While expanding my GBA library a lot last year I got really annoyed that the games almost always come without a protective box! This is Nintendo's fault ofcourse for selling them in cart box cases which almost everyone threw away after buying them! Since I could not really find something that fit my demands I decided I had to make my own 3D printable design. I took the 3DS cases as an example with all kinds of little thingies to align the two halves and some hooks to clip it together! 
Here are a couple of pictures of what it looks like:
View attachment 257616 View attachment 257617 View attachment 257618
They look really awesome if I say so myself
....but the biggest issue I had with them is that the top and bottom are two separate pieces! The reason for that was that my 3D printer at the time I designed these was just 14x14x14CM and I could not fit them as a single object. Besides that the material PLA is also not that great for a lot of bending them anyway. If you look closeley I added a little curve on the label side that was meant for a smaller piece and stuck together with sticky tape or something like that.....right now it's the paper label itself that serves as the hinges!!! Hahaha
Now that I have a "regular sized" 3D printer I might give it another try and design some kind of "print-in-place" type of hinge. Just like those dinosaur and other animal types of objects you can find that have build-in hinges. The second thing that bothered me though was that printing a single half of these cases took over an hour to complete!!...printing top and bottom at the same time easily goes up to two hours I fear!! But I do think that it would be worth it in the end.
I made them last year in June when I was so excited to start developing for the GBA and getting more games for it. But I don't think I ever mentioned or showed them on here yet
Here are a couple of pictures of what it looks like:
View attachment 257616 View attachment 257617 View attachment 257618
They look really awesome if I say so myself
....but the biggest issue I had with them is that the top and bottom are two separate pieces! The reason for that was that my 3D printer at the time I designed these was just 14x14x14CM and I could not fit them as a single object. Besides that the material PLA is also not that great for a lot of bending them anyway. If you look closeley I added a little curve on the label side that was meant for a smaller piece and stuck together with sticky tape or something like that.....right now it's the paper label itself that serves as the hinges!!! HahahaNow that I have a "regular sized" 3D printer I might give it another try and design some kind of "print-in-place" type of hinge. Just like those dinosaur and other animal types of objects you can find that have build-in hinges. The second thing that bothered me though was that printing a single half of these cases took over an hour to complete!!
...printing top and bottom at the same time easily goes up to two hours I fear!! But I do think that it would be worth it in the end. I made them last year in June when I was so excited to start developing for the GBA and getting more games for it. But I don't think I ever mentioned or showed them on here yet
