Hello NeXT Community: I have a number of NeXT Cubes missing faceplates and the majority of NeXT Cubes had dual optical faceplates. I thought for fun I would see what it will take to come up with a 3rd party faceplate replacement solution.
I checked into my local Colorado State University and found as an Alumni I can take a 2 hour course to become certified in 3d Scanning and 3d printing for just $49. And to manufacture the part is $30 and I'm guessing once I have the 3d scan cad file(s) , in theory they will work transparently so I would be able to upload them here for use by everyone. Once the file is available I'm sure that price would come down .
I would also want to make the Bezel plugs as many cubes have open slots in the front where optical drives are removed and back slats where motherboards were removed or slats lost and perhaps a Bezel conversion from Optical to floppy. Also a custom one for non slotted cd drives or zip drive etc... once a cad drawing exists it should be easy to make conversions and would encourage group participation , I know I'm not the only one thinking this would be cool.
Also a complete back plate as I have some cube missing those as well.
If it will work also would be cool to make templates of the 3 cube case pieces that fit together and form the cube although they are zero shaft , in theory these could be made into molds and the drawings could be manipulated for internal mod mount points and magnesium NeXT Cube clones would manifest mad science down the road . Also for use in replacing damaged shell pieces.
Custom parts may also be made for an envisioned original Cube with cocooning a modern mac mini hybrid.
Also on the radar a poor mans color cube using a Turbo Color board and slab internals with in a cube case , the idea here is to create 3d custom mounting points for slab internals without affecting the original integrity of the cube case , I think there would be enough space to perhaps have an original cube mother board on the right with a Turbo Color board and power supply on the left for fun . Feel free to take these ideas and run with them.
It looks like the engineering department has some top notch equipment sitting idle during Summer so for now I'm setting up my training and starting with the faceplate and bezels as a work in progress . I have a lot on my plate right now catching up with orders but this will mainly be for fun as I've wanted to experience working with 3d scanning and printing technology first hand.
Any ideas, help or advice appreciated and may be someone has done this ?
Best regards Rob Blessin :idea:
There were sketchup files posted not too long ago for the faceplate. So the hard work should be done already. When I priced it out it was around 150 to have one 3d printed.
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Brian
Hello,
this a reworked bezel - I modified the original to meet my requirements, concerning USB and the power switch.
However, I think you could use them as a base for recreating the original, since the outer measurements are taken of the original and the CD slot matches also the original measurements...
Oliver