@@TheRetroChannel The coloured one have a metal bracket (mine does). I just looked at the 'crack' on my red one and theres a line there in exactly the same place as well. It is definitely not a crack, but it is an imperfection and must be from the mould. Its not something that I noticed till your review at all and not unhappy with the final product.
Yes, very common in injection molded parts and very tricky to completely eliminate in the molding process, especially in transparent material. They're called "knit lines" and appear on one side of virtually every hole in the part. They emanate from the side of the hole away from where the plastic is injected in, so on the opposite side of the part you should see a small rough patch where the "gate" was.
Yeah those are mold marks. That is the reason why plastic injected items have texture on them... it hides all the manufacturing imperfections. There are also multiple holes where the plastic is injected and those cool at different rates due to thickness sections of the mold which acts like a giant heatsink. If they actually made their own brand new mold it could have cost anywhere from 50k up to 150k and is an extremely time-consuming and tedious job so that's about the best you will get unless you get it made in Japan and it would cost twice the amount. I actually used to work as a 1st class machininst / cnc programmer doing molds for about 3 years from 1987-1990 and I was really happy to eventually leave that job and move onto something a bit less stressful doing mining / percussion drilling hammer production for Sandvik which is a whole lot easier and pays a whole lot more too hehe!
I received my Ultra Violet "purple" RF64 case last week. I assembled a purple Sixty Clone 250466 long board a few years ago which was waiting for a suitable case. The Sixty Clone PCB fits perfectly into the Retro Fuzion case. Retro Fuzion is based in Adelaide, South Australia which is where the first replica Commodore 64 cases were made in the 1980s by Micro Accessories of SA. Jake from Retro Fuzion has done a fantastic job with this Indiegogo campaign. **edit** I've never been a fan of those two-part LED holder/bezel. I've transitioned over to the one part version with the two little claws that clip behind the LED to hold it in place. (Jaycar HP1102)
The C64C case is frosted, because they used the original, textured Commodore molds for them, they haven't made new tools for that project. Amazing that they made new molds for the new breadbin case, and a separate one just for the clear breadbin so it is crystal clear, without texture. It's a shame that they all have that molding fault, it is very common with bigger plastic parts but I think it should be avoidable with careful mold design. It might partially be a setup issue, maybe they need to preheat the mold to a higher temperature and/or use higher pressure so the two streams of liquid plastic doesn't cool down that much until they meet, and so they fuse together more seamlessly. This type of molding fault can lead to fracture lines and can form an actual crack, I've seen this with polystyrene assortment bins, I had to return them to get replacements.
They didn't make a separate mold for the clear cases; they made the clear cases first, then textured the mold for the run of colored cases. Upshot: the crystal clear cases can't be made again.
It actually was not a separate mold for the crystal case. The crystal cases were produced first in a limited quantity. After that, the molds were 'etched' to produce textured cases for the rest of the production run.
@pickledlight Oh, that's unfortunate. Are you sure about this? That crystal clear case looks so cool I was considering to buy one, despite it is well out of the price range I would normally spend on something like this.
The keyboard connectors are different because they are located differently on the mainboard. Electronically, it is same same. Had the dupont cable been long enough, you could use the same connector for both purposes.
Man. I backed the ATX “Clear” “C64” case. Dern thing took like 2 1/2 years to finally ship, turned me off from backing this one. Not only did this ship hella fast, it’s truly crystal clear and well made. That damn ATX one didn’t even get threaded inserts.
Ooft, these ones aren't perfect but they sound a lot better than that and are still a good upgrade. Retrofuzion did a great job of getting these done in such a small amount of time and provided many updates on the progress. But I cannot overlook the flaws that I feel should have been obvious
@@TheRetroChannel yeah, those seams you point out almost make me think these were based off the 3D printed ones, which were divided into pieces to print on consumer sized printers at home.
Those seams are an artifact of the molding process. It's where the slightly cooler plastic from one injection leading edge meets another other leading edge from another injection point.. Stuff like that is very common.
24:30 That's just a legal disclaimer. The original PSU will work fine with the new keyboard. It can supply 1A at 5V and the C64 draws about 800mA so unless the keyboard draws more than 200mA which seems highly unlikely, it will be fine. If the original PSU LM7805 is swapped out for a brand new part (or a better regulator like a 3 amp LM1084) then the original PSU will work fine for at least another 30 years.
