Hello again,
It was nice to see this latest update on the project:
"Just a brief update: Mike’s factory has assembled the 500 Micro Desktop PCBs, though the through-hole VGA connectors still need to be hand-soldered on. These are the simpler of the two boards, so all of the Micro Desktops are being done, whereas explained in a previous update, the more complex board, the EOMA68-A20, will only be done in a smaller test run of 100 at first."
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/500-micro-desktop-p...
It must be satisfying to see all of this start to come together.
On the topic of casings for the computer cards, I get the sense that there are no ready-made solutions for the outward-facing side of the cards, this despite most traditional PCMCIA/CardBus-profile cards exposing ports of different kinds (such as modems, network ports, like two cards I have from many years ago) and thus having similar requirements.
I suppose 3D printing or some other creative casing solution isn't an option. Injection moulding seems to be quite demanding, as the following from the Tomu campaign indicates:
"Right now a shop in China is etching the Tomu case shape into one ton of steel. Once that’s done they’ll manufacture a few units to verify the etching works. After this “T0” shot, they will harden the steel tool and start production."
https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/tomu/updates/design-done-producti...
To provide context, the Tomu case is a tiny piece of plastic of around one square centimetre and probably no more than 3mm in depth!
Paul