Here is that Pi case at 325% and thinned out. It will probably be easier to modify this model than recreate from the 3D scanned version.
Apple Lisa 3d Case Project
- Thread starter wottle
- Start date
Percentage may be off:
- Specs for LCD and CRT are not the same. Tube diagonal is not equivalent to LCD dagonal.
- Need to consider how much larger a 9.7" screen would be than an 80 percent opening for a 12"diagonal CRT
- Display area of an LCD is the tuge diagonal vs. the display area of a 12" CRT.
- The front bezel covers a portion of the CRT.
- The diagonal of the "12inch" bezel opening is only 11 5/8 inch.
- The "pixel field" diagonal is less than that.
- "Squared up" LCD opening dropped back from surface of the front bezel a tad more than 1/4" yields a diagonal of 11 7/8"
- So your baseline for scaling would be something like 11.875" -> 9.7" yielding a scaling factor of at least 81.68 percent
- Still wouldn't look quite right with no Start/Stop/Front Porch/Back Porch blanking areas surrounding the Lisa image
- Assuming my caffeine deprived brain is up to snuff for this.
All measurements are from my Lisa2 bezel with pencil scribed setbacks. A 12" LCD won't work in it for same reasons.
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Thanks for those measurements. I think we still need to wait for word if the LisaFPGA can even output to 1024x768 over HDMI, as the documentation seems to show that it outputs full 1080p. Not sure if an iPad control board scales higher HDMI signals down to 1024x768.Percentage may be off:
- Specs for LCD and CRT are not the same. Tube diagonal is not equivalent to LCD dagonal.
- Need to consider how much larger a 9.7" screen would be than an 80 percent opening for a 12"diagonal CRT
- Display area of an LCD is the tuge diagonal vs. the display area of a 12" CRT.
- The front bezel covers a portion of the CRT.
- The diagonal of the "12inch" bezel opening is only 11 5/8 inch.
- The "pixel field" diagonal is less than that.
- "Squared up" LCD opening dropped back from surface of the front bezel a tad more than 1/4" yields a diagonal of 11 7/8"
- So your baseline for scaling would be something like 11.875" -> 9.7" yielding a scaling factor of at least 81.68 percent
- Still wouldn't look quite right with no Start/Stop/Front Porch/Back Porch blanking areas surrounding the Lisa image
- Assuming my caffeine deprived brain is up to snuff for this.
All measurements are from my Lisa2 bezel with pencil scribed setbacks. A 12" LCD won't work in it for same reasons.
Angles for setback of display are different. Sides are steep, Top is more shallow and bottom is very shallow.
Are you taking that into consideration? Matching the multi-angled framing of the LCD would enhance the look, being more natural.
Note scribed lines in pencil. Strange bulge on bottom curve screws up adaptation of stock bezel to LCD. Would probably need an 11" 3:4 panel.
Are you taking that into consideration? Matching the multi-angled framing of the LCD would enhance the look, being more natural.
Note scribed lines in pencil. Strange bulge on bottom curve screws up adaptation of stock bezel to LCD. Would probably need an 11" 3:4 panel.
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I believe it does, but my LisaFPGA arrives Friday so I'll confirm and we can proceed from there with the result. But I forgot the conversion of CRT size to viewable. It definitely seems like even with a smaller 9.7" LCD, it will be difficult to get something printable on a 350mm x 350mm bed.
Possibly if we use the Pie model, and print the pieces vertically at a diagonal on the bed. Anyone print a really large thin piece standing on edge on a large format printer? @jcm-1, I believe you have some large bed 3d printers. How do you think it would handle something like this?
Glad to have pointed out that discrepancy, it drove me to distraction playing with my "Little Bit of Lisa" before the LCD/Controller revolution induced by the Raspberry Pi movement. The solution I came up with was the 12" RGB PizzaTopper. Fits like a glove, but not at all practical unless a 640x480 hack can be pulled off. The targeted 6400/6500 boards can drive the smaller resolution, but why bother?
One single piece print done diagonally makes no sense to me whatsoever. All that filament gone to wa$te in one bad shot? The Lisa case is nicely divided into sections, unlike the unitary Macintosh bucket. I say leverage that sectional flexibility to reduce the price impact of a failed print?
