Question Help Me Design a Case? (Gamecube Portable)

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Hi!

These past couple months I have been designing and building a gamecube portable. There are many things that need to be worked on and an enclosure for my project is no exception. I have access to a 3D Printer and CAD software, but I don't have a 3D scanner to scan the controller to get the correct dimensions for the buttons. Can anyone send me the correct dimensions for the Gamecube controller buttons through something like autocad to help speed up the process? I know this is kind of asking for a lot, but if anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Joe
 

jefflongo

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You're in luck! I measured the GC buttons by measuring the actual button with a caliper, then took a picture with my phone and kept track of the image size to actual size ratio. Then I used some basic trig to find the angles of the button guides from the image and scaled the dimension with the measured ratio. Worked perfect after 3 prints and some minor adjustments, though I did sink a lot of time into this. Hopefully no one has to do this again. I use Fusion 360 so I've attached the F360 file as well as the STL. Here's an image of the file
 

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You're in luck! I measured the GC buttons by measuring the actual button with a caliper, then took a picture with my phone and kept track of the image size to actual size ratio. Then I used some basic trig to find the angles of the button guides from the image and scaled the dimension with the measured ratio. Worked perfect after 3 prints and some minor adjustments, though I did sink a lot of time into this. Hopefully no one has to do this again. I use Fusion 360 so I've attached the F360 file as well as the STL. Here's an image of the file
Thank you so much! Now all I have to do is measure the analog triggers, sticks, and dpad! I noticed that in your portable (which I am in love with btw great work!) you also used the gamecube dpad. How did you measure it? I noticed on the gamecube controller the cutout caves in slightly; did you mimic this on your portable?
 

jefflongo

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Thank you so much! Now all I have to do is measure the analog triggers, sticks, and dpad! I noticed that in your portable (which I am in love with btw great work!) you also used the gamecube dpad. How did you measure it? I noticed on the gamecube controller the cutout caves in slightly; did you mimic this on your portable?
Good luck, I chose not to use analog triggers because it would be a challenge to implement the GC analog triggers without frankencasing. It has been done though, (perhaps @Bill Paxton could help).

I simply measured the dpad with a caliper. It's an easy shape to measure. I didn't include the caving in on the dpad because it would not print well and it's entirely unnecessary. I have a model I can upload for the dpad later.
 

Matthew

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You're in luck! I measured the GC buttons by measuring the actual button with a caliper, then took a picture with my phone and kept track of the image size to actual size ratio. Then I used some basic trig to find the angles of the button guides from the image and scaled the dimension with the measured ratio. Worked perfect after 3 prints and some minor adjustments, though I did sink a lot of time into this. Hopefully no one has to do this again. I use Fusion 360 so I've attached the F360 file as well as the STL. Here's an image of the file
Just when I thought all you could do was destroy...
 
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Maybe I'm an idiot, but I didn't see any option to send you my file through PM. So here you go, boss.
P.S. Like I said in the PM, that red part is so you can easily subtract it from your model to get the perfect sized hole.
 

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Matthew

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Maybe I'm an idiot, but I didn't see any option to send you my file through PM. So here you go, boss.
P.S. Like I said in the PM, that red part is so you can easily subtract it from your model to get the perfect sized hole.
Only staff can send files through PM, so it's not you.
 
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You guys are ridiculously helpful thank you so much! Also one last thing, @jefflongo I got your file, but I had a hard time converting it and printing it. I tried and my printer only printed half of the file (weird). Is there any way you can convert that to an image file that I can just drag into makerbot and print? I apologize for my stupidity I'm not sure how to use Fusion 360. I'm an AutoCAD kinda guy ;)

Edit: Fixed it and got it working!
 
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