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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 23, 2025, 1:25 AM

    The four horsemen of vintage PC enthusiasm: power button, reset button, power light, hard drive activity light.

    The power and reset button parts extend through the faceplate to press buttons on a circuit board underneath. The two light glyphs will sit atop a super-thin 3D printed layer with a bright LED underneath, so the whole right side of the panel will glow.

    The design and scale of the individual bits will change before the final version, but I'm pretty firmly wedded to this idea overall.

    A screenshot of a 3D model of a PC case. Across the top are four embossed symbols representing power, reset, sunrays and a cylinder. The power and reset symbols poke through the panel to buttons underneath, and the other two will cover LEDs that will glow from underneath to represent power and disk drive activity.
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Replies

  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 23, 2025, 4:42 AM

    How's it possible that I can just *make* my own buttons? Well, these exist - these are momentary tactile switches with a square nub on top, meant to have these colourful tops click on to them. I can make a simple circuit board with two of these, and two LEDs, 3D print some bits with my power and reset symbols to pop on, and then it's just two wires from each LED and button to the motherboard. That's functionally all that you're pressing on your own PC case to turn your computer on.

    A photo of some small tactile buttons scattered on a desk. There are also brightly coloured round tops to the buttons that clearly just snap on to the top of the buttons to give them an easier to press surface.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 23, 2025, 4:51 AM

    As for the LEDs, I'm hoping these will do the job. These are 15mm square diffused LED panels - they were Adafruit product ADA4040, but it doesn't look like they sell them anymore.

    I can easily test what these will look like through a thin 3D print. If they're not bright enough, I can pivot to using super bright LEDs.

    I won't need to worry about a current-limiting resistor in this assembly as PC motherboards do that anyway for their indicator LEDs.

    A photo of two small LED lights. They are in a 1.5cm square housing and will light up blue. One is plugged into a small electronic breadboard, the other is on its side and shows the text C00106.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 24, 2025, 7:25 AM

    Okay, that's working beautifully so far. The photo is exaggerating the brightness, but not by much! That's shining through two layers of 3D print - I might even increase that to dull it a little.

    The intricate button holes on the left would require support material underneath to print this whole structure in one go, and my AMS is a little broken at the moment, so I can't actually do more than two different filaments in one print right now.

    A photo of a very thin 3D printed part on top of a square blue light. The light is shining through the print, and illuminating a spot around a little icon representing power.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 24, 2025, 11:16 AM

    Okay, here's where the front panel sits after day seven. I have a pretty solid proof-of-concept for both the buttons and LEDs for the front buttons and lights - can anyone suggest a different reset button icon that isn't just a circle with arrows on it? Ideally it needs some mass in the middle.

    Next step is the internal structure - I think the top and sides will be one U-shaped piece, but that means the front, back and base plate need to stand on their own, with a frame for the motherboard.

    A 3D model of a small PC case. It's a rectangular tower. Across the top at the front are four embossed symbols - power, an X, sunrays and a cylinder, representing the power and reset buttons, and the power and hard drive activity lights.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 27, 2025, 10:14 AM

    My plan to work on the internal structure has led me straight back to the CD drive again - I have a plan to attach the front, back and bottom panels together, but I want to get the front stuff fitting before I can print a full front panel. This kerjigger will screw into the front panel from the inside.

    Modelling off this beat-up, second-hand, slightly bent in places drive probably delayed the project a couple of days due to wasting a few iterations on its own eccentricities.

    A photo of a slim CD drive from a computer, with a thin 3D printed faceplate bolted onto it.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 27, 2025, 11:27 AM

    This is the 3D modelling equivalent of a cluttered, untidy desk, but I have at least a V1 print-worthy design for the CD drive mount and the bracket for the fans. That will need some cutouts for the fan wiring to escape, but I'll wait for the fans to arrive so I know exactly what I'm dealing with before I do that.

    An untidy 3D model of a partially designed computer case. Highlighted in the middle is a bracket for three small fans - it's a tall rectangular box with three large cutouts, and 12 smaller holes around those cutouts for the fans to be mounted to the bracket via screws. The bracket itself has screw holes top and bottom so it can be mounted inside the front of the case.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 28, 2025, 12:58 AM

    I think I've entered a new phase with my #PCB design skills. Being able to sketch the layout in #Rhino3D where I'm relatively skilled, then export as SVG and then just line up the handful of actual components just so in Fritzing has been great.

