MiSTer FPGA Forum

Got a new case with a custom ioboard/usb combo from taobao (saw it on the Mister Facebook group). They have various colour variants and even an aluminum design.
Very nice and slim design. They replaced the vga port with a sega Saturn one. Which is okay. But I think I would prefer the vga one. I added/fiddled a usbc port for power which cracked a bit of the plastic. Nothing superglue can't fix.

New setup! So beautiful.

Here is my temporary setup, until I get some proper mounts for the Dell.
The Mister is in a plastic case under the Philips Monitor. The CRT is a Philips CM8833 Mk2, the menu-only resolution is slightly too high for the Philips, but any lower and the Dell LCD goes mad. The Dell is a 20" 2001FP LCD, and is only for cores that won't output a 15hz signal such as the PC ao86 core. Arcade stick is a Hori Rap V4, and the keyboard is a nice Razor Blackwidow. Speakers are M-Audio monitor speakers.
This is my favourite gaming corner of my spare room. I love using the Mister late at night, especially on computer cores where the backlit keyboard is perfect for night use.

allyourbasekris wrote: ↑Thu Feb 11, 2021 9:44 pm New setup! So beautiful.

I recently got the same case in the clear color, it is exactly what I had been looking for!

However the buttons didn't fit, because the buttons of my analog board are too high for some reason. So I found a clear acrylic rod online with a diameter of 8 mm. They did have clear colored rods as well, but they were only 6 mm. I had to sand it down slightly and still need to polish and then cut it to button rods.

To keep those rods from falling out, I found clear 8 mm silicone rings (at an online piercing shop, lol). I think the end result will look great.

Since I started using MiSTer last December, my MiSTer has been a bare DE10-Nano with just heatsink and SDRAM board.
Now I got beautiful clear acrylic case, IO board v6.1 with Noctua fan and USB Hub v2.1 from misterfpga.co.uk

bellwood420 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 8:59 am Since I started using MiSTer last December, my MiSTer has been a bare DE10-Nano with just heatsink and SDRAM board.
Now I got beautiful clear acrylic case, IO board v6.1 with Noctua fan and USB Hub v2.1 from misterfpga.co.uk

I have the exact same case, it is fantastic, I like how it has labels for all connectors. Really cool to be able to see all the lights. Shows off the nice blue-green color of the PCBs as well. Still need to finish creating my acrylic rods to be used as buttons.

new addition to my case

terminator2k2 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 8:00 pm new addition to my case

very neat.
Pi 3 A with a DAC hat ??
is this for MIDI on the AO486 ?

terminator2k2 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 23, 2021 8:00 pm new addition to my case

very very nice.. great work

muthuxmut wrote: ↑Wed Feb 24, 2021 7:20 am is this for MIDI on the AO486 ?

Yes, and for MIDI on Atari ST, Amiga... see here: https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi

Just upgraded my MiSTer from a really crappy 3D print to this one!

Just got my MiSTer set up so it's still rockin' the naked look, but I'm working on designing a custom case for it. Here's the first test cut off the CNC for the front panel. Still a few tweaks to make to the machining and I need to figure out fixturing so I can machine the other side (which will clear out the through-holes). I'm going for a N64-style layout with two USB ports on either side with the power/reset/OSD buttons in the middle.

Components are on the slow boat from AliExpress, but since the USB ports use standard d-style mounts and the buttons are standard 12mm/19mm, I'm hoping all of my measurements are good and I won't have to rebuild anything for the CNC.

It’s pretty crude, but here’s my home made mister case. The basis of it is a pencil box that I noticed was just the right size for the de10 nano. The front panel is made from a divider piece that’s supposed to sit inside the box. Also visible is my old little-used raspberry pi and on the left my daemonbite Genesis controller adapter and 2.4ghz M30 receiver plugged in to it.


Here’s the other side. I only cut holes for four of the USB ports, and I’m only currently using three. I made the holes fairly wide in the hopes of being able to grip my USB dongles through them, but it’s still pretty hard to get them out. Should have gone for taller narrower holes, I think. The bigger hole near the back is for SD card access. I covered it with a piece of foam that I cut to size from the packaging of the de10 nano.


