You'll hate this post. And you'll love this post.

[Raphael]

Thanks for the beautiful report, ED!
If anyone is interested in some more information on injection molding, Bunnie Huang has written a little bit about this in his blog over the years:
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=189
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2790
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4146

 

[levi]

I suspect it might be polycarbonate. (At the right thickness and tolerance, that's used for bulletproof materials and have you ever tried destroying a coaster'd CD-R or DVD+R? Those things are very flexible.)

Easy; put it in a plastic bag to catch the shards, then from outside the bag, fold it in half. Cracks do propagate quite well in polycarbonate, although if it gets to a certain thickness it tends to flex rather than shear, and given the way recordable discs tend to delaminate, it's usually quite close to that thickness.

I'd guess in normal use polycarbonate should be enough. Some of my CD cases and especially DVD cases don't want to give up the disc without a bit of a fight, so some of my discs have been significantly deformed probably a few dozen times in total. Perhaps premade discs are a little more robust than recordable ones: I've not destroyed many of the former.

 

[Jumpman]

ED, great work as always. The case company seems to be "top shelf", and while your trip didn't go as originally planned, I think it is very good you went when you did, as you where able to see the process earlier, and know how things work, so once you do begin to get prototype case parts, you'll know and understand what to request, and understanding the whole process will help you to make better choices and corrections in the long run.

Everything looks to be excellent, so how will the case color selection actually work? You have 10 sample colors correct? Did you try a wide range of colors across the 10, or did you select several variations of basic colors, like 3 different shades of red, or a few of blue, several pink ,etc to see which "red" is best or where all 10 colors unique choices?

How will the final color selection go, do you have any ideas, or will it be something decided later? Do you have a set number of alternative colors that we will have at production? So will there be set number like 2, 3, or 5 choices for launch? Or can they be made to order at request, and that is where the extra cost comes in, and any color can be chosen at anytime? Or will they have to be pre selected and produced before hand?

I really have no trouble paying extra for a color I would actually want, and this company seems more than capable of delivering a decent quality, so hopefully we don't need to replace parts due to defects soon after receiving or Pyra's.

Great work again to all involved, and we are near the end, but there is still a lot of work to do, so looking forward to more updates over the coming weeks and months. 2016 is looking to be the year the "Pyra" for sure. Best of luck!

Chris

 

[EvilDragon]

Given how transparent it is and that they claim it's bulletproof, I suspect it might be polycarbonate. (At the right thickness and tolerance, that's used for bulletproof materials and have you ever tried destroying a coaster'd CD-R or DVD+R? Those things are very flexible.)

In fact it is. I just saw it written on the material bag

Should be good for us I guess.

Later tonight (or tomorrow, as I have to leave veeery early) I'll make a new post, with lots of informations about how the coloring works.
[doublepost=1453383347,1453383257][/doublepost]

So will there be set number like 2, 3, or 5 choices for launch? Or can they be made to order at request, and that is where the extra cost comes in, and any color can be chosen at anytime?

Request wouldn't work. It takes about 3 hours to set up a mold for production, and we got 7 molds.
So it's 21 hours setting up just to get one color.

We might make 2 or 3 different colors for the launch, probably.
[doublepost=1453383689][/doublepost]

If that's the case it would quite expensive. Polycarbonate is way more pricey compared to other polymers, but yeah, they are used in some smartphones (LUmia, I think).

Well, compared to ABS the price for 1kg is only 30 Cents higher (I just checked the current prices). With 1kg, you can probably create 2 full sets, so it would increase the price 15 Cents per case.
And one case set will approx. be 7 EUR (based on the original offer), so 15 Cents more for the best material we can probably get is a small price to pay.

 

[mclien]

Request wouldn't work. It takes about 3 hours to set up a mold for production, and we got 7 molds.
So it's 21 hours setting up just to get one color.

We might make 2 or 3 different colors for the launch, probably.

Since I don't know the exact process of the color setup: Normally the granulate is poured into the extruder and from there on pressed on. So theoretically it should be be possible to change the the color while running, resulting in some cases having changing colors. Might give some intresting or ugly results...

 

[PSC]

Wow, Great job! The Pyra is almost there!
And Hello everyone, I am a new guy from China... Finally I passed through the verification, and our national firewall to reach here, I am so exiting! Nice to meet you!

