How to Make a Portable Game System

Step 29 Making the Case

Here it is... The biggest part of this project. This is where everything comes together. This step determines how your portable will look and feel in the end. Are you ready? Well, too bad. We're going to discuss the different case options first. ;)

There are quite a few ways you could make a case.

STOCK CASING - A BASIC BOX
The "stock" option - buying something basically pre-made, like a project box from Radioshack. All you have to do is cut holes. Here is a pretty nice-looking NES portable using a large Radioshack project box. It looks very thick.
Here is an amazing-looking N64 portable make from a Lazer Doodle case. This is also a very nice example of Bondo use. (See next paragraph)

FRANKENCASING - USING BONDO
You can do what we call "frankencasing". This is where you use Bondo (a car body filler) to kind of "paste" stuff into your case. Here is a great SNES portable inside a bondo'ed Dreamcast controller. (Scroll down a bit.) As you can see, it looks horrendous right now. The trick is to keep sanding the bondo to make it smooth and level. Take a look at the last page to see how it looks (almost) finished. Here is a guide to frankencasing.

THE ORIGINAL CONSOLE'S CASE
You could use the game console's original case. For old systems, this is great because there is usually tons of room for extra stuff like a screen, battery, etc. Here is a poorly-done N64 portable. It is possible to make nicer-looking ones, this person just didn't spend much time on the case. See how important it is to make a nice case?

POLYCASE.COM
There are online, ready-made solutions. Not specifically for portables, but there are some nice cases online at http://www.polycase.com/ . Two popular cases to use are the ZN-40 and the ZN-45. These are both the same, but the ZN-45 is a bit thicker, so there is more room.
Here is an AMAZING looking N64 portable made with the ZN-40 case. Scroll to about halfway down the page for pictures of this beast.

VACUUM-FORMING
Vacuum-forming is a great option. You can make amazing portables this way. They look fabulous! Here is a great documentation of making a vacuum-forming table. You gotta check it out.

CASES FROM SCRATCH
Lastly, you can make your own case from scratch, which is what I chose to do. I measured all my parts, came up with plans, and had a local plastics company cut the acrylic sheets for me. I then glued them together with a special kind of plastics glue. You shall see in the next step how to do it yourself.

Those are all the types of cases I can think of. These are just general categories. Pick what kind of case you want to do and check out a guide. Or, if you pick the last option, proceed to the next step and see how I made my case.

Comments

[chewbaccaa]

Hey again I'm just wondering where did you get your box from and how did you make the holes for it for mine which I plan to be making I may use wood would it turn out alright

[1up]

Try reading step 30.

[redsoup]

hey i can vacuum form you can check this http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-good%2c-cheap%2c-upgradeable-sheet-plastic-vacu/

[1up]

Sure, you can vacuum-form a case. That's one of the options I listed in step 29.

[mariorocks]

Do you have any sugggestions of a box/stock case?

[1up]

Not really, other than the polycases I linked to. Those are the best stock cases I have seen. You can even get samples of some of their cases, you know.

[sea34567]

what case do you use

[palooko]

Styrene is different from acrylic. Styrene is cheaper but at the same time yellows in the sun whereas acrylic does not.