I promised an update once I received the samples for the injection molded case, so now I’m happy to share what they look like! The manufacturer had them ready before the end of June, exactly as they’d said, but unfortunately this was just days before I left for a family vacation at the beginning of July. While I was on the road, I had the samples sent to the designer of the case, Jason Merrill, so he could verify the quality of the samples and get a head start on getting feedback to the mold manufacturer.
The samples are in hand
The first thing that you’ll probably notice is that the logo on the cases says BlueSCSI, not PicoIDE! Don’t worry, PicoIDE is still PicoIDE, but because it is an open source project, the front panel is able to be remixed and reused on other projects. More on that later in this update!
The Good:
All in all, I’m very happy with the quality of the cases! They feel so much sturdier than the 3D printed prototypes I’ve been dealing with until now. And the fit is absolutely perfect: the main PicoIDE board, front panel board, and buttons fit and work exactly as designed. The beige color is also right on: a perfect match for RAL 7044 “Silk Grey”, the color I chose to represent the median 90s computer beige.
The “It’s Fine, I Swear”:
Another thing you may notice is that there’s no texture on the front face of the enclosure. Having a textured front helps hide imperfections and gives a nice uniform look. At this “T0” stage of mold prototypes, the texture is not yet applied because the mold may require modifications. So that’s not a fault, we’re just not at that stage yet. The next “T1” samples will have the texture applied.
The Not So Good:
The one issue is that there are sink marks, where the plastic shrinks after molding. Parts of the front face are quite thick, which increases the possibility of sink marks. There are some very slight sink marks across the front face, which the texture should hide, but there’s a very prominent dimple in the center of the buttons. The mold manufacturers are on it, though: they noticed the issue and suggested adding a small pin to the mold to create a hole in the case, decreasing the thickness in that area of the plastic. They say adding it is simple and will not cause further delays. I approved this modification to the mold.
The next set of samples with this modification and the textured finish will be ready in a couple of weeks, so fingers crossed they address all the issues! I’ll make a small update once I get them.
The Open Retro Storage Front Panel
So, what’s the deal with that BlueSCSI logo? After talking with Eric Helgeson from the BlueSCSI SCSI emulator project, I realized that the front panel interface shouldn’t just be limited to PicoIDE. So why not separate out the front panel into its own open source project? The front panel PCB and enclosure have been split off into Open Retro Storage Front Panel, which is now released as open source! It’s already shipping in 3D printed form with BlueSCSI, and other retro projects may also be joining the party!
When designing the enclosure for injection molding, it turned out to not be much more work to create a swappable front slider, allowing for the base PicoIDE logo or other logos like BlueSCSI’s. But unfortunately the mold manufacturers had an issue with the slider with the PicoIDE logo, so they were only able to make the first set of “T0” samples with the BlueSCSI logo. The PicoIDE logo will be ready for the next stage of the process, though.
More production updates
I just got a massive order of regulatory labels and shiny pack-in stickers, enough for the entire Crowd Supply order, and then some (cat for scale). By the time you read this they’ll be on the way over to my manufacturing partner Soldered Electronics in Croatia.
Teardown 2026 is imminent!
This week is Crowd Supply’s Teardown 2026, and this is the final reminder that I’ll be giving a talk on Friday, July 24 about open source hardware projects for vintage computers, Creating Up to Date Hardware for Out of Date Tech!