 

[matzesu]

Wellcome to the boards PSC

Well its not that worse than i first tought, this way there is more time to tweak more from the case and its also proofs, that they take care about the case..
I dotnt know which colour i will shoose, if you offer green or blue:
Green is Unimog Colour so this coult fit my needs, but otherwise maybe this could look wuyrd
Blue is my old fafoured collor, my 3DS Handhelds are all blue..
Well lets wait which collour to offer..
But more interesting is the toughtness of the Pyra Case for mee,
Looking forward for your next newspost,
Have fun in greece

 

[fusion_power]

That company has a lot of customers (even some major ones in Germany) and exists for a long time.
Their CEO is a perfectionist and does plastic injection molds longer than I am old

What does he think about the Pyra as it comes to molding? Was it the most complex case they ever did?

I have my new 3DS here, and I'm actually horrified by the build quality... so far, I've ever only used it at home, it's the first time I took it with me.
The matte surface has some ugly scratches already, so edges even look worn-out like they're a few years old already... honestly, that case is VERY cheap.
Something I don't want!

Wow, that surprises me. I've always seen the Nintendo Handhelds as very durable and well done products, I've seen and touched most of them in natura and they look and feel very sturdy and valuable actualy. Not sure about the New 3DS but on pictures it always looks perfect.

BTW: Forgot to mention: We'll try using a very hard rubber material for the nubs which will give them a better grip (especially as we keep the structure)

Great idea! Making the part completely out of rubber is much better and reliable than just rubber coating. And it doesn't influence any tolerances.

 

[Kiga]

Seems like it'll look premium!
And these special effect coating looks good, there should be some special edition cases.

 

[Christoph.Krn]

We might make 2 or 3 different colors for the launch, probably.

I have a question to anyone who knows more about the Pyra hardware than I do:

Would the Pyra hardware permit persistent storage of information about the case color/design upon factory installation?

I'm asking for... reasons.

 

[matzesu]

@christoph: seems like my english isnt that good to understand your question,
(Was bedeutet deine Frage nochmal?? )

I ditnt find, that the Case Quallity on New 3DS XL is bad, its works good for me, ok there is this gab in the hinge but compared to the Pandora, this thing is top notch quality..
So whit Pyra better Case Quality will be better than New 3DS XL, this still can be awesome

 

[_wb_]

Exciting to see how the Pyra is being crafted into existence in what looks like it could be the mythical forges of Hephaestus!

Durable, matte, and more than one color option. Excellent!
(I would suggest to have the colors black and dark red)

 

[FaeMinx]

The pink Pyras are coming.

You are all lucky I am not in charge of picking the colour...

I see a peach-pink there that is absolutely *perfect*

 

[Emnasut]

And we don't even need any (...) waterproof cases.

I would LOVE a waterproof case! All my equipment is rugged (my phone can be put into the washing machine and cooked with noodles...).
Or at least resistant, to be able to use it in the rain without concern...

 

[Klumpen]

I would LOVE a waterproof case! All my equipment is rugged (my phone can be put into the washing machine and cooked with noodles...).
Or at least resistant, to be able to use it in the rain without concern...

Wouldn't you need lots of special rubber plugs for all the ports then?

 

[ible]

Though this looks nice

I'm afraid it will end up like this after a while :-/

And I don't like the fact that it would leak light everywhere...
If it's going to be clear plastic I would be happy to pay the 30€ for something else.

The plastic looks very sturdy, and I expect we would have seen scratches with the wrench guy hitting the plastic, so I don't think it would turn out like this. But it's not everyone's cup of tea to have transparent...

Anyhoo, I'd vote for black, white, and dark red to be the 3 colors, if we get three, otherwise black and red for two.

Excited about matte. Thanks ED for making sure this thing will look good!

 

[Emnasut]

Wouldn't you need lots of special rubber plugs for all the ports then?

Probably. But as they'd mostly stay in anyway it wouldn't matter.

 

[Urben]

Buy freezerbags, there you go, water proof case.

 

[slaeshjag]

those purple ones at the end of the stacked samples looked pretty awesome...

 

[directive0]

Yeah Polycarbonate and ABS are very different from the plastics used in things like jewel cases (Polystyrene, or Polypropylene), and generally don't scratch quite so bad. What's clear to me is we will NEVER reach consensus about something like colour. These are HIGHLY subjective issues... man you thought the keyboard thread was bad imagine removing all objective points and basically reducing the discussion to "I like this" or "I don't like this". Nightmare.


Whatever colour ED chooses I just hope he considers doing runs of custom colours of replacement cases so that those of us who feel strongly enough can change the case to suit our liking. I have no problem with taking things apart.