OSI Portable Project

[Sideburn]

Hi all,

I finally just finished my Superboard II to luggable portable conversion. Everything is 3d printed and mostly snap together so no visible bolts (except for the hinge bracket mount bolts on the bottom and the hinges on the front of the display).

Instead of latches to close the display lid I am using powerful magnets below the keyboard surface and inside the display enclosure. Worked out pretty well surprisingly since there’s a pretty large gap of air between them where the space is to allow for the keyboard not to touch the lcd panel.

I had to split it into 4 quarters because my printer only has a 10” build platform but everything is tongue and groove and bolted together.

The board itself also bolts on. Everywhere there are bolts I used threaded inserts to make sure it can stand the test of time disassembling and reassembling.

It has 16 2,000 mah nimh batteries in it that give it a runtime of about 2.5 hours. It’s a power hog!

There’s a few issues here and there but overall I am pretty happy with it.

I’ll be making a video demo soon but here are some photos for anyone who wants to have a look

[pbirkel]

What a great design; looks really nice!

[Sideburn]

Thanks. I just found an issue with the screen. I hope it can be fixed in rom. The very top line is getting cut off. I noticed it when I went into the monitor.

Hopefully I can shift the whole thing down a bit.

[ronin47]

Wow, that's an incredible piece of work, it looks epic!

[Sideburn]

Wow, that's an incredible piece of work, it looks epic!

Thanks! It was a lot of work. My biggest 3d project to date. I’m glad it’s over. For now. lol

bxdanny had helped me shift the characters to the left with a mod to my monitor rom. I hope I can do something similar to nudge everything down half a line to fix the top line from cutting off!

[bxdanny]

That does look beautiful!

It's normal for the top line to get cut off like that. It even happens on a CRT. I think the first 1.5 lines or so of text (about 12 scan lines) actually are read out during the vertical sync pulse, so there is no way they can be displayed.

[Sideburn]

Ahh ok I won’t worry about it then and thanks glad you all like it.

I heavily went by the Apple Portable design from 1989 as a guideline. I had to come up with my own tension mechanism for the hinges. Basically a bolt and some washers and two nuts to lock the tension into place. Worked out perfect. Then had to make a low voltage cut off and 3 voltage regulators to provide 5v, 9v, and 3v to the board, lcd panel and microcassette.

I made a mistake on the display thickness and the lid didn’t fit so I had to shave off everything I could on the monitors pc board to get it to barely fit! As a result the lid is only 1mm thick but it worked out ok. Quite the adventure and I learned a lot.

Now I can play with it and learn more about the superboard.
I need to learn how to use the monitor and assembly coding.

When in the monitor can I carriage return to the next line so I can see what I’m doing? And what about loading programs for the monitor? Any way to tell if it’s succeeding or failed while loading?

I want to get some useful programs onto that micro cassette. That’s the main reason I put external audio I/o jacks on the back.

[ronin47]

Wow, that's an incredible piece of work, it looks epic!

Thanks! It was a lot of work. My biggest 3d project to date. I’m glad it’s over. For now. lol

bxdanny had helped me shift the characters to the left with a mod to my monitor rom. I hope I can do something similar to nudge everything down half a line to fix the top line from cutting off!

Yeah, the character shift thing was interesting, but mine great also thanks to bxdanny

Makes me really want to get mine in something similar, but I don't have a decent 3D printer. You must be very pleased with the results.

I also still need to get the cassette interface working, but have just not had the time of late and need to get back to it. I seem to go in bursts!

[Sideburn]

This is my 4th 3d printer since my first diy printer in 2009. I’m amazed by the print quality it can do for an FDM printer.
And the color capability is very cool but very slow switching filaments. I highly recommend the Bambu printers, almost maintenance free.

[ronin47]

This is my 4th 3d printer since my first diy printer in 2009. I’m amazed by the print quality it can do for an FDM printer.
And the color capability is very cool but very slow switching filaments. I highly recommend the Bambu printers, almost maintenance free.

Somebody I know over on the exxos forum recently bought a Bambu and speaks very highly of it.

I'd certainly consider one if I can start doing more parts.