That depends on the LED and brightness. A typical LED will draw 5mA. 5 x 66 = 330mA. So, unless the current draw is turned down (dimmed LEDs) there could in theory be a problem.
Those slight imperfections in the future are going to be crucial for Serious Commodore 64 collectors, collectors mind you who know the entire history of this legendary computer, and the manufacturer responsible for your run is going to also be legendary due to the source of the mould that was used and the subsequence modifications done to it in the pursuance of originality, but little did they know how at the end of the C64 original run and the decades later rerun by them would actually make your case just as priceless as a yellowed original case..
Yup.. in short, those imperfections are going to separate a priceless case from later cases that were produced from a meddled mould that are worth a damn sight less!..
It may not be to everyone taste but, with those clear cases, I'd like to see signs of the activity of the C64 circuitry from the inside. For example having the Chip Select signals control LEDs (buffered by tiny P-MOSFETs) could provide a nice effect (the duty cycle of such signals would set the intensity of the light). ROMs, SID, VIC-II? Banks of RAM?
I've seen that ou have some cabling on the bottom side of your ZIF board. Just take care that it isn't pressed againt the plastic case or better doesn't get in contact with the case at all. The plasticiser in such flexible cables can "eat" into the plastics.
I've seen thousands of Breadbins in Australia and NZ over my 44 years on this earth, but so far none of them have had the port names above the ports. I have however seen every possible variant of Apple //e 😂
Just got mine - it’s very glass like (Same hairline marks in the same place) The Amiga 500 crystal case looks like it has cataracts compared to this.😂(
I need something like that for my Atari 800XL. How is the visibility of the letters on the keycaps? It seems like there isn’t much contrast-it would be better if the lettering were darker.?
I'm looking forward to next Monday when my cases and mechboard should be here They are at least in country now Just have to traverse the US to get to me
I wonder what the length of the badge slot is? Can you measure it from center of the curve to the other side in mm? I have several C64 cases here and the slot varies in length. The badges also vary in length depending on which case it is. Hopefully they made it to the longerst version to cover all the different length original badges.
There's no benefit of the KU board. Commodore revised the board several times to improve functionality, fix bugs and reduce production cost so the last board is always going to be the best version to manually build. For reliability, the short board using the separate 2114 RAM is the best version but be sure to do the digi-fix for the SID to icrease the volume on digital sample playback otherwise on games like Ghostbusters the speech will be very low volume. The 85-series CSG chips are the most reliable and rarely fail.
The KU board would be better as test machine with the 8 RAM ICs and extra logic, and I find it a little more interesting. But the '66 board would be my go-to for reliability, apart from the short board of course
Humm i liked the keyboard, but after i saw how misaligned the keycaps are (due to the adapters for the original keycaps I guess), I'm going to give it a pass. But that black case looks awesome!
At this moment in time a many thousands of keyboards were designed for all kind of computers ever made. Only the last decade one standard keyboard layout is accepted as the standard keyboard. Why not use this standard (Windows' PC) keyboard for the Commodore 64? With one very small microcontroller chip all codes can be translated to what the C64 needs. It will be much cheaper, one standard PC keyboard costs something like less then 10 pound / Euro / Dollar and everybody is used to it, most people can type blindfolded, but the C64 keyboard is not even a standard for the Commodore computers.
Maybe the badges were extra? Just checked mine ... I have a blue badge to go with one of my clear cases, along with a blue LED. I hadn't noticed the imperfection you've pointed out ... and now that you have, that's all I see when I look at it! Disappointing :-(
I get that this is the first design (the breadbin). I just don’t get the love. It was boxy and uncomfortable to type on. The 64C was fucking sexy and looked very futuristic at the time.
Those lines are where the injected plastic meets another flow of injected plastic. Very very common.
Ah that makes sense, thank you. Kinda wish they had at least mentioned that would be a thing
@@TheRetroChannel The coloured one have a metal bracket (mine does). I just looked at the 'crack' on my red one and theres a line there in exactly the same place as well. It is definitely not a crack, but it is an imperfection and must be from the mould. Its not something that I noticed till your review at all and not unhappy with the final product.
Yes, very common in injection molded parts and very tricky to completely eliminate in the molding process, especially in transparent material. They're called "knit lines" and appear on one side of virtually every hole in the part. They emanate from the side of the hole away from where the plastic is injected in, so on the opposite side of the part you should see a small rough patch where the "gate" was.
