Early last year I picked up a 3D printer with the hopes of being able to print a case for my poor, naked DE-10 Nano. I've had my MiSTer for years and never took the plunge on a case for it. Honestly I wasn’t really that excited about the available options. I have a small collection of old game consoles and wanted an enclosure that offered protection for the electronics, but also made it feel like it fit in with the other systems on the shelf. Furthermore, I like to use a 2.5" hard drive for cheap storage (especially now with the PSX and Saturn cores on the horizon) and most cases don't accommodate those. After figuring out how to operate my printer and the slicer software, I started working on a design for this new "consolizer" box.It can be hard to get a 3D print to look smooth like an actual injection molded part, so I knew I would need to come up with a case design that had some texture in order to hide that. I really liked the look of the PlayStation 2's "ribbed" shell with the alternating bumps and recesses and decided to try a design that mimicked that. I found that if I angled the edges of the bumps slightly then supports would not be necessary to print them. It also gave the box a more unique look relative to other consoles in my collection. To help hide the lines of the first layer and to simulate the rough surface on the top of the PS2 I upgraded to a textured sheet on my printer bed. That was definitely a win-win!
At first I started with a square box, but then I thought up some other shapes that would work with the same wall profile. I ended up with four designs total: a square box, a square box with beveled edges, a Supergrafx-shaped box, and an octagonal box. By using a 3D printer there are a ton of options for colors/finishes of material which is a nice. I've mostly printed with PLA which is fairly easy to use. Each box has a bottom plate where the components (FPGA, 2.5” hard drive, fan, and USB hub) mount to that fits inside the top shell. The shell itself is one piece without any seams which helps to keep the appearance “clean”.
I wanted to make sure that my case used off the shelf parts which were easy to find and replace should they fail. Plus I already had the main components for my set up and wanted to keep the cost as low as possible. I found a fairly reasonable USB hub (available on eBay and AliExpress) with 5 vertical ports on one side and 2 horizontal ports on the other that seemed well suited for the project. I figured this would allow the hub to connect to the DE-10 Nano and some other components internally and would also give 5 ports coming out of the back of the box for controllers and other external devices. The outer shell was easily removable which allowed me to take the circuit board out and mount it to the bottom plate with screws which was a bonus. In the meanwhile, I also sourced all the cables I would need to interface with the FPGA from outside of the box like Ethernet, SD card, and SNAC extensions as well as a power adapter splitter with switch to power the DE-10 and USB hub simultaneously. Unfortunately after getting my hands on a number of the USB hubs I discovered that some ran at USB 2.0 speeds (480Mbps) while others only ran at 1.1 (12Mbps). The worst part is that they all looked the same from the outside and there was no way to tell the two apart without looking at the circuit board.
At this point I figured I would be limited in the number of boxes I could make using the hubs I had on hand that were 2.0 because I couldn’t find a reliable source that could guarantee me I wouldn’t get the 1.1 version. The hub was the heart of the “consolizer” and my ideal one was no longer ideal. Feeling a little defeated and frustrated by the situation, I started researching USB hub design. I located a low cost USB controller chip that I could use for a no-frills hub designed specifically for my case. Using KiCad (a program for designing circuit boards) I designed a replacement hub for my case. I ordered some components from Mouser and circuit boards from JLCPCB (highly recommended if you need a PCB, their service is excellent). I soldered everything together and the hub worked as expected. The project was alive once again!
Around the time I finished putting the new hub together I discovered the TTY2OLED project for MiSTer from the uber-talented user Venice. This clever bit of code executed on an Arduino-type device allows MiSTer to display images on an OLED screen based off the core you launch. This was such a cool add-on that I knew I needed to integrate it into the front of my box. I purchased the parts for one and cobbled it together using some jumper wires. It functioned fine, but looked like a rat’s nest inside of the case. It was also very prone to having one of those wires pop off which was not good. Since I had some experience designing PCBs under my belt, I decided to create an adapter board that would interface a NodeMCU module to an OLED screen using sockets. Problem solved!
Aside from some more aesthetic “tweaks” here and there and possibly some new designs to come, I feel like my cases are mostly complete at this point. The current design supports a DE-10 Nano with an official analog I/O board. Given how many consoles, computers, and arcade machines the MiSTer supports now, I dubbed my project the “MEGA (MiSTer Entertainment Gaming Accessory) Super System”. I designed a background for the menu screen as well as one for the OLED display.
Here are some samples of each design. Feedback is definitely appreciated.
Paramount Iron Red PLA
Paramount Cadet Blue PLA
Paramount Battleship Gray PLA
eSun Silk Gold PLA
I also put together an assembly guide that shows how the boxes are put together. It shows more detail of the interior/exterior of the case.
you meant at all.
you meant the ribbed design, which i would think is a way better way of describing it.
)