Here’s the back panel. Not much to say about it.


And here’s the inside. The four holes around the edges are because I was planning to mount the front panel with screws, but when I tried to drill the holes in the panel the wood split (fortunately it came with two). So I used stick on velcro, which also has the advantage of creating a few millimetres gap, which the USB board’s connector needs. I was hoping not to cut a hole for the network cable, but I couldn’t get wifi to work. The board is held in place by screws which go through rubber feet and the wood into the board standoffs. The fan is mounted to the roof with silicon spacers. Because the wood is thicker than what fans are usually mounted on I had to pull them through from above rather than below, and the fan wound up sitting a bit low. I stuck some adhesive backed foam to the roof with a hole cut in it for the fan to bridge the gap and also hopefully dampen resonance in the wood from the fan, which seems to have worked pretty well. This is my second fan, a noctua. The first one was all but silent out of the case but quite loud when mounted, I assume from resonance. The noctua is still audible, but much less so.

DerGali wrote: ↑Thu Feb 11, 2021 1:08 am
16130053833451.jpg

Where did you get the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth dongle from?

I have one with an antenna which works. I purchased a smaller one which doesn't work with MiSTer.

Would be neat to have a 2-in-1 dongle like this that works with MiSTer.

Do you know which Wi-Fi chipset it uses?

Enthropy wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 7:54 pm Because essential parts of MiSTer devoured all my spare money, I have decided to try to make a case from junk found around my basement. It should not be that hard, right? Wrong! I will never be a carpenter At least it keeps my cats from chewing cables and munching on unprotected PCBs.

This is an absolutely wonderful use of the materials you already had around AND your creativity, and while there are always opportunities to make anything like this more beautiful, this is a fantastic, useful case with all of the features that YOU want for your own use. You had an idea and a desire to build something, so you just went ahead and did it. You made this happen, and we are celebrating that!

Great job, and enjoy your accomplishment!

P.S. As someone who has been unable to safely go to any stores to buy building materials for the past year, I know all too well the creativity that’s required to make these things happen with whatever is lying around. My daughter and I built a “sled” out of scraps of wood for the recent Texas snow storm. It was a little heavy, and not too pretty, but it worked great! We will likely never have another chance to sled here where we live, so this was pretty awesome.

Eiji wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 9:48 pm

DerGali wrote: ↑Thu Feb 11, 2021 1:08 am
16130053833451.jpg

Where did you get the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth dongle from?

I have one with an antenna which works. I purchased a smaller one which doesn't work with MiSTer.

Would be neat to have a 2-in-1 dongle like this that works with MiSTer.

Do you know which Wi-Fi chipset it uses?

I looked for the smallest and cheapest one on aliexpress
https://a.aliexpress.com/_uQZeBf
Warning it's not plug and play. I compiled a driver with all necessary firmware files
From here
https://github.com/SonelSA/rtl8723bu_realtek
I will post all compiled stuff I made. There is a driver in the kernel which is garbage, there are a lot of kernel patches for it(default using the wrong antenna etc) but I don't want to compile my own kernel.
I made a script which loads the new driver and but you need to replug the Dongle because of the bad kernel driver I think, which is maybe blockable but I didn't look into the boot kernel options yet. Bluetooth and wifi works in parallel but you have to be honest though that wifi performance isnt great when using in parallel in Bluetooth. But it's more than enough what I need.

really enjoyed several of the past MiSTer cases in this thread,
there are some super creative people here on the boards !

heres my quick attempt at an all-in-one (bartop cabinet with a mister, bluetooth speakers/amp, monitor stand).
i threw this together with some scrap wood and leftover t-molding.

those 3 USB ports in the front are 2 USB and 1 SNAC.
the monitor TATEs in both directions, and everything powers ON/OFF with a 20A inline power switch on an extension cord.

as an added feature i didnt anticipate, i can use the bluetooth amp to play music off my phone along with the MiSTer core at the same time.

