@328gts
I think it's SLA, but I might be wrong, and often am. All the supports and other such clues were already removed and it had been painted a yellowy beige by the time it arrived from Poland. If it is PLA, it's the best I've ever seen, although the PCBWay printed covers were also pretty good, as were the housings for the mini-circular Flight Radar gadgets I ordered at the same time. Those were definitely PLA, but very good nonetheless.

I've gotta say, I'd be very happy using them again if I need to, in terms of price, speed and quality. I've got neither the space nor the time to get my own printer and learn how to use it effectively yet. I promised myself I'd get one next gen, but that's about 2 gens ago now.

@xe1huku
Yeah, I'd heard about that, but the price for the pre-printed one wasn't bad, and the heavy lifting had already been done for me. It was just the colour I wasn't too keen on. It clashed with the RAL9002 that my replica case had been sprayed with.

That said, my spray can RAL9002 from a brand called Maston One is a little bit lighter, but the tone matches much better to my eyes.

@graff

Thanks Thomas I noticed this morning that I had the switch upside down, but as it's loose, it doesn't matter

Thanks also for the tip on the button and its rod. I'd kinda figured that might be the case, but as I've not cracked the chassis since the parts arrived, it was a bit up-in-the-air.

Mike.

I'm in the early stages of building a new Amiga 4000D using the ReAmiga A4000CR motherboard, plus a case that I acquired from a member on AmiBay, and some other bits and bobs.

The case doesn't include the front fascia panel however, and I was casting around for an option, bearing in mind the CNC aluminium option, but eventually finding a 3D printed front that's for sale from a shop in Poland. After getting past the language barrier - they don't speak much English, and I speak zero Polish - I bought one, and it was shipped pretty promptly here to me in the UK. It looked pretty good from the box, but didn't include the drive covers, or an on/off switch, which was the next problem. I also wasn't very keen on the butter yellow colour that it was painted:






With a little help from another AmiBayer, I found some 3D models of a 4000D fascia, from which I pulled the drive covers, the button, and the pusher-rod that transmits the push to the switch inside the machine. I ordered a set from PCBWay, which arrived pretty promptly too, in a nice neutral white. They took a little fettling to get the fit right, but as I'm a plastic modeller by day, that wasn't a problem. I added a shim to the bottom cover, trimmed some of the inner lip away behind the brackets, and got everything nicely lined up. The next job was to change the colour of the main panel, and match up the white covers.

I bought a couple of rattle cans of RAL 9002 "grey white", and gave everything a coat, which showed up some layers on the parts, which coupled with my mistake on the top surface, causing a sag where the paint was too thick, I decided to flatten it back down again and smooth everything out a bit. I used some of my modelling tools to wet sand the surfaces, flatting back the rougher surfaces, and generally smoothing it all out. The recessed lettering under the LEDs and the switch were a bit indistinct for my liking too, so I took my life in my hands and made them a more uniform width with my micro-chisels, without making a mess, which was nice

A nice warm day with a light wind saw me outside with a large sheet of carboard protecting the patio table, and some Blutak protecting the delicate sprung locating lugs on the rear of the panel. I sprayed far thinner coats in three sessions, and came out with a much better finish, going a bit light on the upper bevel, which I infilled later once the rest of it had cured. I also gave an extra coat on the switch to help keep its colour for longer.




I'm quite pleased with how it's come out, but need to find a couple of little screws to locate the covers, as they're just held in place by Blutak at the moment. It's a tad lighter than the chassis cover, but it's a lot better match than the yellowy tones of the original paint job.

Soldering many, many parts is next, but I might break the monotony to find out how the push-rod and switch go together, as I've never actually seen a real Amiga 4000D before.

Mike.

@Rob

I'm not sure what you're asking yet, but I'm guessing you're not referring to the CPU daughterboard? A quick Google showed me it was the riser board. Neither of the above - I've already picked up a Mediator board. I'll be (hopefully) plugging in the AmiGUS sound board, and I guess I'll take it from there. Just getting the 4000 up and running will be quite an achievement, and I'm more than a little nervous about that.

Thanks for the (re)welcome folks.

I've yet to meet a young retro gamer, although I'm sure they must exist somewhere.

My time in the gaming industry was a pretty solitary affair apart from my business partner. We wrote about 10 games on various platforms, got screamed at by the boss of a well-known company because he was in the middle of going bankrupt and we'd not finished a piece of work that probably triggered a payment he needed, and then soon after that I left. Not much to tell in the middle

Mike.

Hi Everyone,

How do I describe myself? Old. Well, in the early 90s I was a graphics artist and games designer for a couple of years, working on terrible games for the C64, Amiga 500, Atari STFM, and finally the Sega Megadrive, after which I left the industry when I realised that my limited art skills would soon let me down as graphics got better. A decade or so ago I started collecting some old computers, a couple of including ZX81s, a ZX Spectrum 48K, Amiga 1200, Atari STFM, STe 4096, Atari 800XL (can't find that at the moment), and indulged in my usual inveterate tinkering and upgrading with them all.

That seemed to go off the boil after a couple of years, and late last year I got back into it with the purchase of a Commodore C64U, a hopefully imminent delivery of a Spectrum Next series 3, and one day a Vectrex Mini. Meantime, I discovered the ReAmiga project, and initially bought a 1200 board to transplant my first A1200's good bits onto, as it suffered from some trace damage due to leaky caps and battery before I got it. I repaired and recapped it myself, but wasn't happy, so bought another board and got it recapped by someone more competent at the time. I hate wasting things, so that job's on the menu at some point once my finances have recovered, but yet again I got distracted.

First distraction was MiSTer FPGA, which I built and have knocking about nearby, and then it was a MiSTress to go in a custom black A1200 case cos I "accidentally" bought two of the FPGA boards. That looks nice, but I've not had much time to play with it yet, which I'm ashamed of. The latest distraction has been a ReAmiga 4000CR motherboard that I picked up on AmiBay, and have been buying up the entire contents of the internet's new and old electronic components, expanding my project to include an AmiGUS sound board (it was cheap), and a Z3660 CPU board, with a choice of a 68060, or a Myir Z-turn FPGA board pretending to be one. I'm one of those eejits that likes a challenge, on the basis that if you're not pushing yourself to learn new skills, you're stagnating.... sometimes.

I've now got most of the components to build my A4000, including a repro case, and today I learned how to program 16V8 GALs that are the glue that holds all the custom chips together on the original A4000, and use a slightly tweaked version for the ReAmiga 4000CR. It was surprisingly easy for a novice once I got a suitable device, but other than reading them back and comparing some noticeable bit patterns with the .jed files, I've got no way to test they're gonna work yet

Next, I'll be learning how to code CPLDs once that programmer arrives. Fortunately, the Xilinx chip arrived last week, although I've currently forgotten which board it belongs to. Fortunately, I have a massive spreadsheet to keep track of everything, because my memory's appalling!

Anyway. I've forgotten most of what I knew about Amigas over the years, and certainly haven't got the skills to write any code for anything other than "Hello World", but I'm always open to trying once I've got at least one working Amiga.

That's me (or my stash at least), so Hello

Mike.