Chances of alternate Pinephone chassis or 3D models?

[breakstop]

I saw this post on Twitter and thought this design looked really cool. Since a lot of the replacement parts for the Pinehpone are available on the store, are the chassis parts available? And is there any chance of there being alternate versions, say for example a clear version? If not, are there (or are there going to be) 3D models of the Pinephone CE chassis released so that people can 3D print their own? I saw that there is a 3D model available for the back cover, I'd really love to get a clear chassis and clear back cover for the old clear console nostalgia lol. 

Thanks

[wibble]

https://store.pine64.org/?product_cat=pi...pare-parts

I'm not sure which part of the chassis you mean. Part of it appears to be bonded to the screen. The boards attach to this, then the inner frame clips over the top and is attached with screws. They could probably make a batch of transparent inner frames, but 3d printing is unlikely as you wouldn't be able to include the antennae correctly. I would like to see more of the cad models published though.

[breakstop]

https://store.pine64.org/?product_cat=pi...pare-parts

I'm not sure which part of the chassis you mean. Part of it appears to be bonded to the screen. The boards attach to this, then the inner frame clips over the top and is attached with screws. They could probably make a batch of transparent inner frames, but 3d printing is unlikely as you wouldn't be able to include the antennae correctly. I would like to see more of the cad models published though.

I see what you mean with the antenna, that's a shame. Thanks!

[jrowe]

I see what you mean with the antenna, that's a shame

Obviously there are fixed features with the hardware that have to be designed around, but the antenna just needs to retain the connection points. You can experiment and do something like goldplating graphene infused filament on on your own chassis. As long as the connection is solid, there's no need to stick to the official pinephone design to maintain functionality.

[diodelass]

do something like goldplating graphene infused filament on on your own chassis

Is... that something that people are doing in their home shops now? If so, I must be pretty behind the times. Last I heard, electroplating required incredibly clean conditions that most people couldn't produce at home, and graphene was still unobtainium for lack of an inexpensive synthesis route.

[wibble]

do something like goldplating graphene infused filament on on your own chassis

Is... that something that people are doing in their home shops now? If so, I must be pretty behind the times. Last I heard, electroplating required incredibly clean conditions that most people couldn't produce at home, and graphene was still unobtainium for lack of an inexpensive synthesis route.

If I was going to try it I'd probably go for conductive paint, although 3d printing with conductive materials has been done. My reservation is more around the antenna design being good enough for a usable device. It's not impossible, but most of us don't have the required skill to design, test or tune an antenna for good performance. If those who do have the skill could produce a printable design that would be great.

[diodelass]

do something like goldplating graphene infused filament on on your own chassis

Is... that something that people are doing in their home shops now? If so, I must be pretty behind the times. Last I heard, electroplating required incredibly clean conditions that most people couldn't produce at home, and graphene was still unobtainium for lack of an inexpensive synthesis route.

If I was going to try it I'd probably go for conductive paint, although 3d printing with conductive materials has been done. My reservation is more around the antenna design being good enough for a usable device. It's not impossible, but most of us don't have the required skill to design, test or tune an antenna for good performance. If those who do have the skill could produce a printable design that would be great.

Yeah, I agree. Cellular antennas are tricky. I'm not inexperienced with antenna theory myself - I have a physics background in electrodynamics and a bit of design experience - but the designs we see in smartphones nowadays sure aren't your grandmother's half-wave dipoles. They're nearly incomprehensible even to me, beyond a vague intuition for how they're likely to behave near their resonant frequencies, and I really don't have much of an idea where to start when it comes to actually designing one.

In fairness, it's possible that most RF engineers don't have much more than that, either - I understand many of them are designed probabilistically by genetic algorithms these days.

As for DIYing, I think your best bet might be to try cutting bits of aluminum foil to match the shapes present on the current pinephone chassis as closely as possible, and gluing the results to your 3D-printed version. You could also probably go old-school and just stick a connector on there to attach vertical dipole antennas outside the body, though you might need several of them to cover all the different frequency bands.

or, if you wanted to go really silly, you'd probably do quite well with a log-periodic dipole array, though that would easily get into "oh my gods, what is that" territory for most bystanders. Building your own antennas is a lot of fun, but making them both good and compact is a very involved technical problem.

[jrowe]

do something like goldplating graphene infused filament on on your own chassis

Is... that something that people are doing in their home shops now? If so, I must be pretty behind the times. Last I heard, electroplating required incredibly clean conditions that most people couldn't produce at home, and graphene was still unobtainium for lack of an inexpensive synthesis route.

There's readily available graphene nanoplatelet infused conductive ink, which you can use to electroplate plastics. You can even get nanoplatelets and suspend them in a solvent/plastic mixture, then paint circuits directly onto your 3d printed objects. Graphene platelets are trivially produced - dawn dish detergent, a cheap blender, and pure graphite is all that's needed. You can also use saltwater, graphite rods, and a 12v battery for electrical exfoliiation.

There's various garage lab laser and microwave methods to produce larger graphene crystals. With a kiln and gallium, you can produce 3-4cm specimens by vaporizing vegetable oil - the problem with graphene is mass production and predictable quality at scale, and the cost benefit ratio for switching. Copper comes out cheaper and easier for almost everything.

As for electroplating, it's not necessary for a full clean-room -  a fume hood will do the trick, or doing up your workroom Dexter style for a weekend project if you want to be OCD about it. Honestly, gold plating is a 6th grade science fair kitchen table project, so plating inked surfaces isn't any more challenging or dangerous than PCB etching.

Oh, and of course theres actual graphene/plastic mixture filament which you can use to directly 3d print circuits and conductive surfaces. With more than one print head, you can make fantastically complex objects.