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The front bezel (only Little Bit of Lisa in my collection) is your print limit factor. If you angle just that one part to max size in you printer, might it fit that cubic closer to life size?
edit: I can knock back the return at the bottom of my bezel a hair over 3/4" at the mold break line to gain a few extra degrees of slant for printing.
edit: I can knock back the return at the bottom of my bezel a hair over 3/4" at the mold break line to gain a few extra degrees of slant for printing.
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I must be misunderstanding what you are saying. The front piece is ~18" wide The full width of the Lisa assembled is 18.75". The difference between a part that can print a 457mm wide print and one that can print one that is 476mm wide is not going to rule out any 3d printers. Even scaled down to ~80% (which is not going to accommodate a 9.7" LCD, that difference is 365mm vs 380. Again, at that point you'd need a 400mmx400mm print bed printer and you'd be better off printing together.
There are advantages to printing exposed surfaces face down on a bed (can generally get better surface finish), but ultimately, we're likely going to need to sacrifice to make this producible by more than one person with a very expensive massive bed 3d printer. It might be that we find that multiple parts and seams are going to be needed. I still would rather waste a good bit of filament on supports to avoid the time, materials, repainting, and look of seamed prints.
I may also just not be understanding what you are saying.
As for the modeling, I really wish we could get access to the models that were created for this project / book:
There would need to be objious adjustments due to the lack of the internal metal frames, but having it assemble much like the original would be cool. And it would certainly not be worth the effort, but adding a switch that cuts power when the front faceplate was removed would be a fun easter eggg.
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if printer cubic is a 350x350x400 it looks like I could print my bezel at full size?
"The hypotenuse is the side opposite the 90° angle. Using the Pythagorean theorem, √(350²+400²) ≈ 531.4 mm."
Yep! The bezel is a bit over 450mm wide. NoPro!
"If the right triangle’s legs are both 350 mm (an isosceles right triangle), the hypotenuse is found by the Pythagorean theorem: c=3502+3502=3502c=3502+3502=3502. That equals about 495 mm."
Dunno, why can't it be printed for 9.7" screen?
"The hypotenuse is the side opposite the 90° angle. Using the Pythagorean theorem, √(350²+400²) ≈ 531.4 mm."
Yep! The bezel is a bit over 450mm wide. NoPro!
"If the right triangle’s legs are both 350 mm (an isosceles right triangle), the hypotenuse is found by the Pythagorean theorem: c=3502+3502=3502c=3502+3502=3502. That equals about 495 mm."
Dunno, why can't it be printed for 9.7" screen?
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I thought you were saying you don’t want to post it standing on end. And you wanted to print it flat on the surface. Are you saying we should print it like this with the shorter edge on the print bed angled up to use the 400mm of height diagonally to take advantage of the 530mm or diagonal space going from the bottom right of the bed to the top leftmost on the x axis:

that would have even more supports wasted then printing it on edge. Printing the front surface at an angle also creates pretty bad layer lines. Again, I think I’m missing the point you’re making but maybe @phungus is following and he may be doing more of the modeling and can take that into account.
Let’s wait and see when my board arrives tomorrow. If the 9.7” display doesn’t work, we’ll need to decide on another LCD and adjust all the measurement.
That's exactly what I was suggesting to get the largest possible parts printed. Front bezel and top are the major problems. I was looking at this printing method as a huge waste of filament with a full case print gone bad:
This one is great if you can get the size you need:
Filament for the extra supports for front/top printing as you illustrated pales in comparison to a lost print of the whole case, no?
OK, wait and see time!
This one is great if you can get the size you need:
Filament for the extra supports for front/top printing as you illustrated pales in comparison to a lost print of the whole case, no?
OK, wait and see time!
If the base is 350x350 then that's 495 mm diagonal.
Of course, a 495 mm long rectangle could only have a thickness of 0 in that case. So I googled this:
"thickest rectangle 450 mm in length that can fit in a 350x350 square"
it says 𝟒𝟒.𝟗𝟕 𝐦
I did not verify the math.