    Today I've discovered the existence of "single line" or "single stroke" fonts - apparently used in engraving, but also useful for text on PCBs. The one I'm using here is "MecSoft" from the Rhino people themselves: wiki.mcneel.com/rhino/engravin

    A screenshot from Rhino 3D showing a line drawing of a small circuit board. It has four square sections for two buttons and two LEDs. Text reads retro PC button board and @timixretroplays".
    A screenshot from circuit board design program Fritzing, showing the same layout from the Rhino screenshot but with places for components and header pins added. There are yellow lines running from header pins to where the components on the board will sit.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 28, 2025, 6:08 AM

    This is more or less how the top of the front panel will look when complete. These just look like static icons, but the power and X things are tactile push-buttons, and the star and disk will hide bright blue LEDs for status lights. (Ignore the little orange breakout board, that's just holding the buttons in place.)

    This is 10cm wide, which is the full width of the final case.

    The sparkly black filament hides many crimes, but not under-extrusion - I'll have to tweak that for the final panels.

    A photo of a 3D printed part sitting on a desk in sunlight. It's a black rectangle with an inner white rectangle, and four black glyphs - power, an X, a star icon and a cylinder icon, represent the power and reset buttons and power and drive lights of a PC. The whole thing is about 10 by 4 cm in size.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 29, 2025, 11:37 AM

    Ok, decision time. What looks better: the 'split X' or the circle-with-arrow for a reset button? The circle's the better symbol but looks very similar to the power button. The X looks more balanced on the panel overall.

    Both are perfectly functional as physical buttons, the total width and height of each glyph here is only 12mm so even an empty-ish circle works when firmly pointed at with a fingertip.

    The circle version needs a bigger arrowhead, otherwise I'm happy with its appearance.

    A photo of a 3D printed part with power, reset, light and cylinder symbols. The reset symbol on this one is a broken or interrupted X shape.
    A photo of a 3D printed part with power, reset, light and cylinder symbols. The reset symbol on this one is a circle with an arrow pointing around its circumference.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 29, 2025, 10:33 PM

    The people have spoken, almost nobody liked the 'X' reset button... but I really don't like the circle one either, so here's a first draft of a squared-off one that will look a bit more balanced amongst the other three. Getting it to look right by itself will take a few goes, but the PCB to mount all this to won't arrive until next week sometime.

    Screenshot from a graphics editing program showing a few different computer symbols. There's cylinders for drive activity and a few different takes on a "reset" symbol. The newest one is on the right and is a circle-and-arrow arrangement but the circle is more squared off, to make it look less like the also perfectly round power symbol.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 29, 2025, 10:54 PM

    Here's the little setup I'm using to test these. The Pro Micro is just there to provide easy access to 5 volts and ground for the LEDs, the buttons don't do anything but make a satisfying click.

    The camera likes to wash out the light under the indicators - in real life the effect is a much more even blue. The LEDs are these: adafruit.com/product/4040

    A 0.1" pitch breadboard isn't quite the right spacing for this, but the tolerances are high enough for things to fit together right.

    A photo of some electronics on a breadboard. A microcontroller is feeding 5 volts and ground to two square LEDs, which are lit up very brightly blue. Next to them are two buttons marked power and reset but these aren't hooked up to anything.
    The same arrangement from the first photo except a 3D printed frame and cover has been placed over the buttons and LEDs. They form part of the front panel for a PC, with power and reset buttons, and power and drive lights. The two lights are brightly lit with diffuse blue light showing in a square through the white cover.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 29, 2025, 11:36 PM

    Some actual computer parts arrived - a CompactFlash to SATA adapter, a SATA-to-also-SATA-but-the-slim-optical-drive-version adapter, and then a dual parallel-to-serial adapter to connect both drives to the PC itself.

    Using SATA drives simplifies the data cabling, but power cabling is still going to be a mess of adapters - the PicoPSU I have gives me one SATA and one 4-pin molex power plugs, but I need two SATA for the disk drives and one 4-pin "floppy" for the PATA adapter.

    A photo of some internal computer parts. There's an adapter to plug a CompactFlash memory card into a serial ATA controller, nother to plug a slim CD drive into the same, and then a third to attach both SATA drives to a parallel ATA controller.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 30, 2025, 12:00 AM

    ...and here's the next technical problem to solve: that dual SATA to PATA adapter is exactly as tall as the space it has between the motherboard and the side of the case. This is a very small component in the hand, but it becomes enormous when modeled in 3D with the rest of a compact computer.

