I know some people have been having issues with the drill guides on a black case. I was too! My solution?
- silver sharpie to the rescue.jpg (839.8 KiB) Viewed 5761 times
Silver paint pen did the trick!
After all that soldering, I had to take it for a test run.
- its alive.jpg (897.34 KiB) Viewed 5761 times
Here's a tip - this stage is the PERFECT time to get the software side of things done. Get a USB OTG adapter and a USB hub. Plug in a keyboard and a USB to ethernet adapter, and plug that in to your router. Trust me, transferring gigs of files across a wired connection is a whole lot faster than wifi!
This time I was super careful not to pull off a pad on my sound card.
- sound card all wired up.jpg (1.1 MiB) Viewed 5761 times
So, the biggest hurtle I ran in to during this build turned out to be the nylon print. It looks cool, and the buttons are no longer an issue. The problem with the material? It's soft! I went to screw down the board to the bottom of the faceplate, but the screws weren't carving threads. They pulled straight out with barely any effort.
I was stuck. I didn't know what to do. Dark days were upon me. But then, I remembered a thread on the For Sale/Trade section of the forums, "HoolyHoo's AIO bracket for Kite's SAIO Board"
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2553 Hoolyhoo was using brass M2 inserts in the bracket, and was selling loose brackets and screws. I ordered eight inserts and waiting patiently for them to arrive in the mail.
- brass insert.jpg (1.33 MiB) Viewed 5761 times
These were exactly what I needed! I don't have a chisel tip for my soldering iron, so I carefully pressed them in to the print with the tip of my soldering iron directly, then used a small flathead screwdriver to hold the insert still while I lifted out the iron. Here's a pic of three installed.
- brass inserts to the rescue.jpg (1.16 MiB) Viewed 5761 times
By the end of the build I had put those in every screw post. They saved my project for sure.
Speaking of saving the Spooky Pi, I had Wermy whip up a custom protective sleeve for my build. If you're going to go thru all the time, effort, and cost to build one of these beauties, you should definitely protect it from loose change and keys!
There's another problem, the top of the case is way deeper than a standard altoids tin. The lip comes about halfway down the case. The regular transparent case that Wermy designed and sells
http://market.sudomod.com/mintypi-protective-sleeve/ wouldn't work in this instance. The groove needed to be moved to make room for the top half of the case. Lucky for me, Wermy was on the case!
- custom sleeve inside.jpg (3.24 MiB) Viewed 5761 times
This next pic shows how the groove sits below the top half, but above the power switch and charge port.
- offset groove.jpg (1.64 MiB) Viewed 5761 times
Here's a pic from above.
- sliding in to a custom sleeve.jpg (1.25 MiB) Viewed 5761 times
And of course, it all nice and cozy.
- protected.jpg (2.98 MiB) Viewed 5761 times
This was a very fun build, and I'm proud to add the Spooky Pi to my other builds.
- happy family.jpg (3.98 MiB) Viewed 5761 times