While I continue experimenting with 3D-printed case designs for Floppy Emu, I’ve also been working on revisions to the existing laser-cut case design. These new laser-cut cases retain the same overall mechanical “box” as the original, but use a variety of materials, engraving, and opening cuts to give them new styles. Maybe one of these will become the new standard case, or an optional alternative. I’m interested to hear from readers about their opinions on these, so please leave a note in the comments below.

First, let’s review the existing case design that’s included in the Floppy Emu “deluxe bundle”. It’s transparent acrylic, and is great if you want to showcase the Emu’s inner chips and circuits. It looks like something an electronics fan would use with an Arduino or Raspberry Pi. The opening for the SD card is rounded, so you can reach in with your thumb and index finger to extract the micro SD card. The overall style is pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself.

One drawback of the clear acrylic case is that it’s practically invisible. It’s 100% transparent, like looking through glass, so the etchings on the case appear superimposed on the contents inside, creating a visual mash-up that’s sometimes hard on the eyes. It’s not a huge problem, but maybe a modestly-tinted acrylic case would be better than full transparent. This one is about 25% gray tinted, which is fairly subtle. The tint is obvious when it’s placed side-by-side with the clear case, but less noticeable when viewed by itself. The opening for the SD card on the tinted case is also slightly different, with a more squared-off look.

The clear and tinted cases both have a gloss finish, giving them a sort of future-tech look. Unfortunately the gloss finish also makes fingerprints stand out clearly, which is a bit annoying. But even if you don’t mind a few fingerprints, not everyone loves the see-through look. If you enjoy showing off the geeky internals, it’s great, but some people prefer a functional case that looks more like a standard peripheral than a science exhibit. To that end, I made two more case designs using matte acrylic that’s mostly or completely opaque.

The first of these is built from a “matte clear” material, which really isn’t clear at all. It’s like frosted glass, and you can vaguely see a blur of color through it, but no details. If hiding the internals is what you’re after, this will do it. The matte material has a very pleasing texture, and doesn’t show fingerprints at all, so the case always looks clean. This case uses the same squared-off opening for the SD card.

The final case is built from a matte white material, and is my attempt to create something that looks more like a miniature Apple disk drive, using Apple’s “Snow White” design cues. It has a series of parallel grooves on the top plate, like the Apple IIc and IIGS and the Apple 3.5 inch external drive. The front opening even has a fake status LED and disk eject hole engraved in it, to make it resemble the front face of a real external floppy drive. The squared-off opening for the SD card is intended to give the feeling of the drive door from a 5 1/4 inch drive. This matte white case does a pretty good job of matching the style of the 3D-printed cases I posted last time, but is much faster and cheaper to make.

The major drawback of the matte white case is that the engraved areas are difficult to see. It’s white engraving on a slightly different shade of white background. You can see from the photos how subtle the grooves and other engraved details are. Depending on the angle of the light, they may be slightly more or less visible, but they never really stand out. The title photo displaying all four cases was actually photoshopped to make the top grooves stand out better, but the other images of the matte white case were not retouched. Overall I think it’s still a direction worth pursuing, but I definitely wish there were a way to give those engraved areas more contrast.

An alternative that just occurred to me is to actually cut the grooves and fake front details all the way through the material, instead of engraving them. This would certainly make them visible, but then you’d be able to see through to the Emu board inside. That’s not really accurate – you can’t see the Apple IIc logic board through the grooves in its case, for example, because there’s a second layer of plastic under each groove. Hmmm.