    I don't want to design my own right angle riser PCB thing for this, so I'll find a very short 40-pin cable extension and run it behind the motherboard or something.

    A 3D model of a partially designed computer case. The dual drive adapter from the previous post is shown in context with a motherboard and case, and the adapter is too tall to fit in the current design.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 30, 2025, 1:07 AM

    Okay, I'm pretty much in love with this iteration of the front panel buttons and lights - this version of the reset button feels unexpectedly modern somehow.

    The reset icon needs to be moved upward slightly for balance, I need to iron the top surface for neatness, and some other dimensional tweaks etc etc to make it physically mount well, but that's the hard work done.

    Speaking of the top surface - I might print and glue on a 1- or 2-layer fascia for the front of the case for final prettiness.

    A photo of some electronics on a breadboard. A microcontroller is feeding power to two LED lights underneath a 3D printed panel. That panel features power and reset buttons, and sun and cylinder symbols that the lights are shining through.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 30, 2025, 6:41 AM

    Well, that's an interesting result. Ironing a 3D print usually produces a more matte finish because the surface is so much flatter, so with sparkly PLA it produces a surface that looks like it's been very neatly carved from a glittery rock. I'll definitely be printing and attaching a separate faceplate to the PC case for finishing looks.

    A photo of a very thin, flat 3D print of a PC case front. It's rectangular with large open spaces in the middle. It's black in colour, with both a matte finish and sparkly bits.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 30, 2025, 7:42 AM

    (And just to be clear, I don't mean with an actual clothes iron - there's a setting in modern 3D printing slicers called "ironing" that does one last, very fine, very low volume pass over a finished surface to smooth it out.)

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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 31, 2025, 6:39 AM

    It's starting to look like something.

    There are flaws - some stuff didn't line up right, some lined up too well (there's one screw trying to poke through the front panel), I've stripped one plastic screw socket, and I appear to have forgotten to allow room for a fan grille of any kind. But these flaws are also lessons, and things I can fix, and I'm becoming quite excited by this little project!

    A photo of a partially assembled 3D printed computer case sitting on a desk. So far it's just the front of the case with a few things screwed on - a slim CD drive is on one side with a slot poking through the front panel, a large rectangular gap with spaces for 3 cooling fans, an empty slot opposite the CD drive which will be filled with keyboard and joystick ports, and a panel across the top with power and reset buttons, and power and drive activity lights. It's sitting on a green mousepad in front of a keyboard for scale - the front panel measure about ten by 20 centimetres.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 31, 2025, 7:06 AM

    In fact, looking at this now - I could probably print the front panel and all of these bits in one monolithic piece for strength. I've designed each individual part separately so I wasn't reprinting one large part over and over with tiny changes, but they don't have to stay modular.

    One single part, printed with breakaway supports, and surfaces I can glue prettier faceplates with better finishing to, which then gets bolted to the rest of the case structure - I think that's the way forward now.

    A photo of a 3D printed part of a PC case. It's the front panel with openings for a CD drive, cooling fans, ports and buttons.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Aug 1, 2025, 2:16 AM

    Phenomenal cooling power, itty bitty mounting space. These are 50x50x10mm fans, and I'm cramming three of 'em into the front of this little case. The little 1GHz VIA C3 CPU that will live in here definitely doesn't need this much airflow, but the XP machine that will inhabit v2 of this case might.

    A photo of the front panel of a 3D printed computer case. The front is dominated by a large rectangular opening with three cooling fans in a row. The colourful, reflective stickers on the fans say "Deep Cool". A mess of blue, red and black wires are dangling off the back of the panel.
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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Aug 1, 2025, 4:24 AM

    Oh, that explains why the fans fit so tightly - a 50mm fan's housing is actually just slightly wider than 50mm, so even with half a mil of space of clearance on the top and bottom of the stack, they were still pretty much jammed in together when screwed in to 50.00mm pitch mounts. I guess I'll add a quarter of a mm of spacing between each fan. I don't own a motorised sander or grinder to slim them down quickly, so spacing out the mounts by 0.25mm or so is the path of least resistance here.

    A photo of a small computer fan, with its width being measured at 50.12mm by a set of digital calipers.
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  • Nelsonskyfaller@jawns.club
    Jul 23, 2025, 3:07 AM

    @timixretroplays Wow I suddenly miss the hard drive activity light! Can you get one on modern hardware & software, or is this now exclusive to retrocomputing?

