets tricky. A "flat pack" style case is far better than shipping a large, essentially empty case, where volumetric weight nonsense drives the costs right up. If it's cheap enough for people to print themselves at home or through a service like JLC, then it becomes a straightforward trade-off between cost and quality. That said, that framing isn't entirely fair, since a modular case can be printed to a really high standard anyway.

May I suggest an alternative way of aligning the parts?

If you put tubes into the design with a 1mm interior hole you can then you 1mm brass rod, cut to size, to locate and hold the parts and then use epoxy (UV curing or two part) to hold the parts together.

That's what I did with the Camputers Lynx case and it worked very well.

Good thinking !

Sharing the STL ?

I'll not pollute this thread with Lynx stuff.

Do a search on Thingiverse.

stephen_usher wrote: 16 Jul 2026 22:53 May I suggest an alternative way of aligning the parts?

If you put tubes into the design with a 1mm interior hole you can then you 1mm brass rod, cut to size, to locate and hold the parts and then use epoxy (UV curing or two part) to hold the parts together.

That's what I did with the Camputers Lynx case and it worked very well.

It would save some space using 1mm rod. Though the draft design was based on using 3mm nuts and bolts. It would be trading bolts for glue, which I was actually trying to avoid by using bolts in the first place :)

zfrenchy wrote: 16 Jul 2026 22:54 Good thinking !

Sharing the STL ?

There is no STL.. it was just a "thinking out loud" post, or a "proof of concept" and a week one at that.That's a lot of mechanical stuff to think about even before thinking about doing any test prints. A workable STL is likely months away if not years.

If the design was altered to make the keyboard section flat, that would lift the keyboard slightly. It would give more room for internal add-ons like PiSTorm.

It might spoil the aesthetics.