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Pantofle - Machined acrylic Sofle case

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Endu97:
Howsit everyone,

So the new board itch returned a few weeks back and it was time to start working on a new case - this time the goal was to keep things easy to produce, unlike the last case which kinda kicked my ass.  I did a bit of browsing through some of the open-sourced boards out there and ended up settling on the Sofle v2.  After a few days of playing around with different forms in CAD, I stumbled onto something that I think works and just went with it. Here it is, a pair of pantofles for your sofles  :p




Just a few crappy renders for basic visualisation.


I always start with plates and try get them out the way, they are by far the easiest part to manufacture (ty vacuum workholding)

A pair of cases fresh off the machine and ready for bead blasting.





I need to get a coarser glass bead that doesn't take so long to work out machine marks.




Currently, the cases are in a semi-finished state and the only thing that needs to be updated is the little windows which sit above the OLEDs - I didn't account for the additional height that socketing take up but it should be a pretty simple fix.
Once I have a pair of cases with the updated geometry (hopefully by the end of the weekend), I'm going to try my hand at dyeing them.
Please let me know what you think, I'd really appreciate the feedback?

Also just want to say a huge thank you to the Keyn discord homies who have been a great help, supplying me with ideas as well as letting me borrow some of their toys to get the job done.
Ty Cujo for lending me your board and PlainOldCheese for the gem of a name.  Maybe I am going a bit overboard but I honestly don't think that a more fitting name even exists for a Sofle case.

Alejo1707:
In in iiiiin!

Sent from my GM1917 using Tapatalk

Endu97:
I decided to spend the weekend dyeing the existing parts rather than playing around with the final, working pieces.  Very happy with the outcome and the process is extremely simple.

I mixed Rit Dyemore for Synthetics https://www.ritdye.com/type/dyemore-for-synthetics with water in a volumetric ratio of 1:3 and boiled the parts for a few minutes on a portable camping stove.  I am pretty sure that you could get away with using significantly more water or less dye and instead, increase cook time - that's something to test another day.
Originally, I had two colours for testing and intended to use a blue dye but after attempting to bring it to boil in a super cheap glass dish, I quickly learned how to clean up hundreds of tiny, hot glass pieces and a good liter of dye.  The second attempt took place in an old, mangled camping pot and it was smooth sailing from there on out.


World class dyeing setup.


1 minute


2 Minutes 30 Seconds


5 Minutes - Colour density starts to get pretty decent from around here.


10 minutes - Feet make an intro.


20 minutes - Very happy with the intensity of the colour so I decided to stop here but I do think you could probably go a few shades darker with an additional 10-15 minutes (Certain dyes may require more time than others).  Please no foot shaming.


This is the original case, dyed for 20 minutes.  The finishes and bead blasting need some work but that will be sorted on future runs.

Very stoked with the result of such a simple process.  I was concerned that in order to achieve good colour density, I would need to use a carrier such as acetone or isopropyl like some websites suggested - It doesn't look to be the case so any long-term breakdown of the acrylic due to chemical exposure shouldn't be an issue.

zhol:
looks great! (almost looks edible haha) I do like the two-part construction; I’m not too familiar with the processes for finishing acrylic, but is it possible to finish it clear, in the sense that you can clearly see the OLED through the acrylic covering the OLED?
any plans to run or open source this or is it not the time yet?

Endu97:
Cheers!   :D

I could try to polish out the remaining tool marks rather than bead blast but it's so labor-intensive that it's very hard to justify. 
The plan is for the oled to be visible through the frosted window and it's something that I am currently playing around with - I'm pretty confident that if the window is blasted with a fairly coarse bead and the display sits right up against it, it will be legible.

As for producing the cases - I may open-source the files in the future, but first, I'd like to do a few small runs in-house.

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