It looks like the 1920x1080 is hard coded, but either that could be made dynamic in the future or a fork with a different hardcoded resolution could be made: https://github.com/alexthecat123/Li...aFPGA.srcs/sources_1/imports/hdmi/hdmi.sv#L96
Does the case really NEED to look like the original Lisa? Use Lisa as inspiration for some wide screen creativity. There are lot of other case designs from the era that could be tweaked to look more Lisa-like.Dividing the front bezel into panel surround and internal peripheral bezel could solve all print size related problems.
Melding Lisa inspiration with one of the frogdesign prototypes would be my preference. Lisa squashed so much front to back isn't something I find all that appealing, not terrible, but slavishly following the original doesn't do it for me but for the problem solving aspects.
Lisa III with a frog influence anyone?
Melding Lisa inspiration with one of the frogdesign prototypes would be my preference. Lisa squashed so much front to back isn't something I find all that appealing, not terrible, but slavishly following the original doesn't do it for me but for the problem solving aspects.
Lisa III with a frog influence anyone?
Yeah, that would probably be ideal. The problem, that I've been worried about this whole time is the challenge of how do you manage taking the 1920x1080 (16:9) output with letterboxing from the LisaFPGA and getting it to display the middle portion on a 4:3 display. I was hoping (probably irrationally) that the controller board would scale it and offer options for doing so (with one option being to cut off the sides (which are black).
Unfortunately, my LisaFPGA arrived today and I hooked it up to a iPad display and controller board I have to test. When the LisaFPGA is set to 60fps, I actually occasionally see an image appear with the video output, but it is compressed horizontally to fit the whole width into the non-widescreen panel. And because it keeps flickering on and off, so I cannot get my control board's menu to come up to see if I could adjust.
When I change it to 30fps, I simply get a "Not Support" error on the screen.
Given I know nothing about FPGA programming, I asked a non human assistant to look at the repo and determine if it would be possible / easy to have the LisaFPGA support 1024x768 output. It said it would be likely possible, but would present some challenges for the resolution conversion between the 720x364 native resolution and the 1024x768. I'm not entirely clear on the oddities of the rectangular pixels on The Lisa, but it seemed to offer a plausible option for getting a reasonable looking scaling on 1024x768, with some borders around the sides:
Of course, that would require a new build to the LisaFPGA, extra work for Alex or someone familiar with FPGA output.
The alternatives would be to use a display controller that can handle the 1080p output and it can crop the sides of the input signal. Not sure if those exist.
Another alternative might be to get an HDMI to RCA signal converter. I'm not sure what it would do with the image, but I think I have one that I could try out. The downside is that it would decrease the image quality and I suspect the text will look awful. Keeping the video digital I think is a must.
Another alternative could be using something like a HDMI video scaler (Extron DSC HD-HD?) to scale the 1080p down. But this means 1. another device to cram into the case and power and 2. Addition cost and difficulty if it becomes hard to acquire.
Curious as to others thoughts on this. Is this project too much to accomplish?
@AlexTheCat123 , any thoughts on whether you considered different resolutions for the video output?
With its acceleration mode and 1080p resolution, his board is obviously a Lisa III. So design a new case showing off the nice wide 1080p panel as an advanced TPD with the Lisa team sticking it to his banished Steveness, robbing the Macintosh of its DTP glory!
Bare Metal Lisa III Prototype:
Print just the metal framework & internal boxen. Feet would be hardwood as in the Lisa Prototype pics showing bare metal side panel. FDD goes vertical next to 1080p panel and innards hidden in the box. Make grooves on side panel vertical?
edit: FDD or Optical case can just stick out the back. In make believe Lisa III world Twiggy was a big success. Love that slot with a laptop optical drive mechanism. Overlong back and bottom printed int boltup sections or laser cut plexi?
Print just the metal framework & internal boxen. Feet would be hardwood as in the Lisa Prototype pics showing bare metal side panel. FDD goes vertical next to 1080p panel and innards hidden in the box. Make grooves on side panel vertical?
edit: FDD or Optical case can just stick out the back. In make believe Lisa III world Twiggy was a big success. Love that slot with a laptop optical drive mechanism. Overlong back and bottom printed int boltup sections or laser cut plexi?
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