Anyone else see this http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Dreamcast-jump-pack-plastic-case-mould_1554411776.html
It would be interesting to see someone create a replacement Memory Card that wrote to SD Cards, however I'm not sure how useful it would be, considering we have the VMU Explorer tool (although for that tool to be useful you really need a BBA which we all know how pricey that is).
You can use DreamShell to backup/restore VMUs to/from SD-Card quite easily. The mold is interesting, but there's no real use for it...
Looks like a normal chinese plastic mold factory (who somehow, or someway got those molds, for whatever reason) if you have designs you can even let them make dreamcast cases. (I think I reconize one of the girls, but well, to me some lookalike.) Intrested in this anyway
I would like to see one of them Mega Memory cards the one with the 2-4 switch on the back with a VMU LCD screen lol...
That would be interesting to see them do a Dreamcast Replacement Shell, there was a few of them back in the day, but they look to be harder and harder to find. What does it run to do injection molding these days? It'd be interesting to do a small run (50-100) in various colors.
I would love to! That kind of shell are so expensive on ebay! I was lucky to buy a DC with such shell for 40 pounds last year...
Boy! Injection molding is EXTREMELY expensive. We're talking several THOUSANDS for a simple mold. It's only worth it in big batches; do the mold once, use it thousands of times. You're better off investing in a big-ass 3D printer.
It's very unlikely a job shop would only mold 50-100 set at a reasonable price. Assuming you are only molding the lid, the top housing, and the bottom housing only. That would require three separate tools (molds), meaning three separate machine set-ups. Costs that the molder will happily charge you for. Reputable manufacturers don't just bolt on a tool and run the machines without going through first article inspection and adjuments. Assuming each tool is only one cavity, taking 10 seconds to shoot or 360 pieces in an hour, it would only take the shop 10 to 20 minutes crank out the asking quantities. With three tools, a shop is also not likely to tie up three separate machine to run them all concurrently. Again, with that asking quantity, the production time will be over with very quickly. Manufactures do not like short production runs as they are very inefficient. Once a machine set-up for a job, they want it to run it as long as it can. So realistically you would have to order many thousands to be cost effective.
Using a 3d printer it would be interesting to make a lower shell with a hdd bay attached. Realistically I would love to gut one of these and put a HDD inside it and put a zip drive shell in its place so it almost looks legit. But that would be expensive to do kinda.
Ouch! I knew it was expensive, but didn't realize it was that expensive. Wonder what happened to the molds they were using previously, obviously not a high demand item though but I'd like to think that somewhere in China they still exist...