A fun little one-off from https://retrofrog.net, color matched to the Amiga 500:
Night time:

limi wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 8:24 am A fun little one-off from https://retrofrog.net, color matched to the Amiga 500:

AMiSTer.jpeg

Night time:

AMiSTer-Night.jpg

That is really cool! The logo instantly gives it an Amiga vibe.

I couldn't help myself and ordered the Looking Glass colored acrylic case from misterfpga.co.uk. (I already have the clear one). I think it looks fantastic, like real glass, matching my blue-green PCBs and still clearly showing the colors of the MiSTer.

Nat super kindly helped me out with the proper switches (thinner ones), so the case buttons will fit. As well as LEDs (green LED I got was too dim).

Here’s mine. It’s a big “case”, but it is a lot of fun!

After SNAC and SD-Extensions I added the OLED for my Software Add-On to the case.
Just a few small screws to buy

This is the setup of my (first) MiSTer. I called it "MiST(er)2Go" as it's a portable system of MiST, MiSTer and a WeTek Hub (CoreELEC). It's not a beauty, but an unremarkable case I'm carrying along when traveling. No tedium guaranteed.

This was once an "Electron-Pi".... it is now a "Mister-Electron".

Cabling isn't as neat as I wanted but there's precious little space at the front of the keyboard so needs must.

The ram just clears the rear of the keyboard frame. I had expected to tilt the board back more, but only needed a little in the end. I used half a Raspberry Pi heatsink plus an oversized fan running off 3.3v. Considering how little in/out airflow there is, it seems happy and doesn't get tooo warm even after a few hours of 486 or Amiga. Or BBC/Electron!

The USB keyboard encoder is from the wonderful Tynemouth Software. The Acorn Electron has a solid, compact keyboard and has plenty of keys (F keys are derived from CapsLock & number keys), CapsLock-Break is F12, perfect for most cores and in keeping with it's original Shift-Break. But some cores need extra so there's a wireless controller to hand, plus a wireless PC keyboard out of sight.

Other stuff- wired ethernet, 6 port USB hub, 8BitDo wireless, keyboard/mouse wireless combo, monster joysticks USB<>DB9 adaptor, USB key for easy access to \games at the rear. HDMI out and micro-SD extender cable are cut in. I also cut in a couple momentary switches to the rear for user and reset. I filled in some holes to the left side where the tape and RFports were... the elec case has an amazing array of holes that just fall to place for new uses. How did they know?

Power is via a short switched extender cable poked out the back so it can also be powered on/off without yanking cables.

There is some case tidying left to do, I'll think about that in a few months once it's bedded in.

it feels so much better (for me anyway!) being in a retro keyboard... aesthetics and all that

cheers!

buttersoft wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 5:41 am Awesome, i like that. Any chance you could share a parts list? I'd really like to find those buttons, for one...

kensan wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2020 3:11 am I made a metal case base on a amplifier case, there may be too much hot melt glue inside.
It's very compact, no suit for IO Board. But I don' t have a CRT, so the IO Board is optional.
Please show your MiSTer too

sorry too later to see the post, you can search in AliExpress for "12mm button with led"

kensan wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2020 3:11 am I made a metal case base on a amplifier case, there may be too much hot melt glue inside.
It's very compact, no suit for IO Board. But I don' t have a CRT, so the IO Board is optional.
Please show your MiSTer too

made some changes:
replace the type-c charge port that has a pd ic ,so i can use pd charger and c to c cable to power on it.
remake the usb hub, more elegant than before.
use connector instead of soldering, more tidy than before.
use a silent 2.5cm fans instead of turbo fans to reduce noise.

That might be the same case i used for my first or second mister. They look very similar but slightly different sizes. My thingiverse has some side panels for them. ( this was a reply to an earlier post but it didn't post to the right location in the thread )

MiSTer inside TheVic20, part 1

MiSTer inside TheVic20, part 2

venice wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 1:37 pm After SNAC and SD-Extensions I added the OLED for my Software Add-On to the case.
Just a few small screws to buy

Nice Job with that @ Venice