@@TheRetroChannel It was mentioned
Yeah those are mold marks. That is the reason why plastic injected items have texture on them... it hides all the manufacturing imperfections. There are also multiple holes where the plastic is injected and those cool at different rates due to thickness sections of the mold which acts like a giant heatsink. If they actually made their own brand new mold it could have cost anywhere from 50k up to 150k and is an extremely time-consuming and tedious job so that's about the best you will get unless you get it made in Japan and it would cost twice the amount. I actually used to work as a 1st class machininst / cnc programmer doing molds for about 3 years from 1987-1990 and I was really happy to eventually leave that job and move onto something a bit less stressful doing mining / percussion drilling hammer production for Sandvik which is a whole lot easier and pays a whole lot more too hehe!
Thanks for all the content this year, I hope you have a great Christmas :D
Thank you! Have a great Chrissie!
I received my Ultra Violet "purple" RF64 case last week. I assembled a purple Sixty Clone 250466 long board a few years ago which was waiting for a suitable case. The Sixty Clone PCB fits perfectly into the Retro Fuzion case.
Retro Fuzion is based in Adelaide, South Australia which is where the first replica Commodore 64 cases were made in the 1980s by Micro Accessories of SA. Jake from Retro Fuzion has done a fantastic job with this Indiegogo campaign.
**edit** I've never been a fan of those two-part LED holder/bezel. I've transitioned over to the one part version with the two little claws that clip behind the LED to hold it in place. (Jaycar HP1102)
oooh thanks dude for the tip!
It would be cool to see the ultimate retro replica machine, so as much new as possible.
C64 of Theseus?
Thanks for this! My crystal case and mechboard arrived yesterday and I immediately noticed the exact same flaws on my case as well.
The C64C case is frosted, because they used the original, textured Commodore molds for them, they haven't made new tools for that project. Amazing that they made new molds for the new breadbin case, and a separate one just for the clear breadbin so it is crystal clear, without texture. It's a shame that they all have that molding fault, it is very common with bigger plastic parts but I think it should be avoidable with careful mold design. It might partially be a setup issue, maybe they need to preheat the mold to a higher temperature and/or use higher pressure so the two streams of liquid plastic doesn't cool down that much until they meet, and so they fuse together more seamlessly.
This type of molding fault can lead to fracture lines and can form an actual crack, I've seen this with polystyrene assortment bins, I had to return them to get replacements.
They didn't make a separate mold for the clear cases; they made the clear cases first, then textured the mold for the run of colored cases. Upshot: the crystal clear cases can't be made again.
It actually was not a separate mold for the crystal case. The crystal cases were produced first in a limited quantity. After that, the molds were 'etched' to produce textured cases for the rest of the production run.
@pickledlight Oh, that's unfortunate. Are you sure about this? That crystal clear case looks so cool I was considering to buy one, despite it is well out of the price range I would normally spend on something like this.
@@mrnmrn1 Yes, quite sure. Jake spoke about this process in one of his Indiegogo updates quite a while ago.
I finished retro brightening very yellowed case. My first time and immediately noticed the identical marks on the old case!
The keyboard connectors are different because they are located differently on the mainboard. Electronically, it is same same. Had the dupont cable been long enough, you could use the same connector for both purposes.
Man. I backed the ATX “Clear” “C64” case. Dern thing took like 2 1/2 years to finally ship, turned me off from backing this one. Not only did this ship hella fast, it’s truly crystal clear and well made. That damn ATX one didn’t even get threaded inserts.
Ooft, these ones aren't perfect but they sound a lot better than that and are still a good upgrade. Retrofuzion did a great job of getting these done in such a small amount of time and provided many updates on the progress. But I cannot overlook the flaws that I feel should have been obvious
@@TheRetroChannel yeah, those seams you point out almost make me think these were based off the 3D printed ones, which were divided into pieces to print on consumer sized printers at home.
@RetroAnachronist I believe the makers of this developed an entirely new mould
The c64x? If that, their case was marketed as Translucent, not Clear. Im am happy with that as with this, both are pretty damn good imo.
@ yeah. That’s the one. No threaded inserts. It’s not built as well as this one.
Hi. They are flow lines. These occur while the molten plastic is injected into the mould .
Those seams are an artifact of the molding process. It's where the slightly cooler plastic from one injection leading edge meets another other leading edge from another injection point.. Stuff like that is very common.
