PowerBook case plastics replacement

[gsteemso]

I have recently acquired a PowerBook 540c. As so many of us have found, the case plastics are so feeble as to not reliably stand up to disassembly of the machine, even when great care is taken. I am strongly motivated to have more durable replacements fabricated.

Many threads here in the past have discussed this. The consensus appears to be that 3D printing is the most affordable solution, for which the only difficult prerequisite is that a 3D computer model needs to be produced for each individual piece of plastic. Once such a model is in hand, replacement cases can be produced in all sorts of materials, limited only by the quality of the 3D printer available.

There are three requirements to produce these models—a template, for which I initially volunteer my nearly mint 540c, and I’m sure many others among us would be willing to put forward other models to scan; a 3D scanner, which at least one person on these forums has volunteered the use of in the past; and a human who is willing to actually do the work to turn the scans into usable computer models.

That last one is the sticking point. Do we have any volunteers? Failing that, would a bounty or Kickstarter or Patreon or some such campaign to pay someone to do it be realistic? I’m willing to sort out the administrivia of setting that up if we need to, though of course a volunteer to just do the work would be a lot simpler.

 

[unity]

I would just buy a new shell. I have a couple and they come up often on eBay. New old stock. I never cared how 3D printing looks when it comes to fit an finish.

 

[Byrd]

The quality and rigidity of PB 5x0 case plastics varies significantly out in the wild - I'm with unity and would suggest just choosing another with good pics online.  You'll be there for a day and an age modelling and printing a rough equivalent which is a waste of time when original parts are easily obtained.  

Most 5x0 have brittle plastics which snap and scratch easily, while others have a slightly darker plastic (less use/UV exposure?) which holds up well to this day.  Look for a 540/540c specifically.

 

[gsteemso]

I appear to have placed more emphasis than I meant to on the “540c” part. The goal of this project would be to replace ALL of the various PowerBook models’ easily damaged parts. For example, I have a 180c whose case was destroyed because the moron who pulled the drive Back In The Day didn’t put all the hinge screws back in, so what I took to be a loose hinge when I bought the thing turned out in fact to be the part of the shell to which the hinge attaches being shredded a little worse every time the thing was touched. Those parts of the case are now completely, and apparently irreparably, destroyed. Other parts like the port cover on the back broke off long before it got to me and are now more or less unobtainium.

At a minimum, a project like this one to produce 3D model files for the few genuinely near-irreplaceable PowerBook case parts, mainly port covers and screen bezels as far as I can see, would seem to be well overdue.

Regarding your other point, the relative ugliness of a 3D-printed part is by no means a constant. If you pay enough money, a suitably equipped shop can produce output that is almost as good as a proper moulded part. (In any case, I am seriously considering having any parts I have made for my own use printed in metal. Brass would look nice and be sturdy. It would admittedly also be fairly heavy, but that doesn't really bother me much.)

For that matter, once the model files are available, it’s a lot less of a stretch to have something fabricated by a less cheap-ass production process, at least for the better-funded among us.