XE Book Development

Yeah don’t get them confused! Mines the one with all the improvements 😂

XEBOOK assembly line in full effect.

Rev 2 improvements:

• SMD manufactured button bar (no more hand building on perf board).

• SMD manufactured power and management board (no more hand woring convoluted wire harness).

• CNC milled hinge interlock (better friction and longevity).

• Improved FJC inspired “cable management” 😆

For archiving’s sake here’s a photo of the insides showcasing my cable management 😂

I think Martin at Brewing Acadamy still has some. I almost bought one from him his prices aren’t bad. I got my NOS LCD panel from him also for about $60

Alright here’s how the new lid came out. What yallz think? I guess it’s better than just blank 🤔

** dammit the spacing is off between the grill lines! One more round! 😂 🤦‍♂️

** I don’t know if it’s cuz the weather and my filament is wet but I had to tweak the flow rate on the first and last layers to get it to fill in smoothly without gaps. Weird. It’s been flawless til now.

Hang in there, you'll get it sorted out. 🙂

I think I paid $400.00 for my STacy, and that was quite a long time ago.

I hear you about the ST Book. STacy's are rare, but the ST Book is almost

mythical...

Well it’s been a fiasco. Start print, wait 5 hours, flaws in print. Rinse and repeat.

Yes I’ve been eyeing the ST Book for years. I think I’ve seen two come up in eBay in the last 5 years.

The one I just got those snaps from off eBay looks like it’s in pristine condition.

Yeah I can’t justify the thousands to have one when they do crop up.

I think I payed close to $1,000 for my STacy and that’s my limit!

Although I’m pretty sure I’ve spent more than that on this frikn XE Book! 😂

I havent been happy with the blank lid surface and just found a video of an STBook where he closes the lid so I got a good look at how they did the logo on it. So I am taking another shot at embedding a logo on it. I tried a Fuji in the center already kindof like the Apple logo on the Macbooks but that seem down the middle just made it look bad. Heres what I am going to try next... I'll see how it looks in 10 hours when the printing finishes...

Heres what the sirface of the STBook looks like:

And heres my version:

WHat do you think? I hope it doesnt end up looking like KRAP

Another "glamor shot" now that a few more kinks have been ironed out.. FIxed some warping issues, Improved the hinge tension with a TPU washer, and reworked the lid so it can take larger more powerful magnets to suck the display down better when closed. I am going to try to quit while I am ahead so i dont "fix it til its broke" before VCF Socal! 🤣

** final testing the battery, We're down to one green dot here in the photo and its been 5 hours! Once it shuts down I am going to time how long it takes to recharge while powered on.

--- If enough people were to want a kit version of this that would include the LCD panel, plastics, wire harness, battery pack, audio and power management board, nuts n' bolts, and you BYO motherboard and upgrades I think around 300 backers would cover the cost if it were to sell for $300 or so... Thats just a rough estimate But you could assume the plastic molding and production would be in the high $30K plus everything else.

Thanks it was a long haul. A few issues having to split it down the middle causing it to warp a bit. The hinge could be better it needs to be tighter will have to see how well it holds up. It needs to be injection molded plastics but that’s crazy expensive. Maybe if there’s enough interest it could be polished into a real product

It's Done!

Youtube Vid: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYGtY7DnrUk

Alrighty I think it's done! Now for 100Hrs of final printing...

Back left hinge closup:

it really is... Best printer ive ever had in the last 15 years. And that is at .2 res... my final print will be at .08 but it can go down to .04 or somthing crazy.

Gotta love the Bambu Carbon’s color 3d printing 😁

All in its gonna be the SAME SIZE as a stock XE! Ahh yeah!

starting to mockup the display. This is where I am heading so far... a little ST Book inspiration but got to deal with the constraints / limitations i have. I switched to a micro hdmi and then cut off all of the housing on the cable to get it as this as possible so I can fish it through the hinge section.. That parts still an unknown but should end up pretty close to what i have going on so far.

Still lots of refining to do on the case but heres a few shots of it so far now with the surface buttons for volume/fujinet and both speakers installed.,

Ever since I added the speaker grill I can't unsee the face looking back at me 😵‍💫

Heres a crosee section of the side. Everything bolts together and I was able to use all of the existing holes already in the PCB.. No glue hacks here!

Some screenshots of the case so far... Its gonna be one chunky laptop!

Unfortunately that dange button bar left side came right into the centerline where I have to split the case in half so I had to offset the seam to the left a little bit. I hpoe that doesnt bug the heck out of me or look too weird. The right half will be slightly wider than the left half. It was also coming it ad a bad spot on the cartrige slots on the back.

Got to do the two speakers and hinge next and then onto the display.

Haha I did know that. Tearing up a 1200xl might cause a riot though lol. I wanted to keep it as authentic as possible vs using one of those modern boards, emulators, etc. have you seen Ben heck’s handheld he did years ago? His is a custom board he made but all the chips are original pulled out of an XEGS.

Well I wasn't expecting this but I think it is going to end up being about the same size as a stock XE, U1MB, Sofia, battery pack, Fujinet, speakers LCD display and all! Mabe a liiiitle bit thicker with the lcd panel, yet to be determined, but not much. Right now it sits a bit lower leaving room for the LCD panel.... It should definitely be the same size with the lid up!

The other cool discovery is itis smal enough to print in two halves only. My other one had to be split into quarters but the depth of this one is a around 9" so it fits on my build platform so there will only be one seam down the middle. and shouldn't be that noticeable with the keyboard and lcd. It will come out a lot smoother than it is now also when i print it at .08 layer height.

