Playdate dimensioned drawing or STEP model

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1

I've been looking at making accessories for the Playdate, and an up-to-date good technical drawing would really help (a STEP model would work, too).

I know there was a thread about this in 2022: Developing Accessories: Is there precise reference measurements available for the Play.Date? — but I don't want to ask there, because it seems that Dan who posted the drawing there no longer works at Panic. Also, the drawing in that thread doesn't correspond to the Playdate that I have: my unit is 75.1 x 77.6 x 8.9mm. Also, the drawing is missing some important details, like hole diameters for the screws holding the unit together, distances between the axes of these holes, and distances between the axes of the holes and case edges.

I thought I'd ask — sure, I can use calipers and do some guesswork, but why do that if I could work with precise specs? I'm guessing there is a technical drawing available to accessory manufacturers, kind of like Apple does for iPhones.

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2

I believe some people have used the 3D model that's on the website.

3

Hmm… What 3d model would that be? Did I miss something? I couldn't find anything on the website, and the documentation seemed to be only about the software.

4

Go to https://play.date and scroll down the page to the yellow section where it talks about the crank. There's an animated, interactive 3D model. People have downloaded this file and found it is to scale. There might be other models, derivative or original, elsewhere.

IMG_4927
IMG_49271125×2436 462 KB

5

There is a link to a 3D model on this page under the SIZE heading: The Specs - Playdate Help

Additionally, we have a dimensioned drawing but it might only be linked from this forum post (I'll see about getting it added to the above page as well): Developing Accessories: Is there precise reference measurements available for the Play.Date? - #4 by dwineman

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6

Ok, so:

  • The drawing doesn't seem correspond to the Playdate that I have (earlier revision?): my unit is 75.1 x 77.6 x 8.9mm, while the drawing says 75x77.5x8.6mm (the Z difference is particularly worrying). Also, the drawing is missing some important details, like hole diameters for the screws holding the unit together, distances between the axes of these holes, and distances between the axes of the holes and case edges.

  • I converted the downloadable 3D model in USDZ to STL, imported it into Fusion 360, projected onto sketches and measured some features (that took quite a bit of work, USDZ is really not suitable for design work!). The dimensions in XY are: X: 74.281mm, Y: 76.753mm, and the distance between holes is 66.424mm. That can't be right.

Given all this, it seems I have to resign myself to using calipers, measuring and guessing...

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8

Nobody wants to throw me a bone, so I went ahead and did the footwork myself (with calipers):

SCR-20231126-rtfj
SCR-20231126-rtfj1920×1248 154 KB

Getting the hole positions, crank size, and button positioning right is quite a bit of work without good drawings...

That's a proto-case 3d-printed using TPU, an elastic material.

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9

Awesome, nice work! DIY skills