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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 23, 2025, 3:34 AM

    @skyfaller it's mostly still there - if you buy a motherboard on its own today, it'll still have the pins for it, and lots of cases still have a separate hard drive light. Lots of pre-built computers don't bother with it anymore, or even a reset button, because those have become less necessary - SSDs are lighting fast now, software is more stable and is better about reporting long waits due to disk access without locking up, so having the separate indicator isn't as crucial.

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  • Tinxtinx@jit.social
    Jul 24, 2025, 9:22 AM

    @timixretroplays looks cool! But does it not burn your eyes? Often a problem :D maybe add a photo resistor for dimming to ambient light.

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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 24, 2025, 11:11 AM

    @tinx it's actually not as piercingly bright in real life as this photo makes it appear, especially now that I've made that plate a bit thicker and it's shining through five layers instead of two.

    I actually worry it'll be dimmer again because this is a best-case resistor for a blue LED - I wonder if the motherboard will have a chunkier one just to be safe with all possible kinds of dinky LEDs. I won't know that until I actually have stuff assembled and hooked up.

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  • Tom Robertstroberts@theblower.au
    Jul 29, 2025, 11:43 AM

    @timixretroplays I think the second one.

    The steps of:
    - power off
    - cycle power
    - cat bum hole activates
    - put cat poop in bin

    … is my daily sequence.

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  • Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)iris@neuromatch.social
    Jul 29, 2025, 12:05 PM

    @timixretroplays breaking with the trend here, I like the X better if it's for your own use and you know what it means. The other two symbols are also mysteries to me and that's fine! I'm guessing... LEDs on/off, and connect to database (or server?). I agree the circle looks too similar to on/off at a glance, and that feels more important to me than symbol meaningfulness. But also X feels quite natural for "reset".

    (edit: read upthread and know what all four symbols mean now. I still like the X.)

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  • The Gregzonegregly@retro.pizza
    Jul 29, 2025, 12:59 PM

    @timixretroplays Adding my 2¢ here and also saying the circle-with-arrow. To me, “X” means “cancel”, whereas the circle and arrow conveys the idea of resetting better.

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  • Jim P.jimp@masto.ai
    Jul 29, 2025, 10:45 PM

    @timixretroplays That could be nice. Almost like a squared off "u-turn" arrow.

    Something based on a lightning bolt could also be fun.

    A "!" in a triangle is another one I've seen before, like a caution sign.

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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 29, 2025, 10:49 PM

    @jimp pretty much anything like that would be appropriate, and quite funny given the primary use of this reset button will be to reboot Windows 98 after it's bluescreened, but I really want something that says "go back to the start" or at the very least "interrupt what's happening".

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  • Geoff Reedygereedy@types.pl
    Jul 30, 2025, 12:03 AM

    @timixretroplays @jimp then maybe rewind symbols might work like ⏮️ or ⏪. I also remember saying I was bouncing a server to mean rebooting it so maybe an arrow bouncing off of the floor could be nice.

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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 30, 2025, 12:05 AM

    @gereedy @jimp ohhhh... I actually really like this idea. I don't think it fits in the context of a PC (naturally you'd want a play button for the power button too, but the metaphor collapses when it comes to the power and drive lights), but those symbols would work beautifully in the same sort of button-protruding-through-control-panel arrangement I'm designing here. That might lead to some delicious physical play controls for a future project!

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  • Jim P.jimp@masto.ai
    Jul 30, 2025, 12:31 AM

    @timixretroplays @gereedy There's always the classic "return key" icon but that's not far off the U-turn arrow you had (just down then left, rather than up and left)

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  • Ölbaumoscherler@tooting.ch
    Jul 29, 2025, 10:31 AM

    @timixretroplays Is Fritzing good? I remember I started with it, but then it annoyed me because stuff tended to move on the grid when you touched them, or something like that, so I switched to EasyEDA, because I didn’t want to install and learn KiCAD just yet.

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  • Tim 🎮timixretroplays@digipres.club
    Jul 29, 2025, 10:59 AM

    @oscherler I think Fritzing is the right tool for my needs and the way I learn and think about things. It does have its quirks and bugs (stuff moving unexpectedly rings a faint bell) but it's a much better piece of software now than it was a year or more ago. You might find it's more straightforward to use if you gave it another try.

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