Dave wrote:
How did you get such a clean cut on the ABS?
Pretty much as Mark and Tobias posted; drill holes and lots of careful filing.
First I marked out the aperture in the ABS by scoring outline with a craft knife (pencil/indelible pen easily becomes too indistinct when filing). Then I drilled a couple of holes at each corner and used a loose hacksaw blade to cut alongside horizontal lines, rasp filed off the excess, and then did fine work with small files.
Picture attached shows placement, I had to bend a couple of pins to avoid internal plastic pillar, wire was Kynar 0.25mm. In retrospect I guess it would have been easier to wire data & some address lines off back of ROM port connector. Because of the pillar (and centering) you cannot quite use both ROM port & DIN together, (although Miracle hard drive lead is OK). But this was not a consideration for me, ROMOEH enables quick prototyping, pity the unused pin on ROM port wasn't wired to R/W. (ROM port MHD & MIDI interface circuits posted in qlhardware/Files/Transfer)
The only thing missing is a neat black DIN cover like ROM port etc.
While I had the QL case disassembled I also resited the loose Qimi mouse connector. I like to think both mods nicely retained aesthetic appeal of uncluttered black box.