+mytek Posted April 12, 2023 Share Posted April 12, 2023 @selgus I just stumbled upon this new project of yours. The 3D renders of a proposed enclosure looks very nice 👍 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted April 12, 2023 Author Share Posted April 12, 2023 8 hours ago, mytek said: @selgus I just stumbled upon this new project of yours. The 3D renders of a proposed enclosure looks very nice 👍 Thanks, trying to keep as much of the 7800 motif as possible, while still having the needed physical dimensions to fit the PCB and all the controls/cartridge port. I saw you are doing some 3D printing work now for your current project.. I do find this part of the projects almost as fun as creating the electronics.. almost. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted April 12, 2023 Share Posted April 12, 2023 2 hours ago, selgus said: I saw you are doing some 3D printing work now for your current project.. I do find this part of the projects almost as fun as creating the electronics.. almost. Yeah I've been dragging my feet on getting into 3D printing, but it really was required in my latest project in order to have a fast way to double check design alterations. And I am accumulating a small graveyard of failed attempts along the way, but at least filament is relatively cheap. It's also nice to be able to do something on a whim and then see the change in reality soon after. However I am getting much better at TinkerCad 2 hours ago, selgus said: Thanks, trying to keep as much of the 7800 motif as possible, while still having the needed physical dimensions to fit the PCB and all the controls/cartridge port. That can certainly be a challenge, and finding just enough of the original attributes to bring that across can either be easy (as was the case for the distinctive angled fins on the Atari XEGS) or subtle such as the original color. In my latest miniature Colecovision project there really isn't much about the original that I care to keep and/or integrate other than the color black. Personally I think that console just looked like a box similar to a MegaST enclosure. Not much there to make it really standout other than the wells for the controllers which there simply isn't enough room in what I'm doing to duplicate. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+5-11under Posted April 12, 2023 Share Posted April 12, 2023 58 minutes ago, mytek said: I am getting much better at TinkerCad For my last project, I tried OpenSCAD, rather than Tinkercad or FreeCAD. So far, for basic shapes, I'm liking it. There's some tutorial pages that give a good indication on how it works. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted April 12, 2023 Share Posted April 12, 2023 Did you manage to re-route the PCB? The size is not so important. Perhaps it could be a bit higher to get the traces to fit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted April 12, 2023 Author Share Posted April 12, 2023 7 minutes ago, karri said: Did you manage to re-route the PCB? The size is not so important. Perhaps it could be a bit higher to get the traces to fit. Oh yes, the board is fully routed and finalized (though I am not going with a unified NTSC/PAL board.. just more complexity than I'm wanting to take on right now). The last changes where due to physical location of some parts, to fit the enclosure.. which is why I needed to iterate on the 3D exclosure model. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted April 12, 2023 Share Posted April 12, 2023 2 hours ago, 5-11under said: For my last project, I tried OpenSCAD, rather than Tinkercad or FreeCAD. So far, for basic shapes, I'm liking it. There's some tutorial pages that give a good indication on how it works. I tried OpenSCAD years ago and because I'm a very visual person I found it very tedious to create things and gave up. Also math isn't my strong suit, nor pure geometry At first TinkerCad was a bit weird, but now that I'm getting used to it I really like it. The only thing missing that I wish it had was the ability to mark a point on an object and snap it to a point on something else. And it would be great to also be able to name grouped objects and make them visible or invisible via their name. These are things I'm used to doing in 2D CAD. 50 minutes ago, selgus said: Oh yes, the board is fully routed and finalized (though I am not going with a unified NTSC/PAL board.. just more complexity than I'm wanting to take on right now). Maybe just wait for someone to apply this for the 7800 like is being done in the A8 FX ANTIC project, and it will be possible to do with a daughter board add-on. Because it would be very hard and complex to pull off with the original chips. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted June 23, 2023 Author Share Posted June 23, 2023 I have had some priority work I needed to do with the R2 Builders Club, so I am just getting back to this project and have been working on the enclosure. Here is a 3D printing of the current design. I still need to figure out how I wish to attach the 3D color printed gradient bars to the metal plates (yes, I actually 3D printed them in aluminum, though I am not sure in the final design I will keep it that way.. but it is cool ).. 21 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 That looks INCREDIBLE! Great job! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Muddyfunster Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 Very nice, that looks fantastic. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrunchyTC Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 That looks really sweet! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thursday83 Posted June 24, 2023 Share Posted June 24, 2023 Outstanding. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 Wow, this is just incredible! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+GoldLeader Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 Holy Cow! That looks Amazing! Is Nutari paying attention? They might accidentally learn something... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo930 Posted July 6, 2023 Share Posted July 6, 2023 On 4/12/2023 at 10:22 AM, mytek said: And I am accumulating a small graveyard of failed attempts along the way, but at least filament is relatively cheap. I It might be worth buying a relatively large supply of the worst and cheapest filament known to man in whatever color is on closeout. Do all your test prints with that stuff. Then, once you get the design right, then you print with the higher quality better color whatever filament. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted July 9, 2023 Author Share Posted July 9, 2023 Well, while doing some initial assembly, I ran into some issues.. First, the LCD wasn't able to slide into the top frame, as I had planned, so I needed to redesign its mounting by separating out is carrier into its own part. This now slots into the top section, as opposed to be one piece. This section also holds the cartridge port. Next I felt I should add some guide geometry around the edges of the top, to make a solid, overlapping connection when screwed together. Finally, the rocker power switch I was using, interfered with the speaker and it's mounting location. I looked at multiple options, but most of them would require increasing the width of the enclosure (which I didn't wish to do). So I went back and redesigned the PCB to remove the rocker switch, and actually go back to the original 7800 design with a push button power switch on the top of the case. I needed to re-layout a part of the PCB where some ICs where located where some switches needed to be. I'm making the new PCB right now, and I believe I've finalized the enclosure modifications.. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 2 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted August 20, 2023 Author Share Posted August 20, 2023 Been doing a bunch behind the scenes on this project, having to iterate many times on the enclosure, to make things fit. I had neglected to account for the LCD controller board thickness when designing the section that holds the screen, so that had ripple effects on the enclosure. I also needed to do some modifications on the PCB, as the difficulty slide switches mechanically weren't the correct size for the enclosure, and many other tweaks in sizes on said enclosure. This is the 'final' PCB layout, and just waiting on some precision sockets to arrive for the sram (I thought I had ordered them months ago, but I was wrong). I say final, as I did just realize this week, that since I decided to go with a 28-pin rom chip, instead of the 24-pin version used in the standard bios, I had forgotten to route the A14 address line. I've made a new revision of my schematic, but I am going to continue to go with this PCB, and just add a bodge wire on the back, to add the missing signal. Need to print up the resulting enclosure to complete this project.. plus I am thinking about doing my own bios, and add a built-in game (not sure which game that should be yet, though). 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted October 16, 2023 Author Share Posted October 16, 2023 So I did do another revision of the PCB and fixed the 28-pin rom footprint missing traces, along with a few part swaps for mechanical assembly reasons. I also created some menu buttons PCB, for the lcd display. I've been working on my custom bios image, that as of right now, the differences from the standard bios are.. no encryption checks, nor cpu tests, selection of 2600 or 7800 launching and my own animated splash boot display. I also built a cartridge PCB, that supports rom and ram, for a game I will be making. Enclosure was also finalized, hopefully, and once I finish testing with all the custom ICs installed, will be fully assembled. It's been a semi-long road, but coming to an end.. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted October 17, 2023 Share Posted October 17, 2023 16 hours ago, selgus said: Amazing work you have done there for sure! 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted December 3, 2023 Author Share Posted December 3, 2023 I have been working on my custom bios for the portable, and pivoted from my original implementation using hi-res 320 pixel mode to 160 pixel (to reduce the amount of rom and dma time). The hi-res version: and the 160 pixel version: During boot, the title screen is animated, with the text characters each sliding into the display and the fuji doing a color scroll. I had been using this project to build out my MARIA 6502 functions for building my game. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+swlovinist Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 Thanks for the update. Looking good! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted December 13, 2023 Author Share Posted December 13, 2023 Just finished my last revision of the enclosure. I think I got the component fit down now and can begin the final assembly phase. The road to this point, with all the enclosure revisions (plus the prototype lipo battery back, to check tolerances..) 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted December 13, 2023 Share Posted December 13, 2023 Just Incredible work! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted December 13, 2023 Author Share Posted December 13, 2023 I also did a PAL version of the motherboard, just in case.. 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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