Its the part that everybody sees, its "got" to be nice. My first instinct was to 3D print a case with buttons, bells, whistles, glitter and unicorns. Then I really started to think more about the unicorns, and came to the conclusion that it was just a fad, and that's how I saved Christmas!

Its the part that everybody sees, so it has to be appealing, good thing I have "inspiration". I had originally wanted to use a membrane keypad and cut a relief for the display, effectively shrinking the total height. After some material browsing, I found that ponoko offered a semi-transparent, 3mm acrylic, in both dark gray and dark red. It would be perfect to "defuse" the LED's in the display. I ordered some samples (yeah, I payed for samples..) and was very pleased with the way the light came through. So that's the direction I took. By sandwiching 3mm acrylic over top of the display, I defuse the display but give myself way to much space for the buttons. So I switched to surface mount tactile switches, they hold up better anyway.

This part actually took longer than I wanted. I spent days trying to find the perfect button that was the perfect height for my application. I never did... so I once again took to the web to find out the best way to actuate tactile buttons that are recessed behind a front panel. I found this reference page, oddly enough its from the place that was actually going to be fabricating the case anyway. The acrylic button actuator was a brilliant idea. So I designed the "top hat" looking actuators in the same style. They work great, there is a tad bit of wobble, but they function very well.

This is the metallic bit that covers the case, its a 0.5mm adhesive backed metal. It has been laser engraved with the button declarations. It looks marvelous! That's one decision I'm very glad I made. I had originally thought about getting something printed, like a vinyl decal, but I'm glad I didn't.

I really should have designed the overlay last, I would have labeled the buttons differently.

Now that I had a top, I needed a bottom. Again I really wanted to 3D print a shell that everything would fit into. However, since I was already laser cutting a top plate, I went ahead and designed a bottom plate. In the end it all turned out looking pretty good. I still would like to have side pieces to keep dust and gnomes out, damn gnomes. Perhaps I'll gnome proof a later version.

I had initially tried to find really long screws that would pass through all of the layers from the top to the bottom. Then I had planned on attaching a bolt on the back, holding everything tight. Unfortunately I couldn't find the right screws with the right length. So I settled on the assembly scheme outlined in the project files. This assembly method worked really well, using the hex standoffs was the right move. The addition of the laser cut PI support spacer, adds some rigidity to the case as a whole.

As you have probably noticed, I rendered the entire populated board. This was a crucial part in designing the case. It really gave me frame of reference and streamlined the entire design process. Worth 100% of the effort involved in creating and sourcing the 3D models for sketch-up.