3D Printed NU_IO Case

When I ordered my NU_IO I reached out to Brian about designing a case for them, after a couple of questions about things he would like to see and getting the dimensions of the board I started on the design and came up with the following case.



The case is printed in five pieces, the top, bottom, rib, case feet and the swappable back plate. The rib is printed separate so it can be printed in a different color than the main case (in this case a gloss black), the back plate, top and bottom are printed in a semi-matte (unfortunately hard to tell from the pictures) black, and the feet are printed in TPU (flexible plastic). The back plate was designed to be swappable to allow future revisions of the board and not having to reprint the whole case, plus it allows the plate to be printed flat to get more readable text from the print.

The rib captures the back plate and grips the top of the case to stay secure and the whole thing is held together with 4 M3 screws, which are then covered by the TPU case feet.



I am super happy with how this case came out and it looks great sitting next to my NeXTstations.

Couple more photos of the assembly



Some details about the print itself:
I usually print on a glass bed, but as you can see on the picture of the bottom of the case this produces a high gloss finish even for the semi-matte black, so I switched to an older buildtak surface for the top of the case which produces a nice matte finish, but also allows it to pick up some light impressions of previous prints or scuffs on the surface. Its less noticeable in person than the pictures.

These parts were printed with Hatchbox Black PLA for the rib, Polymaker PolyMax PETG for the top, bottom, back plate and Sainsmart TPU95 for the feet. All parts were printed with 0.2 layer height except the rib section which was 0.15. No support was used, and only the rib was printed with a raft. The printer is a Raise3D N2+ with a Bondtech upgrade.

If there is an interest I can see about providing the STL files, the models do have a couple of tight tolerances so hopefully it would be easily printable by others.

The cases are absolutely beautiful in person.







Rbz really hit it out of the park with this. The way it all fits together was -very- well thought out. I think I was supposed to provide some constructive criticism, but frankly I think it's perfect.

Those are gorgeous.  Definitely would like the STL files so I can print up a couple for my own NU_IO boards.

Nice project, congratulations. I had a shell for the Brian's NU_IO printed with an identical look to the original Soundbox. Unfortunately the printing service that made the shell doesn't want to give me the STL files 🙁

Yo I could use a couple of these as well after lighting myself up touching the bottom of these boards!

Quote from: trodemaster on September 23, 2020, 05:26:25 PMYo I could use a couple of these as well after lighting myself up touching the bottom of these boards!

Quote from: Theta-K7 on September 14, 2020, 12:58:31 AMThose are gorgeous.  Definitely would like the STL files so I can print up a couple for my own NU_IO boards.

I am making a few tweaks to the design, and then I will be happy to send out the STL to whomever wants to print a case for their own personal use.

Quote from: krazycat on September 14, 2020, 02:36:54 AMUnfortunately the printing service that made the shell doesn't want to give me the STL files 🙁

Ugh, that blows! I was thinking of doing a soundbox based design but I don't have a soundbox to replicate.

So I ended up a redesign of the case, which I feel makes it a more polished product at the end.

The "core" of the case is now printed in Prusament Galaxy Black PETG and the edges and corner piece are in the Polymaker PolyMax Black PETG . The center rib and back plate are still in Hatchbox Black PLA and the feet are in Sainsmart Black TPU95. As before M3x10 screws hold the case together.



Assembly is straight forward, the edge pieces slip over the top and bottom pieces, the rib slips over the top, the back plate slides into the slot in the rib and the corner piece pops and is held in place with a dab of glue.

Original design is available for download on Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4615196

This includes the original case as pictured above, a version of the rib without the front logo, and a version that combines the top and rib section with logo as a single piece for easier single filament, single color printing.

Share your prints! If you end up having issues with it printing let me know and I will see what I can tweak.

Hello RBZ: I am looking forward to having the cases available as I'm already getting request.Your timing on this is perfect for me as a lightbulb went off. The past few weeks I've been tinkering with 90's technology specifically Zip and Jaz Drives . In the heyday they were the go to back up solution, all I know is the reliability of the media as well as the age of the hardware sent me down the rabbit hole.

In a moment of clarity the obvious solution is a SCSI2SD external for backup , easy as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

I bought a total of 21 Jaz disks. The first 17 had media errors some would mount momentarily none would successfully format or initialise, I returned them; the seller was aware of the issue and just refunded the $49.

Out of caution, I bought 4 more of them that said in the listing tested and formatted , well after many tries these also are duds.

I have 3 Jaz drives, same results , same unique media errors matching the disk on all 3 drives so the drives themselves seem to work.

Long story short all these old Jaz drives and Zip drives are going into a historical box.

I was able to get one of the zip drives working and even a few disks but for my sanity, as customers are going to be using these for backups. Not hobbyist projects but important money making projects, the SCSI2 SD will be the best solution and covers me.


 An internal SCSI2 or 2 and an external SCSI2 should cover all future backups and we can write it to modern hardware and use Previous as a bridge.   

All I need are a few of the cases to test and I'm guessing the 50 pin connectors and well we need to modify  the case for scsi2sd as this one is for the sound card, hopfuly it is possible as the look is awesome.:)  Thank you in advance for making a nice NeXT case solution.

Finally a "valid reason" to get a 3D printer. ;)

Nice work on the case rbz!

@rbz: nice work and a big ,,thank You!" - I ordered my NU_IO case today :-)

Wait, are these cases available to buy now?

Rbz made the design available, see
http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=4514.msg26440#msg26440
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4615196
Print yourself or use any 3d printing service, for example https://craftcloud3d.com/

Quote from: krazycat on September 14, 2020, 02:36:54 AMNice project, congratulations. I had a shell for the Brian's NU_IO printed with an identical look to the original Soundbox. Unfortunately the printing service that made the shell doesn't want to give me the STL files 🙁

That is absolutely identical to the original soundbox.

I did end up ordering the parts to make one of these and everything came back great and then... turns out my board is slightly different - only the front 2 screws will work, and also the M3-10 screws that were recommended are too big for the mounting holes in my board anyway.  Mine might be an early run or something?  Just an FYI for anyone else might want to double check the spacing before making/ordering one!  I'm getting smaller screws to see if it'll be stable enough with just 2 screws.

Which version is your board?

Quote from: pergamon on November 05, 2021, 10:00:35 AMI did end up ordering the parts to make one of these and everything came back great and then... turns out my board is slightly different - only the front 2 screws will work, and also the M3-10 screws that were recommended are too big for the mounting holes in my board anyway.  Mine might be an early run or something?  Just an FYI for anyone else might want to double check the spacing before making/ordering one!  I'm getting smaller screws to see if it'll be stable enough with just 2 screws.

Do you have pics?

The screw posts / boss / standoffs are slightly undersized so that the threads of the M3 will bite into the plastic. However if the hole is much smaller it may crack the plastic. A M2.5 or M2 should work fine depending how undersized the standoff hole is, its basically just to hold the board in place.

Which revision of the case are you using and where did you get it from?

We have the source code to netinfo now. So we can just look this stuff up.

https://github.com/johnsonjh/NeXTSrc/tree/master/netinfo-28

oops. Posted this on the wrong thread.