Notices by Tim 🎮 (timixretroplays@digipres.club)

Behold, the first prototype of my amazing new invention: The reverse one-way screw! The natural counterpart to those anti-theft screws used to attach license plates to cars, the ROWS can only ever be unscrewed, not driven in.

To use it, simply already have it installed somewhere, and unscrew it like you would a regular screw - attempts to reinstall it will simply result in the screwdriver safely slipping out of the head, with no risk of it actually being driven back in.

#3DPrinting

PSA for Australian #3DPrinting folks - Jaycar are currently clearing out a ton of Creality stuff, including basic PLA. I bought a spool of their white PLA for $15 in Fyshwick (shelves were full of white and black) the other week but their website currently has it for $10/kilo, and they do free shipping over $100.

I wouldn't touch another Creality printer with a ten foot insulated pole, but their filament is decent IMHO, so I'm stocking up on it for future prototyping reasons - you should too!

@hellomiakoda can't help directly as I'm in Australia, but if you can find the equivalent part for another 6xAA battery Radio Shack radio, that might fit in place - and 3D printing a part that small is trivial so it'd be worth a shot.

Can anyone help with finding/printing a new battery bay cover for a Radio Shack 12-519 weather alert radio? (https://www.manualslib.com/manual/137244/Radio-Shack-12-519.html?page=6#manual)

Some more tags for visibility: #3DPrinting @3dprinting@a.gup.pe @3dprinting@techhub.social

I was extremely disappointed to click into the article and read that they were transporting hay, not snakes.

So, this is a #Pinecil. I bought one a couple of months ago along with some tips specifically for installing heat-set inserts, and immediately ordered another to dedicate to hand-soldering. It's a very lightweight soldering iron that can be powered over USB type C from a pocketable USB power bank.

A Pinecil with multiple accessories purchased directly will cost way less than buying one already in Australia, although you will wait weeks and weeks for it to ship and arrive.

The reason I bought two is because I don't know how long I trust it to last if you're constantly swapping tips. The tip-retaining screw is tiny and looks like it's biting into plastic, so I don't think I'd expect that to last very long under heavy, repeated use.

The interface is *very* complex with many many deep menus and options, but basic use is easy enough. Press + to turn it on, press again to set a temperature and start heating, press and hold - to kill the heat.

It's so light I worry a bit about losing control and burning myself, especially with a long cable dangling off it, but so far I haven't. The green grippy bit seems to do the job. And you can put this flat on a desk and its square-ish profile will stop it from rolling anywhere.

For anyone who buys a #Pinecil and thinks, you know what, for a few extra bucks a clear case for this thing will look cool - you'll want this teardown from #iFixit: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Pinecil+V2+Teardown/170774

The official instructions (https://wiki.pine64.org/images/0/01/Pinecil_Shell_Replacement_Guide.pdf) do not actually explain how to snap the case apart, but the iFixit guide suggests levering the halves apart by sticking a small screwdriver into the soldering tip hole.

Practice snapping the new shell open first, to get an idea for how it should feel.

First sign of any QC issues - the clear case is meant to come with two replacement button bits (also in clear plastic), but the sprue that came with mine was missing one, so I've ended up with this slightly Franken-Pinecil with one black and one clear button - but I kinda dig it.

I also decided to keep the green rubber grip from the original case because that looked nicer and more interesting than the translucent-clear one (and makes where to grip it more obvious).

A photo of the inside of a Pinecil, for when you get to the reassembly stage and realise you don't know which way around the little soldering tip clips went originally.

I'm sick with another cold or something, so I'm idly sketching out a 3D printable case for an ITX retro gaming rig, the primary feature of which will be a 15-pin gameport socket up front.

I've started a few projects like this, but never run them right through to the end - if you've ever wondered what designing a PC case is like, just draw a whole bunch of differently shaped rectangles and try putting them neatly in a box. Dunno yet if this one will see the light of day beyond this screenshot.

Some old renders of a SGI-inspired project from a few years back. I had a 3D printer at this point, but not one with a bed big enough to make 20x20cm panels, so the structure was built using laser-cut acrylic with 3D printed brackets bolted onto it.

I did actually get a mostly functioning PC case out of this idea for a while, and there are Many Learnings from that project that have rolled forward into present ones. Unfinished projects are never waste if you learn from them!

A much later render of the concept on the right, here. The top half of the case held the PC itself, the video card and power supply took up the bottom half, so the front grille got divided into two parts. A 180cm fan sat behind this, and actually blew out forwards through the *front* of the case - the grille was painted with thermochromic material so it changed from black to white in places as hot air was exhausted.

I'll try and find photos of the finished case and that colour changing effect.

Follow-up philosophical question: if you were an old ITX motherboard's *backplate*, where would you hide?

Philosophical question for tonight. If you were an old ITX motherboard, where would you hide?

The relationship between where a motherboard and its backplate sit in space is a complicated one, but I appear to have nailed it in the two really important dimensions. I'll print another of these tomorrow that slides the board about 2mm closer to the back of the case.

If the rest of this goes as smoothly as this part has, I might aim to make two of these cases - one for a 98-era PC, and one for an XP-era one. It'll be a challenge fitting two different sets of requirements into the same design.

Having wrangled the issue of motherboard placement, today I'm looking at the second-most annoying part of PC cases: expansion slots.

I find these particularly irritating to design for - do you hide the back of the card half an inch into the back of the case? Do you make the top of the bracket protrude? Do you take the bracket off and make something bespoke to screw directly to the card? I have a few things to try out.

Here's why PC cases that look great and proportional and sensible on the front look like a jumble of rectangles on the back - you end up with stuff clustered together, next to wide open spaces you can't make use of. I have a hard target of putting a CD drive in on the front, spaced very neatly and proportionately against the power button and the gameport socket, but doing so means putting the soundcard and its PCI extension board very delicately in the middle of everything.

There's also the question of whether I try to jam two slots in there, or just the one.

I don't think I need two - the Win98 box will have a Soundblaster there, the XP machine will most likely have a single-slot 8600GT. And fitting a second anything in there will make it tough to include a CD drive or even a 2.5" hard drive in there. So I think I'm planning single-slot for now.

Well, that appears to be the required geometry for holding a PCI card. This part will get printed directly to the back wall panel of the case, no need to make it removable.

This model of PCI SoundBlaster includes a bank of pins for plugging in a gameport socket - when new, that would have come on a separate bracket to be screwed in next to the card, but most cards like this are sold without that. They're not impossible to reproduce, though - I'll make my own to attach to the front of this case.