Neil Muralles

I am a Junior at LSU for Mechanical Engineering. The goal of this website is to display my current projects as well as log little bits of information I found helpful. I plan to also add previous projects since freshman year of college.

Final product
New 3d printed shell vs previous, broken shell

A friend of mine came to me with an issue. The usb bluetooth adapter for their wireless mouse had broken and was now just the exposed PCB. It still worked, but the parts were likely to be damaged or destroyed by daily wear and tear unless it was protected via a container or new shell.

Goal

My aim was to create a fully 3d printable shell for the adapter that:

  • looked aesthetically pleasing for my friend
  • is strong enough to be thrown in a backpack and protect the PCB
  • could still display the onboard LED that showed bluetooth connection

I also thought that it would be a nice touch to add their initials to the design (simple to add with virtually no added material).

Design

I was able to measure the board with a pair of Harbor Freight Calipers and get the layout created in Fusion360. Now that I had the dimensions, I needed to choose a method of connecting the bottom and top part of the shell together. I wanted to avoid using nuts and bolts, and decided to use a tapered slot design to press fir the two pieces together…!!!

calipers and tolerancing

Updated: