3d model Case Project: Creative Commons

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Agis
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Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2017 6:53 am

3d model Case Project: Creative Commons

Post by Agis » Fri Jan 13, 2017 8:00 am

This thread is about models for 3d printed cases that are licensed under a Creative Commons license. I would appreciate any help available, especially from people with 3d modeling experience.

Ergonomics:

Clothing and sports equipment are designed to fit the shape and size of our bodies, with 3d printing the same could happen for handheld devices based on the user’s hand size. Why should an adult man who is 195 centimeters use the same gamepad as an 11 year old boy who is 139 centimeters?

There are a decent amount of 3d printed cases inspired by the original gameboy family of handhelds (DMG gameboy, gameboy color, and gameboy pocket). These are vertical devices that are held like a small book and over represented probably due to nostalgia. Why not create a 3d model that has full sized controller buttons and feels better to hold for long periods of time?

The current 3d models that can be found on thingiverse and other 3d model sharing websites that use a horizontal orientation are basically rectangles.


Proposed Models:

Landscape model
Model Name: Titan
titan.png
titan.png (70.27 KiB) Viewed 5060 times

titan rendered.png
titan rendered.png (151.12 KiB) Viewed 5060 times
This model is inspired by classic 2d controllers. It’s a horizontal orientation and may not be that pocketable. Thus the name Titan. Though someone is welcome to shrink its size.

Starting from at least the Sega Saturn there was a period where home consoles featured six face buttons as well as shoulder pads/trigger buttons. This phase ended in 2010 with the shutdown of the original Xbox live shutdown. (Sega Saturn; A,B,C,X,Y,Z, Left Shoulder, Right Shoulder: N64; A, B, and the 4 C buttons, Left Trigger, Right Trigger, Z Trigger: Xbox; A, B, X, Y, Black, White, Left trigger, Right trigger).

This model will have six face buttons in order to; emulate consoles from the six face button era, have enough buttons for classic pc games ports, as well as modern games with complex control schemes. In addition to the six face buttons and L and R buttons, there will be two or four buttons on the backside. However, everything should be modifiable based on the user’s needs.

I am not great at 3d modeling and have been struggling to make the backside of the model. I was thinking that the back would slope inward creating  hand grips (without increasing thickness).  Each grip would have one or two additional buttons. The edges of the handheld as well the middle section (which would be housing the majority of the electronics) would all be the same height and make the device stable when placed on surfaces. The Smach Z’s backside is pretty close, but the bumpers might be other types of buttons (buttons or triggers). Image

Folding Model/Clamshell Design
Model name: Lapetus
lapetus.png
lapetus.png (106.25 KiB) Viewed 5060 times
Nintendo’s Clamshell handhelds (DS and 3DS) sacrifice controller space for a second screen. Why not have a single screen allowing a full sized controller on the bottom and a screen with speakers on top? I own a GPD XD and was somewhat amazed at the giant empty square in the middle of the bottom half. Maybe they intended to have a dual screen and then scrapped it late in development. Image

3rd party replacement hinges can be purchased on either ebay or aliexpress. replacement hinges

Modular Form Factors: Why a universal PCB would unlock a lot of potential
A number of sudomod users have created amazing PCB’s that simplify retrofitting the Pi Zero into old handhelds. These boards are designed to fit in pre-existing cases with exactly placed ports and switches, so they not very useful for new designs. Could someone design a compact PCB with the same functionality (safe shut down, battery charging/simultaneous discharging, audio amplifier, teensy, etc)? What is needed is a board could connect the ports and switches like on/off, and volume by extension wires. Then users could design any 3d case they wanted and adjust the wire length as needed. This project does something close to this, but the volume wheel is directly on the board so it wouldn’t work with different form factors.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/58 ... escription

Also, the Raspberry Pi foundation should sometime soon release their compute module based on Raspberry Pi 3 soon. The compute module could just plug into said brain board described above. Maybe every three years you just swap out the compute module for a quick upgrade.

Modular Hardware: Button Layouts
A possibility would be to make the face plate have large empty spaces on both the left hand side and right hand side. That way people could 3d print custom button layouts to easily swap. Valve originally talked about this for the Steam Controller and the Smach Z team is promising it their device. Here is a picture of the Smach Z propose. Image

A low tech way to do that would involve people:
1: Designing and printing a faceplate to hold certain button layouts.
2: Then placing buttons into faceplate
3: Rigging up tact switches to a perf board
4: Trimming perf board
5: Have tact switches wired up to a plug to make swapping possible



License:

The CC BY-SA seems like a good fit. If someone wants to print and sell these it’s fine. Here is a description of the license.

“This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects."

If you stuck around to read this all I appreciate it. I'll upload the blend files for Titan once it's further along or if someone more experienced wants to help out.

Agis
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2017 6:53 am

Re: 3d model Case Project: Creative Commons

Post by Agis » Sat Jan 14, 2017 9:28 am

A progress update for today's work.
Progress 1_14_17.png
Progress 1_14_17.png (44.58 KiB) Viewed 5033 times
The PiGRRL Zero Plus on thingiverse and it has helped as inspiration. Start and Select buttons still need to be designed as well as the L and R buttons. It's starting to look like something...

Agis
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2017 6:53 am

Re: 3d model Case Project: Creative Commons

Post by Agis » Thu Jan 26, 2017 10:30 am

I am still working on the landscape style model, but I took a break and modified this amazing project. Added some alps analog joysticks, 6 button layout, and a larger sega style dpad. Most of the models like the dpad and alps joysticks were available online.
Gameboy Rasmus.png
Gameboy Rasmus.png (168.57 KiB) Viewed 4957 times

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muniosi
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Re: 3d model Case Project: Creative Commons

Post by muniosi » Thu Jan 26, 2017 12:11 pm

Great work Agis! I'm thinking for my next project I will use a 3D printed case so I am glad to see skilled 3D modelers working on this kind of stuff. Keep it up!
I've just finished my milk.

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