3D Printwork : Casings and diskbrackets

3D printing, what is the advantage of 3D Printwork anyway?

As the regular visitors of both the Websites and the Facebook page will have noticed by now that I have focused more on 3D Printing lately .
There is a simple reason for this, I would like to be able to offer a one stop shop solution for people who want to build their Gotek into any system.
In electronic terms, this means Interfaces, both internally and externally, but in many cases also a built-in bracket to position the gotek internally in such a way that the keys and the display are accessible.
The Gotek Floppy Drive Emulator is by definition a device for external use, but with a number of specially designed brackets it can also be used internally.

But can 3D Printwork be done differently? :

Of course it can also be done differently, a number of things are still available as commercial injection molding and there is of course a nice price tag attached to that.
As an example, you can still get housings for Commodore 64 cartridges, but they quickly cost 5 euros or (much) more. That is simply not due to the production costs, but to the effect of supply / demand.

Disadvantage of standard housings : they only fit with standard cartridges 🙂
In the past I made my own design PCB, especially for use without a housing and so now I also need a custom 3D Printwork housing for it.

Own design 3D printing cartridge housings :

For my Multibank cartridges that are operated using mini switches, a special design had to be made, some cartridges have an eprom on a foot, a special design must be made for that.
Furthermore, my cartridges often have a reset button, which is not always in the 'standard' place.
All in all, I have now also designed my own design housing for most of my own design cartridges.
Reordering an already purchased cartridge is possible in some cases, but not always.
Please contact me for this, so I can tell you if that is possible.

What about the quality of 3D printing:

Of course, 3D printing is subject to quality differences, which is characterized by small printing errors up to warping and poor connections in the printing.
3d printing is also more intended as a prototype than as (mass) production work.
You will hardly ever see a perfect 3D print, there is always something to see or notice.
How do I deal with that:

Small optical problems : Not a reason to reject it
Major optical problems : Not a reason to reject it, it is considered as B choice
Technical problems : These are rejected

Technical problems are, in particular, warped parts or joints that do not fit or close properly.
The quality and sturdiness of 3D printing is in most cases not or hardly inferior to that of injection molding.

Below you will find some examples of the gradations of the printing