Miceeno's Case Commission for Delti90

[Miceeno]

Delti90 has commissioned me to build him a case for his portable. He wants the following:
GameCube Analog
GameCube D-Pad
Nintendo 64 A,B and C's
Nintendo 64 Start
PS2 R, L, and Z's
PSone Screen
4 Cell Battery Pack

Pretty standard stuff so lets build it. I'm pretty excited to have a go with the legendary PSone screen seeing as I've always been too cheap to buy one for my personal projects.

Here's the parts Delti90 sent me (he sent a complete GameCube controller too).

Here's the victim case.

The case was too big and too square so I quartered it so I can remove material and put it back together. Also, I've done some cutting on the PSone screen.

Here's about what I'm going for give or take some width.

Here's the side pieces slathered in epoxy. It this point I regret not salvaging the parts of the case that are full of holes to use as speaker grills but I'll find something that will work for that later.

 

[Miceeno]

I've made more progress. I'm prioritizing this above my other portables because this is paying work.

Here's the approximate button placement.

Here's the buttons cut from the controllers and prepared for the case.

Here's the buttons taped in place, ready for some epoxy.

After I epoxied the buttons in place I then epoxied the PSone screen bezel. I should have done it the other way around. Due to the width of the analog stick I had to hang the A/B/C's side out farther than planned in order to maintain symmetry. So I ended up cutting out the A/B/C's/Start and move them to the middle of the available space.

Now that the buttons are in place I've tacked the speaker grills and the start of the sides.

I'm intentionally making the round part of the PSone screen protrude out of the portable on all sides because I think it will look cool.

 

[Miceeno]

Time to make the curved pieces. I used a coffee can and my trusty Wagner heat gun.

And then I started on the back half. I thought it would look cool with the PS2 buttons upside down like this:

But the Delti90 thought they looked better right side up so this is what we are going with:

Here's what I've got so far on the back half.

Now all that is left is to build the cartridge slot into the back half of the PSone screen shell, make the two halves mate up nicely, lots of sanding, and a coat of safety orange.

 

[Miceeno]

I've mostly finished the cartridge slot, minus the sanding.

I've reinforced the hollow areas between the flat sides of the slot and the rounded exterior with hot glue.

And epoxied the bottom of the slot.

To finish the slot I need to check in with Delti90 on how much of the cartridge he wants to stick out. This is where its at now.

And now I'm going to fill some areas with bondo to make the two halves mate up nicely. This is what they look like right now, not too pretty.

After I patch the small gap and blend the two radii I should be able to sand the whole case smooth and paint.

 

[Bush]

Sweet lord this is some great work.

 

[Miceeno]

This case is approaching completion. All that is left is to fix a problem I ran into while drilling the second power input hole, then a quick sand, and some painting. Then I can get back to some of my personal projects.

Here's the Audio/Video output and controller input section. This will accept a 3.5mm headphone jack and a DB15 VGA port.

And here's the power side. I've got two spots for 3mm LED's (I wish they were aligned just a little better), a DPDT power switch and one power input. While drilling the secondary power input the epoxy shattered on me. My modding universe has now come crashing down and literally shattered as well. I've always praised this "Loctite Epoxy for Plastic" because it's tougher than super glue and easier to work with. I've always been impressed by it's toughness without being too brittle (like super glue is). As you can see in the picture this stuff is more brittle than I previously thought. This product has been a staple in my arsenal for this sort of stuff and now I think I need to find a different product.

 

[Ampz]

Much sadness... well of to the hardware store, but really it sad how the epoxy shattered which
will be a pain to refill

 

[Miceeno]

Sanded, Primed, Painted. I used a white primer to make the orange pop, but the orange may not look so good because I took a quick picture with bad light. Better pictures to follow after a clear coat.

I spent forever filling voids and imperfections with (liquid) super glue, sanding, priming, repeat until the surface was near perfection. I've never put this much effort into my own projects, I usually stop when the thick primer will cover almost all the imperfections. This is a commission so I spent more time. I actually spent way too much time. I quoted this whole project as a 5 hour job but I've got almost 30 in it. I'm not charging extra for the extra time but I've learned that commissions aren't as fun to do as they would seem. I can't wait to be done with this one so I can get back to my other three portables that I'm publicly working on .

 

[Miceeno]

Finished.

Check out the Finished Projects Page for more pictures.

 

[RageCreation]

That's one sexy case.