Finally - A NeXT Computer (Cube)

[wottle]

It's been on the top of my wanted list for some time. I've been selling a decent number of items from my collection and decided I had sold enough that if an opportunity came up to purchase one at a not unreasonable price, I'd finally pull the trigger. Well, I bought on earlier this week and it finally arrived.

I was surprised how nice condition it looked on the auction pictures. Unfortunately, it appears to have been painted (I should have noticed the Knicks and discoloration on the rear panel that were absent from the main case. Still excited to have this beautiful machine.

The other part a little disappointing is that it has a 3d printed logo that isn't super nice. The colors are a bit off, and it has a rough finish. So, the real reason for this post is that I'm going to try to improve this by making a new one. I've always wanted to try out the WLJ full color 3d printing at JLC3DP and this seems like a perfect oportunity

So I found a model of it online, it was scaled a bit wrong, so I resized it. I then sliced the letters off the base colored them according to the official NeXT colors, and am getting it printed in full color resin from JLC3DP. It cost me about $7 plus about $3 shipping. The model I got has the NeXT letters raised. I'm not sure if the original logo had that or if the designer did it because it made it easier to color the letters after printing in a single color if they were raised. I may print another with the letters basically at the same level as the rest of the cube..



I will send an update when the print comes in to show off the quality. This is my first color resin print, so excited to see if the quality is close to the single color resin prints I've gotten from them.

If it works, it could be a good source for replacing missing NeXT logos from the old cubes.

 

[wottle]

After about 6 back and forth interactions with the very patient support person at JLC3DP, I finally got a printable, full color model that they were willing to try to print. It's a bit thicker than the original, but it meets their requirement of prints being at least 1mm thick. The order is now in production, so I'll post the files (obj file for the 3d model, mtl file with the material / color) if it prints properly and produces a good result. I ended up getting a closer look at the original logos on my keyboard and mouse and the letters are not raised, so I adjusted my model to have the letters flush with the top. I can probably adjust if the result doesn't look good.

Can anyone with an original NeXT Cube badge confirm if the logo has raised letters?

 

[stepleton]

Can anyone with an original NeXT Cube badge confirm if the logo has raised letters?

It doesn't. The letters are flush.

 

[jojo2k]

Awesome! Now play Doom on it. > : )

 

[wottle]

Awesome! Now play Doom on it. > : )

I want to, but I'm having some sever performance problems. It's way slower than my NeXT Station, which is the same 25MHz 040... I'm going to recap the logic board when I have time and take a look at the ZuluSCSI to make sure it is set up properly.

 

[wottle]

So, I just recapped the logic board (it looked like someone had recapped, but the surface mount caps were poorly done, and I wanted to get some OS-CON caps in it for longevity.

It looks like maybe this machine had an engineering sample installed?

Is it possible that this was a reason it might have been running slowly? Any Risk to throwing a 68040 from my set of 040s from Macs that have been battery bombed? As long as it is a 25MHz or faster, I should be OK to do, right?

And probably figure out a way to add a heatsink similar to this one...