New 3D Printed SD card Tray for OLD GDEMU Revisions

[twistedsymphony]

Older GDEMUs have a slightly different PCB shape and a whole lot less support. Deunan was kind enough to send me an old GDEMU PCB in order to design a tray that would fit it.

it was similar enough to the newer PCB shape and component locations that it didn't take much work to modify the tray to fit.

Let me know if you have an old GD-EMU I'd like to find someone to test fit with a fully populated PCB.

BUY ONE FROM ME HERE: https://bit-district.com/old-gdemu-sd-card-tray.html

GET THE FILES TO PRINT YOUR OWN HERE: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1585333

 

[SmokeMonster]

That looks excellent, great work. I'm sure that you just made all of those early adopters very happy.

 

[fluxcore]

Shit, sorry about that, I've been meaning to get you dimensions for months but just never got around to it, I don't actually use my early revision GDEMU DC all that much Awesome that Deunan sent you a board, more useful than just dimensions anyway (especially for fit of sd card slot).

Happy to be a Guinea pig, I know a couple of guys with 3d printers.

Excellent work as always, it warms my heart to see useful stuff like this released TO THE WORLD for 3d printers.

I guess the big CAREFUL! with this item is the screw near the PSU holding the tray down, I'd be very explicit to warn people to use a very shallow screw there. I've got a dead DC that someone gave me, where they used the wrong screw there when putting it back together and screwed right down onto the motherboard, destroying a bunch of very fine traces which route right below that screwhole. Be warned!

 

[twistedsymphony]

no worries, having a board makes it a whole lot easier. there really wasn't much to change as these early boards are pretty much the same as the later boards just missing the section on the left and the screw holes.

the shield needed one of the cutouts enlarged as on the newer boards the LED sits there but on the early boards there's the LED and a oscillator. that would have been difficult to nail down without having the board.

 

[kuze]

I have one of the older GDEMU boards and it can be pretty fiddly since it's not really mounted at all, other than relying on the drive connector.

Does this provide support to help alleviate that problem?

 

[twistedsymphony]

Does this provide support to help alleviate that problem?

it's pretty damn solid with this. I designed it specifically to support the PCB as much as possible. The base supports it the entire length of two sides, plus a little extra support below the button, then the shield sandwiches it down so there's nowhere for it to move.

it's not as solid as the as the newer GDEmus since they get screwed down into the base directly, but it's as solid as you're going to get it without any mechanical fasteners; I highly doubt you'd have any connection issues with this

 

[RGB]

Getting props from the man himself https://gdemu.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/the-catcher-in-the-rye/ very nice

 

[jassin000]

Would have been nice if he also mentioned the Rhea tray in addition to the GDEmu tray.
These really help to stabilize the device PCB, and makes switching SD cards feel much safer (no worry of dropping the card inside).

 

[twistedsymphony]

he did mention that there was a rhea tray available as well, he just didn't put a link explicitly to it in the post.

There is a link to it on the LINKS page as well, though he hasn't added the GDEMU tray there yet.

 

[Darksoft]

Very nice project!

 

[fluxcore]

A huge improvement over the empty space. Due to the flimsy mounting mechanism, it was very fiddly to remove SD cards, and very easy to drop them into the abyss. Perhaps don't get the tray printed in pure white though, it doesn't quite match the dreamcast's slight grey, but doesn't look bad.

Two slight niggles though:

There isn't quite enough stability given to the PCB towards the front of the dreamcast - due to the lack of screw mounting the PCB, when pushing an SD card into the slot, the torque on the PCB pushes towards the front of the dreamcast. Having the little shelf on the PSU side of the card tray helps, but at least with the print I have, tolerances have resulted in there being a little wiggle room. Definitely a huge improvement over not having the tray (I really did worry for the connector which takes the entire brunt of the torque), but could be improved if there were a shelf towards the front of the DC as well. I appreciate that the build area would be considerably larger to accommodate this though.

Also, unlike with the rhea/phoebe trays, the SD cards can fall out if you tip the dreamcast upside down

Here are some pics which show off how great it looks

Thanks again!

 

[twistedsymphony]

There isn't quite enough stability given to the PCB towards the front of the dreamcast - due to the lack of screw mounting the PCB, when pushing an SD card into the slot, the torque on the PCB pushes towards the front of the dreamcast. Having the little shelf on the PSU side of the card tray helps, but at least with the print I have, tolerances have resulted in there being a little wiggle room. Definitely a huge improvement over not having the tray (I really did worry for the connector which takes the entire brunt of the torque), but could be improved if there were a shelf towards the front of the DC as well. I appreciate that the build area would be considerably larger to accommodate this though.

hmm... not necessarily. If I extended the left side far enough to reach the corner of the PCB as long as I hooked around that corner a few mm it should be enough to keep it from twisting. I could also tighten up the tolerances of the left edge but I did leave a little bit of clearance there intentionally so that that if someone's printer printed oversized, it wasn't going to put continuous lateral stress on the port.

i think if you loosen the mounting screws slightly you might be able to snug it up.

but I'll look into extending it to reach the corner.

Also, unlike with the rhea/phoebe trays, the SD cards can fall out if you tip the dreamcast upside down

on the Saturn tray the depth is such that the lid keeps them from falling out. On the Dreamcast its just too deep. I had played with making them taller so that the lid kept them in but it made it a lot more difficult to reach the card slot on the GDEMU. Ultimately I decided I'd rather have them fall out then have the slots so tight that they grip and stress the SD cards since with everyone having different printer setups there tends to be a lot of variation in tolerances, so one printer would be too lose anyway and someone else's may have been too tight.

Here are some pics which show off how great it looks

I kinda like the slight difference in the whites. Thanks for sharing the pics

 

[kuze]

twistedsymphony sent me his print and wow, I'm thoroughly impressed with how well it fits and improves the installation of the GDEMU 5.0.

The front piece he included I wasn't expecting and helps to further secure the GDEMU board as well as prevent there from being a 'hole' in the front side where SD cards or what have you could have slipped through. It's perfectly sized without clipping the components on the board.

I would strongly recommend this to anyone who has an older GDEMU unit. Normally after reinstalling my GDEMU board and putting the Dreamcast back together, I'd have to take it back apart a few times to get the GDEMU to sit just right and be recognized by the system -- this no longer happens and inserting/removing SD cards is WAY easier.

Thanks for putting this out there for us!

 

[twistedsymphony]

There isn't quite enough stability given to the PCB towards the front of the dreamcast

Just an update on this. I've snugged up the tolerances on the left edge slightly and I've extended the base to wrap around the corner. their may still be a little wiggle but the new design acts as a stop so it's not going to deflect more than a fraction of a mm.