Original QL case molds

[bwinkel67]

Been reading about the two new motherboard projects (I think there are two: Issue 8 and Tx threads) and am excited to see their progress. Of course this means we have to take the old motherboard out of our cases to put the new ones in. In the Commodore world someone tracked down old molds for a slimline Commodore 64 and has now re-manufactured them for hobbyists to use. I do believe they tracked them down somewhere in Europe and didn't redesign them.

Anyone who is working on the preservation of the QL (I know Urs and Dilwyn spend a great deal of effort doing so) have ever tried to track this down? Did this sort of stuff end up in landfills or on some old factory shelf or in a museum? Not enough interest likely at present to recreate the cases (i.e. financially) but with new boards coming that will make it easier to use the QL and a resurgence in interest for retro computers it would be nice for the potential of new cases. Or, can you recreate the mold from an existing (un-warped) case -- seemingly that would by like a bad photocopy.

I'm looking to design a case for the Q68 that I just got and want to honor the QL's original styling, which I just love. Note, show the QL to a friend and ask them to date it is a fun game to play as invariable they say somewhere in the past 15 years. I just finished a design where tried keeping that look with a new slim-line vDrive case and when I got the top cover to kind of mimic the QL I was really happy (though there is so much more to the original design that even though I'm happy with the way my case looks, it doesn't fully match those nuances of the QL -- Rick Dickinson was just a genius). However, I don't think 3D printing in its current state is a practical solution for a full QL case so that's why I'm wondering about the original molds.

[edit, oh wow, my 50th post. I'm no longer a ROM Dongle, I will miss you]

[Dave]

All I know here is that there were two sets of molds. The top case, afaik never changed, but there was a defect in the bottom case which caused warping, so they redid the tooling for the bottom half to introduce an opposite warp, so when the part cooled it would bend to be straighter. That tooling was revised for the Samsung production, with different feet positions and connection method.

Sinclair understood ABS toolings quite well. He even pushed the technology forward with the C5 design, which was the largest single piece ABS mold at the time. This involved advancements in tool temperature control and ejector mechanisms. Nowadays, we'd vacuum bag pre-preg carbon fibre. That's a C5 I'd like to see!

Recreating the QL case molds would likely cost £10,000-£12,000, as they're larger than 30cm in one dimension, and the keyboard area is quite complex.

That said, the Spectrum Next keyboard does open up some opportunities to us to have new custom QL keycaps made.

[bwinkel67]

So yes, recreating the molds and then doing production runs would likely require between 500 to 1000 buyers to reclaim that investment (not interested in personally doing that btw).

I have a US QL that for whatever reason I always thought was a Samsung production. Don't know if I read it somewhere on the board or back of the case...I will have to look. Anyways, it only has 4 feet and a slumping mid-section so I definitely don't have the improved version. I just ordered a new bottom case for a few £ on eBay but not to replace mine as that would be complicated -- over the 20 years the top case matches the bottom case perfectly in its warp so two mismatched (warped and unwarped) cases would likely not work easily. Plus the US and UK versions differ in rear ports which would require some cutting.

I plan to stick the Q68 into the bottom of it just to figure out how it could be mounted, what extenders to use (say, move SD cards to the MDV slots), and what sort of port covers could be printed to cover unused case openings. All just for fun and with the bottom case being so inexpensive I thought why not -- but I have no plans of replacing my motherboard with it though I'm more tempted with either Issue 8 or Tx. When I'm done I may just put the case back on eBay for anyone who actually needs to replace it to use.

Yes, just saw the Spectrum Next as I was reading about Rick Dickinson since he was involved in its design. Looks beautiful.

[bwinkel67]

Ah, just found out that my father-in-law build his own thermoform plastic molding machine...will have to play with that but I guess with his you can create molds from balsa wood and then he uses "electric radiance" to get the plastic to conform. So maybe there is a little bit of molding in my future -- will have to wait for summer though.

[Chr$]

The top case, afaik never changed.

Apart from the very, very early ones that lacked the slits at the back in the Microdrive bulge to aid cooling. Not that that matters. In fact if a new one was ever made it probably wouldn't require any slits due to cooler modern components, unless of course it was made to hold the original hardware. Getting anything made in volume and properly, is indeed an expensive undertaking.

[bwinkel67]

The trick will be to create the negative mold if indeed the home-made thermoform plastic molding machine works as advertised. We have CNC machines at school so I guess I'd have to learn how to design and carve something out. The medium is tricky but I hear that for the home-made one, balsa wood was used, though I assume you can use anything that works with the heating mechanism and I don't know what material our CNC uses/accepts. It's industrial but for students to use and learn on.

What I don't know is how big the home-made table-top machine is. The QL is 18.5 inches long so the machine needs to be at least that length. But if I could figure out how to use it, create a negative mold, I would definitely do some small runs for new cases (I'm guessing there would be some interest). Maybe an alternate approach to CNC is to take a case and create a negative...how do you do that and make it heat resistant because I doubt silicon would work? Hmmm...I may now have to invest in one of those two QL top cases currently on eBay that were just much more pricey than I wanted so I passed.

Oh, one problem is the integrated keyboard which kind of makes this never a complete task. No idea how to solve that unless the top is re-designed to fit some off-the shelf keyboard that could then get new QL-like keys or key-tops. That begs the question, and apologies for not carefully reading this, but for Issue 8 and Tx, what are the keyboard interface options? Standard QL ribbon or something more flexible?

[Dave]

For a future QL design, the microdrive hump could be eliminated, and the machine would look more like a Spectrum +2.

SD card extenders are available all over. https://www.ebay.com/p/936743692

If you put the Q68 to the back and the extenders to the side, and hang the front buttons off wires, everything comes together very simply.

[bwinkel67]

For a future QL design, the microdrive hump could be eliminated, and the machine would look more like a Spectrum +2.

SD card extenders are available all over. https://www.ebay.com/p/936743692

If you put the Q68 to the back and the extenders to the side, and hang the front buttons off wires, everything comes together very simply.

Oh good, that is what I was thinking. My first task on this ever growing, self-imposed list of mine is to see how the Q68 looks in an old case by fitting it into the bottom part when I get it so thanks for the tip as to where to start. Once the craziness of school is over in mid May I will get to more 3D design and esp case-molding which sounds even more fun. Case designing is a bit addictive (at least to me -- maybe because I'm new to it) and I had a hard time letting go of the vDrive case until I got it where I wanted it -- one more round (I have the design changed just need to re-print it next week and then re-fit the board) and I think I'm done and I'll put it up on Thingiverse for anyone interested now or in the future.

But one thing I love about the QL as much as its operating system is the case design so I do want to play around with what can be done and if new motherbaords come out it would be nice to have something other than a home-made wooden box to put it in

[Dave]

If you cut the case .5mm inside the MDV hump, then just print a new end cap with the hump end styling but smaller, with two SD slots in it... Well...

You'd be all set.