Bottom case almost done, then onto the lid, and then the lcd display and it should be ready to roll :)

Hey Yallll'z, finally got all the mounting hardware done and just made a quick update video :) Its starting to take shape now!

heres a link to the video if you wana check it out: https://youtu.be/LkJYq-NjRVo?si=WM5oNUCoBOVZ4hBQ

So the final damage report: Freddie - no more clock generation, but it does pass on my Backbit Chip Tester. Evie, the creator of it even made firmware updates to be more agressive.. She thinks that it may be good if you were to use an oscillator on the borad insteasd of a crystal. So I will hang on to it U1MB - its dead.. BUt maybe can repair it later... But not sure what died yet. Sohpia 2 - the voltage regulator and a couple of 1uf caps blew.. Could be repaired but will be tedias because they are tiny sirface mount parts and the PCB is burned to hell where they were so will take some rewiring. Another one to put on the project list for another day. Ram - both rams were bad Thats it... For future reference when you over volt your boards :) So all the hardware is pretty much done and now I am onto the plastics! Clock is ticking...

Looks like it's fixed! No video hooked up yet but the fujinet is booting and I have all the expected boot sounds.

The verdict: bad Freddie and two blown RAMS...

So much for the chip tester telling me the Freddie was good. Got to notify them that their test has issues...Now to test the U1MB and try to fix the Sophia (I bought a new one anyway)...

I wonder if Best had them

Well I just killed the boar dnad the sophia 2 (it caught on fire) and who knows what else... Hopfully not the U1MB and the fujinet is powering on and leds light up so it may be alive. I was making all of the 3d printed mounts and made the battery pack bracket and accidently plugged the batter directly inot the damn mother board and not the 5v regulator circuit and sent 11.1v to the board.. Dammit. the board is dead. no clock or anything. Now i need to seek out schematics and try to assess the damage i guess. but right now I am feeling pretty discuraged UHHG!!! and so much stuff is soldered on the board and parts removed to shave the size down etc. WHat a nightmre. I should have used a unigue connector at the batter pack level dammit!

a quicky video where I am at now.. Mostly re-hashed but you can see the sweet new display :) https://youtu.be/GHwUODBzoko

Ballblazer vs. Ballblazer.

(7 minutes later the bottom droid won 😆)

https://youtube.com/shorts/R6DA8LhxwQg?si=WXQgoBn006-fG5c9

I looked into the VBXE but it is RGB out. I need HDMI so I thinkn the Sofia 2 may be a better option. I ordered one so we will see. I hope it has the same pixel quality as the Lumacode RGBtoHDMI. I just cant get the color pallette right on that one and its been a pain to dial in. If the Sophia2 works out then I may put the RGBtoHDMI into the Superboard II laptop I did a while back.

Oh yeah, and waiting for the PokeyMax v4 to be released.and that’s going in as well :)

Well I’ve found yet another lcd panel that’s even sharper and thinner and lighter. But it’s 10” so now I’ve ordered a 13” of the same hopefully. The one I’m using now is a 12” old skool LG and it’s thick and heavy and a power hog. The new one I’ve got is AliExpress Chinese but it’s wafer thin and the picture is amazing so I’m testing it out to see if it’s going to hold up.

Here’s some more pics of the progress if any are interested 🤷‍♂️ almost ready to start doing the dreaded CAD work….

Added an ultimate 1MB. Pretty sweet!

Embedded Fujinet faith as card access on the right (I’ll properly mount it later…). The button turns Fujinet on and off. It will be hidden and I’ll make a custom button on the outside.

I made a bracket to feed fiber bricks pipes too the front under the keyboard for the status LEDs

Same for battery level:

Various buttons for access to the rgbtohdmi settings, Fujinet, and audio volume controls will run across the top of the keyboard:

New display is even more awesome! (Camera doesn’t do it justice)

Cool project...

3 hours and 35 minutes all in with Fujinet, sound amp, display, and rgbtohdmi. Not too shabby. Looks like it’s charging while powered up. Bonus! :)

Oh and I got an ultra 1MB I’m thinking of putting in it but not sure how well that jives with the Fujinet.

I think I got the power management sorted out finally! I wanted to use thin flat lipos but I just couldn’t get it to work right with all the stepping up I needed to do so I’ve gone with 3 3.7v 18650’s to get me 11.1v and then made two in parallel to get me 5 amps.

Timing it now but hoping for 3 hours runtime.

Here’s some quick pics of it running off the battery pack and 1 hour in so far! :)

I am having a hell of a time with the power management stuff.. the boost converters cant handle the load, the flat liFE pack is only 3.2v but it was all i could find that had 15A to handle the amount of power this thing needs... the whole thing draws abotu 4Amp and i want it to run for at least 3 hours... anyway, I am getting it sorted now.. more parts coming... I am going to go with a thicker 18650 set of cells and make it 11.1v so I dont need to boost the voltage and then it will only pull about 2 amps so i can have a smaller size pack but it will be thicker. I was going to use a flat lipo inside the display but now i will make the display thinner and put all of the power stuff in the back and just make the whoile laptop a liitter deeper... i am thinking now since im extending the back that I will ditch all the ports on the back... Maybe relocate the cartiridge slot or maybe ditch that too and just go with the sd card on the fujinet...

Awesome project! Man that video quality is just so much above a UAV