Some would say this was a long time coming and truth be told, this should have come a great deal sooner…but knowing what follows when releasing a custom casing designed around custom components, the flood gates that open go far beyond just supplying a design file. This has honestly been the biggest issue I’ve had with making only a partial design public, because inevitably the emails and tweets will come in asking for the rest of the parts, links to the components used and then advice on how to put it all together.
This was one of the exact reasons why the idea of a full kit was put in place years ago and still being worked on today, but of course the interest needed to make it a reality and economical (i.e. needing lots of money for them) is in direct competition with those who just want the case files (i.e. don’t want to pay). It’s kind of like not being able to get out of your own way.
So then it hit me. Meeting halfway at this stage of the game is pointless. The kits won’t succeed unless there are people to buy them, and generating interest to a very limited group willing to pay for the convenience of a kit is even harder.
100’s of hours have gone into revisions of this case design since it first emerged in early 2015. Every detail was built from the ground up, revised, tested and improved with each version. And not just the casing, but the custom components, the addition of SLA printed buttons, decals and covers and even new finishing techniques have made this N64 design my baby of my modding “career”. Giving it away has just seemed very hard to do, especially knowing that as soon as I did, people would be knocking at the door asking for more.
But things changed a few weeks ago. I sold off a few of the older version cases I had printed a bunch of when I was about to start trying to sell a few kits, and then the design had a major revision on many levels. But as part of the sales agreement, I provided a parts list of the basic components for the customers so they could source on their own. And then suddenly, once that was there I had a resource that anyone could use as a reference.
In turn this lead to a solution that didn’t require a “meeting halfway point”. The older designs still use a majority of the basic components as the current kits do, so using all the custom components that would come with the kit wouldn’t necessarily take away from ones ability to build one with some modification. And let’s face it…modding is about seeing what you can do, not 100% about your end result.
So here it is! The full set of STL files for a complete Legacy version of a Downing Style Portable Nintendo 64! (download here)
Alright, so first let’s explain what the “Legacy” casing is.
First and foremost, this is about 3 minor versions behind the current kit version which is why it’s called a “Legacy” version.
Second, what is provided is what you get and you will find it difficult in some cases to find parts that are going to fit properly because in the instance of buttons and decals, they were all custom designed and printed in SLA. You WILL have to hack this case to make make work without these parts, but the Parts List can help you out for most of the off-the-shelf parts that were used. I can provide a set of SLA printed buttons and decals that can make your day easier, but both the resin needed and the time to print carry a cost.
Third, included in this list of STL files are enclosures for 2 custom power supply solutions for this model. One of the big changes between this version and most recent is the custom battery charger PCB which allowed for a single 12V, 3A input to power everything. The Legacy version utilized a standard type A USB jack to use both wall power and battery charger at the same time by using two different sources. One of the enclosures allowed for both the battery charger and standard 12V PSU to be stripped and wired up inside and fed to the system via stand USB cable, and the other was an adapter that took both power supplies and their standard plugs and fed them into unit that way.
USB power adapter. Smaller and easy to wire up, but don’t plug wall power into the battery charger port! (hence why this idea was short lived)
The Power Brick. A one and done solution by the wiring of a 12V, 2A power supply and the smart charger for the Li-Po batteries. An ideal solution for a one-off, but not a kit as this case takes over 8 hours to print on its own!
Aside from the custom battery charger which is included with the current kits, this method is the one I’d recommend, only because when wired up correctly, you do not need to worry about mixing up two different power supplies.
Again, though I hope to have a “Legacy” sub-section in the main guide, time is something I have very little of these days and I still have to get the main section fully updated before this is worked on. That said, this means support on these and the techniques used to make them is going to be limited for a time to come. Use this as more of a “general idea” if you do decide to download the files.
I want to again thank everyone for their interest in this and sorry for it taking as long as it has to release a more recent version, but you can at least know now the road blocks that have been in my way for a long time now. I hope you find these useful and a good starting point if you’re just getting into the hobby of console modding!
Downing's Basement 