Bacteria's making a new casing that's "modder friendly"

[MrPopo]

lol

Tomorrow i'll make a start on the case backing. I want to make the case backing suitable for N64, SNES or NES variants, however if people make NES portables with this, the game cart will stick out a bit, whereas with the N64 and SNES the game cart will be concealed behind.

True, but if you're making an NES handheled and you don't want the cart to stick up far you'd have to make it quite tall; just the unfortunate reality of the massively space inefficient NES carts.

[bacteria]

Yeah, only about 1/4 of the NES cart has a board in it.

Looks like i'll have to just make an N64 case backing, if I make the cart slot wider to also take a SNES cart instead, the batteries won't fit. Not an issue with the SNES board of course, different shape so not the issue.

Here is the basic setup - one more cell against the game cart, ie 3 per side, mirrored so 6 in total = 6 amps at 7.4v. Making it so the larger joystick (it is a good one) fits, or of course your could use a GameCube one if you prefer.

The yellow part represents a gap of 10mm for the controller board and memory/rumble pack section (ie a spacer in the pic).

[bacteria]

Rather than wasting a lot of clay for the mould, and loads of extra time for it to dry, used some old N64 game cart cases stuck down onto thick card. The game boards are removed as I need those for my Alpha Omega project, the empty game cases would have been thrown away anyway.



Using this type of clay, from what I read, this is the best type of clay, even though it is expensive; it contains paper so is less liable to shrink on drying and also less likely to crack, than the usual air-dry clay with plastic strands.



Looks like crap at the moment but bear in mind this is before sanding it down to be smooth and shaped.



It will take a couple of days to dry out enough to use my electric sander on.

Taken a few guesses with the making of this case backing, regards angles of slopes, size, position, etc; hoping not to have to waste too many sheets of styrene before get finished product, the sheets cost £4 each after all (A3 sized).

[bacteria]

Ok, managed to make a case backing that will work for not only N64 but also SNES, RetroDuo (ie SNES and NES), MegaDrive (although the MegaDrive 1 and 2 boards are too large so it would need to be a clone console instead). This is ideal, looking at my gaming collection, I have a lot of N64 games but appear to have even more SNES; so it's nice to have ability to use the larger SNES carts in the same casing.

Update time:

Stuck the two case halves together with some sticky pads, which can be easily separated. This allowed me to hold the whole structure and put my electric sander to the perimeter to get them straight and the same size and shape. Then proceeded to do more electric sanding and also sanding by hand. The result as you see in the 2nd picture looks really nice. The two case halves will be less high than this, you need overlap when making moulds, the final case halves will be about 15-20% less high than looks like in the pics for that reason.



Result:



I am very happy with the case backing mould. It looks symmetrical to the eye and is nicely shaped and curved. I'll do pics from different angles of the result after vacuum forming. Postman arrived today but I was out, will collect the A3 plasticard (styrene HIPS) on Friday, and make a vacuum forming table soon after, so can make a casing. Got a small 100ml pot of paint for the casing, going to be two tone, black shoulder buttons (need to make the moulds for them too BTW), and the main case colour, a dull orange, will look nice!

Got final sanding to do on it, last bits to get really smooth.

[Xelyx]

I'm a little confused here. If I buy a finished one from you, will it be able to run carts from only one system, or multiple ones? Probably a retarded question, but I was a little confused from your last post.

[bacteria]

I'm a little confused here. If I buy a finished one from you, will it be able to run carts from only one system, or multiple ones? Probably a retarded question, but I was a little confused from your last post.

As standard, you can use the casing for one console system, eg N64, SNES. If you have a RetroDuo (which is NES and SNES) then you should be able to use the casing for both carts with a little extra work on the case itself (eg shelves for two game carts).

[bacteria]

Ok, updates - thought i'd share progress. Turns out that although there was a little crease in a small part of the case, the case half is usable otherwise. So, here's what i've done today:

After my first sheet was damaged due to my vacuum table being too small, broke it apart (to keep the vacuum cleaner hose attachment part and stand) and made a new larger section for the top. Ugly doesn't matter, it's a functional table:



With the sides on, just some cardboard type material stuck in place with paper tape, the strength of the struts are MDF as is the table top.



Here is the one good case half I made, smooth huh? No sanding needed.



Now the fun bit - made the cart slot area large enough to take a SNES cartridge (PAL and NTSC) and also N64, pic is N64 cart - layer 1 of system (needs cart slot shelf made of course); fan will also go in the space:



Layer 2 - batteries and controller board. Note, the batteries do not need opening up. Enough space for about 4 cell packs, ie 8 amps. Controller board will need memory and/or rumble pack wired to it if needed (one of the only "tricky" parts to this project (that says something).



Layer 3 - N64 board and expansion pack. No board trimming needed, although cart slot relocation needed (easy).



Layer 4 - screen board - doesn't have to be a PSone screen, can be any other that isn't overly thick, within reason:



Side view:



Top piece of course covers that section.

As you see very simple stuff.

Looks nice, good to hold, no interference on the sides; the middle handhold sections are curved so even a Makopad large joystick can be installed ok (they are 31mm thick). The handhold area will be about 33mm thick in the middle and about 24mm or thereabouts on the edges.

[bacteria]

Hot glued the plumbing fixture into the hole at the base of the vacuum table.



This is what the frame looks like when has the plastic sheet inside, and the string tied to keep the frames tightly holding the plastic sheet.



These struts ensure that when the sheet is lowered it will have the frame outside the table top, so the air can be sucked out airtight.



Wasted another sheet, the suction wasn't enough; covered the edges with duct tape to make it airtight; and added plumbing pieces to allow two vacuum cleaners to work instead of one. The result was suction so strong that it sucked the plastic inside the holes after it came out of the oven, so much that on some holes it broke the plastic in the hole!





Result - did the front section too:



There are things to do:

* the plastic on the top left gets pulled a bit in the top corner, which is annoying (why does this happen?)
* the front section needs a couple of edges trimmed down a bit
* the front part doesn't look quite symetrical, will need to look at that too
* the slope on the left isn't quite as much as on the right, will need to rectify; pretty good but not good enough

Need to work out the size and shape for the shoulder buttons and make a mould for them; maybe a d-pad and buttons too.

[darkreaper]

That looks great, looking forward to the next updates. Smooth casing, what do you think the total weight will be for a complete system?

Think it's a really cool project, keep it up.

[bacteria]

A typical portable weighs in at 1kg including batteries, or thereabouts, maybe slightly less; which is perfectly fine.