Hardware Eternal "Are there good replacement SP shells?" Thread

[actualkoifish]

Hey all. I've now tried two places, God of Gaming on ebay, and Handheld Legend on their own site, and having received both my reaction has been very disappointed. The SP shells I bought were both meant to replace my pearl blue SP, which tragically cracked in three places on my last trip. I found the ebay one to be very off-color and not having a good feeling. The parts feel lightweight and cheap. The handheld legend ones didn't feel cheap, but were a third off-blue color, and the texture of the plastic is just awful. Both shells had what I felt was bad texture, but this was decidedly the worse of the two.

Is there any respite from this nightmare of SP cases? I'm tempted at this point to just buy a for parts SP and swap the cases.

 

[Jayro]

All over ebay my dude. Mianly good for the IPS screens too.

 

[FAST6191]

There are usually three types of shells on the second hand market

1) Someone buys a working SP and strips it for parts (buy some dead battery thing from a bored housewife/kids have moved on type, sell the screen, case, board and whatever separately to places like this where "aw I had it since I was a kid, I will pay the price to fix it" is the order of the day and you can make a tidy profit). They may or make not do some plastics restoration work.
2) Someone in China gets a lead on the factory making them and either takes the ones that failed (but only just) or has another little shift run after hours. Quality varies massively here -- failed runs can be failed runs for a reason, ghost shift tends to be as fast as they can make them rather than waiting for the proper cooldowns and might even be using a different plastic rather than the nice blend of the original, and that is not even counting someone trying to eek out a bit more life from the mould that was discarded/considered too far gone.
3) Someone spends a few hours with a micrometer, vernier callipers and maybe a 3d scanner, figures out a means to have it injection moulded (an expensive hobby) or maybe a decent 3d printer and spits out the results. They may or may not do some machining if it needs doing.

2) might involve an element of 3) if the parts are made in different places and they need to find some buttons or something at the same time to make a complete package. For the SP era then things were not as locked down today where failed runs are shredded and ghost shifts are harder to pull off.

3) Also varies massively. For the SP specifically I have not seen anything good on the replacement front, indeed it is quite rare I see anything like that for consoles (you might get the occasional controller).

If you find a good source then please do share with the class (though make sure you are sorted for you first as a thread like this can rinse a supply of 30 or so in a few hours).

 

[natsume_ronin]

My experience is limited to shells I've personally bought for myself, but the best replacements I can attest to so far are the first batch of transparent shells (good mould quality, build quality, etc). I'd stay clear of the newer transparent shells though as these ones are noticeably worse in quality; easy ways to identify these are that the A B buttons are a different font and/or the included silicon pads and screw covers glow in the dark. I believe the new rayquaza shells are merely these same shells but just painted over.

 

[Deleted User]

i know dice are way simpler than shells, but i see this guy that makes silicon molds of 3d printed dice, then pours resin, couldnt the same be done with original shells? like, taking a mint sp, molding it and puring resin?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

i know dice are way simpler than shells, but i see this guy that makes silicon molds of 3d printed dice, then pours resin, couldnt the same be done with original shells? like, taking a mint sp, molding it and puring resin?

The outside of the shell is easy enough to make a mold of but the inside might be tricky, molds often miss fine details because the liquid silicone is very thick, and the resin is also pretty thick and might not flow into all the books and crannies even if the mold is perfect. That's not to say it can't be done, if the mold is not perfect the imperfections (extra parts where there shouldn't be any, holes covered up etc) can be cut or filed off the resin cast. If the resin cast is missing pieces, they can be filled in. The end result might need sanding and/or painting to get a good finish. It's just a lot of work. Dice have no fine details and it doesn't matter if the texture is a bit rough, so they're easy.
Another big issue with larger molds is bubbles. It's very difficult to get all the bubbles out of the silicone and resin before casting larger objects, even with a vacuum chamber.

 

[Deleted User]

The outside of the shell is easy enough to make a mold of but the inside might be tricky, molds often miss fine details because the liquid silicone is very thick, and the resin is also pretty thick and might not flow into all the books and crannies even if the mold is perfect. That's not to say it can't be done, if the mold is not perfect the imperfections (extra parts where there shouldn't be any, holes covered up etc) can be cut or filed off the resin cast. If the resin cast is missing pieces, they can be filled in. The end result might need sanding and/or painting to get a good finish. It's just a lot of work. Dice have no fine details and it doesn't matter if the texture is a bit rough, so they're easy.
Another big issue with larger molds is bubbles. It's very difficult to get all the bubbles out of the silicone and resin before casting larger objects, even with a vacuum chamber.

damn, i really wanted to do it, mostly for customs

 

[actualkoifish]

My experience is limited to shells I've personally bought for myself, but the best replacements I can attest to so far are the first batch of transparent shells (good mould quality, build quality, etc). I'd stay clear of the newer transparent shells though as these ones are noticeably worse in quality; easy ways to identify these are that the A B buttons are a different font and/or the included silicon pads and screw covers glow in the dark. I believe the new rayquaza shells are merely these same shells but just painted over.

Is there much hope to find one of these "first batch" shells today? Seems like the kind of thing you would struggle to get a hold of, especially when relying on photos to get there.

 

[natsume_ronin]

Is there much hope to find one of these "first batch" shells today? Seems like the kind of thing you would struggle to get a hold of, especially when relying on photos to get there.

I'm sure there have been other batches in production since; my point was that the moulds used for the first set of transparent shells are the best so far, even better than the non-transparent shells on the market. If you see a shell that includes buttons with the wrong font or glow-in-the-dark silicon pads though, definitely stay away. Most of the time these are easy enough to spot in the listing, especially when you know what you're looking for.