Custom case for Chumby Guts

Computers & Mobile Craft & Design Technology
Custom case for Chumby Guts

My friend Joe Bowers bought a Chumby Guts kit. Step one: get it up and running. Step two: give the poor, naked thing some clothes. Joe designed a case for it and asked me to laser cut it for him. It reminds me of an old television set. This is an early prototype; we plan to refine the design, add some etched graphics, and more. Maybe some rabbit ear antennae?

chumbyCaseParts01.jpg

chumbyCaseBuilt01.jpg

Clever trick alert: Joe put the Chumby on a scanner and traced the rounded-cornered bezel in CorelDraw to get an exact fit. It pops in there beautifully!

In the Maker Shed:

Makershedsmall

Chumby Guts

Chumby Guts

Joe’s blog

16 thoughts on “Custom case for Chumby Guts

  1. KentKB says:

    JP,
    You are right on the mark with CGTV! (Chumby Guts TV) This is my fond hope to make a 50’s style or retro style TV for my lil’ Chumby….
    But I do have one question about the mounting, the Microphone holes should be on the down left corner to match the Mother Board? I have added a mic out 3.5mm female on the back to get away from the (now) front facing speakers.
    Great Job, I sure wish I lived closer so I could bribe you into a Make for me too.
    Hmmm, what do you like…?
    Oh, I know ;-}
    Keep the home Lasers burning!

  2. John Park says:

    Yes, Joe realized today at our semi-weekly hacker lunch that the enclosure mic holes are actually superfluous, because there’s already mic holes in the bezel. We haven’t done much yet with the input side other than a big hole (check my flickr, I think I posted there) but will do more measured cuts per hole later. Adding a female mic out would be a good addition. I’m voting for a potentiometer on the front that looks like a big channel knob.
    Well, you know I love freshly roasted coffee beans…

    1. KentKB says:

      Mmmm, fresh beans roasting on an open fire….

      I love a big channel knob, great idea chum.

      A cool little net appliance, I would love to cut the AC wires and make it mobile too, some kind of a retro or steampunkie iPod Touch feel.

      You and Laser Betty should be proud with another great design shared.

    2. MapRider says:

      Great looking setup for the ChumGuts! Much better than my 84¢ plastic 3×5 card holder……

      Being new around here, I don’t know the link to your flickr site…..

      Also wondering how Joe has the bezel/screen/cpu fixed to the inside of the box to keep it from popping out when pushing on it. I’m sure it can be accomplished with some simple tabs, but….

      Thanks again — got my Chumby guts last week and have been thinking of all sorts of mods to do to it.

      1. John Park says:

        Hi MapRider, I like that name ChumGuts, it keeps getting odder and odder!

        You can check out the MAKE Flickr pool here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/make/

        Right now it is just pressure fit into there temporarily. We’re going to experiment with tabs like you mentioned and a few other methods, we’ll keep you posted.

        I was resisting getting my own Chumby, but now I really want one too!

        1. MapRider says:

          When I first read about the Chumby, I could not think of any reason why I would want one — but once I heard I could have the guts at half the cost, I jumped at the offer.

          It’s a great platform to run simple sensor fusion systems on without having to dedicate an old pc/mac running Linux and wasting a ton of power.

          Pics of my hacked box attempts can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/yzqw7lv

          Had to come up with something quick as my 8 year old wanted to play games on it as soon as I assemble the thing. The first ‘DuctChumby’ was a disaster as the foam I used to keep things in place didn’t allow for airflow and it got pretty hot. The current ‘ChumBox’ is just an 84¢ card holder with a lot of hot-glue holding things in place.

  3. OlMe21st says:

    … these I can provide !

    Olivier Mevel (Violet cofounder :-) )

    1. jamil says:

      could you please send me the file to make.

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John Edgar Park likes to make things and tell people about it. He builds project for Adafruit Industries. You can find him at jpixl.net and twitter/IG @johnedgarpark

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