Modelling the Amiga: Amiga 1000 front flap for modification

After being tempted for years to tinker with a 3D printer, I took the plunge last Autum.  But what am I doing with it?  Printing all those bits that you need, but can’t find…

Part 1: the front cover for the Amiga 1000.  Quite a few 1000s seem to be missing this part as they are wont to fall off in storage, or whilst being transported, or wherever.

I have a GBA 1000 which adds (amongst other things) an IDE interface. on which I use a CF card with an IDE adapter.  I also have a Gotek floppy drive emulator, which has a small display and needs a USB slot, and a couple of buttons…  I have been tempted more than once to make modifications to the front cover, such as cutting a slot for the CF.

But cutting 30 year old irreplaceable stuff is not something I want to do.

A1K RAM Cover

And hence, I’ve spent an evening with calipers, ruler, and OpenSCAD to model a replacement.   OpenSCAD is an interesting modelling tool, as rather than WYSIWYG editing, you define your model using Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) primitives – and CSG was the subject of my final year degree project.

So rather than defining polygons, you define a cube, subtract another cube, union with another cube, rotate, translate, iterate… just in text.

The result can be seen here.

I will release the OpenSCAD file eventually, however for now I am making the STL available on Thingiverse   – I have updated to v2, removing 0.5mm width to allow a better fit and adding strengthening for the thin vertical clip pieces.  They are very fragile, so if printing with supports be careful when removing the supports!