There was a time when building something yourself probably meant it didn’t look very much like a commercial product. That’s not always a bad thing. We’ve seen many custom builds that are nearly works of art. We’ve also seen plenty of builds that are–ahem–let’s say were “hacker chic”.
[AlexanderBrevig] decided to take on a project using a PSoC development board he picked up. In particular, he wanted to build a custom game keypad. He prototyped a number of switches with the board and got the firmware working so that the device looks like a USB HID keyboard.
However, [Alexander] also used Fusion 360 to lay out a very nice looking case and printed it on an Ultimaker 2. With a little paint, the results look very professional (see photo, right). He still has to merge the two parts (the electrical and the mechanical) but at the end, he should have a great looking product.
We’ve seen other attractive 3D printed cases before. We’ve even covered a tutorial to help you do it yourself. If you prefer hacker chic, there’s always this case mod.
Wellllll I have seen products like that, but they were usually vac formed replacement shells for ’80s 8 bit micros, done on shoestring budgets and in short runs.
This sort of thing, but even this one has the switches inset so only the keycaps protrude…
http://blog.tynemouthsoftware.co.uk/2015/12/day-8-zx-spectrum-lmt-68fx2-case-with.html
The bar has been set very low for what is considered “very professional”.
Put the guts in the shell, then get back to us
http://i.imgur.com/ci1tHBh.jpg it is alive
Pretty harsh. That’s an awesome peripheral! I want to build one like that too!
Nostromo/Belkin n52 if anyone is looking for a commercial product version. I have 2…. an original Nostromo grey/orange and a later Belkin n52ti black/blue with blue underlighting.
I just checked and still have my old grey orange one as well as my razer nostromo
the old grey orange felt better at the time than the razer one does now…