I have that "smokey" clear C64C case with an Ultimate64 board in it. Magic!
Noice!
Mine is arriving today. Soooo excited!
Remember to avoid chemicals/organics when cleaning the clear plastic, it will haze/weaken.
Merry Christmas Mark!
Thank you, merry Christmas and happy New year! 🍻
24:30 That's just a legal disclaimer. The original PSU will work fine with the new keyboard. It can supply 1A at 5V and the C64 draws about 800mA so unless the keyboard draws more than 200mA which seems highly unlikely, it will be fine. If the original PSU LM7805 is swapped out for a brand new part (or a better regulator like a 3 amp LM1084) then the original PSU will work fine for at least another 30 years.
That depends on the LED and brightness. A typical LED will draw 5mA. 5 x 66 = 330mA. So, unless the current draw is turned down (dimmed LEDs) there could in theory be a problem.
Well thats good, as I already installed and tested mine!
@@CBMSTUFF-Projects Modern LEDs (especially white and blue ones) typically need lower currents for the same brightness.
Those slight imperfections in the future are going to be crucial for Serious Commodore 64 collectors,
collectors mind you who know the entire history of this legendary computer, and the manufacturer
responsible for your run is going to also be legendary due to the source of the mould that was used and
the subsequence modifications done to it in the pursuance of originality, but little did they know how at
the end of the C64 original run and the decades later rerun by them would actually make your case just as
priceless as a yellowed original case..
Yup.. in short, those imperfections are going to separate a priceless case from later cases that
were produced from a meddled mould that are worth a damn sight less!..
Mine's still in transit. I have the clear coming and pairing it with a 250407 sixtyclone i just finished building
It may not be to everyone taste but, with those clear cases, I'd like to see signs of the activity of the C64 circuitry from the inside. For example having the Chip Select signals control LEDs (buffered by tiny P-MOSFETs) could provide a nice effect (the duty cycle of such signals would set the intensity of the light). ROMs, SID, VIC-II? Banks of RAM?
Such an epic looking machine! Love the sound of the keys. Happy I watched to the very end.
I've seen that ou have some cabling on the bottom side of your ZIF board. Just take care that it isn't pressed againt the plastic case or better doesn't get in contact with the case at all. The plasticiser in such flexible cables can "eat" into the plastics.
Blue, yellow, or pale translucent green would also look cool.
I've seen thousands of Breadbins in Australia and NZ over my 44 years on this earth, but so far none of them have had the port names above the ports.
I have however seen every possible variant of Apple //e 😂
I've got one or two here with the port names, although they're looking very worse for ware
The ones with the port names are very common in Europe
I see similar hairline marks on my clear C64c and Amiga crystal cases - so seems to be common. My breading case is due for delivery today🫰
Just got mine - it’s very glass like (Same hairline marks in the same place) The Amiga 500 crystal case looks like it has cataracts compared to this.😂(
Had another good look at my clear case & yeah, I have the exact same imperfections as yours, so definitely a mold or manufacturing issue.
That thing is Glorious!
I need something like that for my Atari 800XL. How is the visibility of the letters on the keycaps? It seems like there isn’t much contrast-it would be better if the lettering were darker.?
The text is much easier to see in real life, but obviously not as high contrast as the original keys.
Black is nearly impossible to see on the clear keycaps because the background is black. That's why I used white text.
@@CBMSTUFF-Projects when can we expect a restock of the clear keys ?
I'm looking forward to next Monday when my cases and mechboard should be here They are at least in country now Just have to traverse the US to get to me
I wonder what the length of the badge slot is? Can you measure it from center of the curve to the other side in mm? I have several C64 cases here and the slot varies in length. The badges also vary in length depending on which case it is. Hopefully they made it to the longerst version to cover all the different length original badges.
110mm for the main badge, and 26mm for the power badge
@@TheRetroChannel Ok that's good. I measured 3 original badges and the longest is 109.65mm.
Clear case already sold out. Can't tell what country they ship from either.
Are the cases made in ABS?
Very nice! Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Thanks mate, merry xmas!
I have the same shirt, wore it for my wedding :)
Tis a good shirt, although mine is looking a little tired after a lot of use 😅
What is the benefit of the KU board over the 250466 ?
I like the simplicity of the 250466
There's no benefit of the KU board. Commodore revised the board several times to improve functionality, fix bugs and reduce production cost so the last board is always going to be the best version to manually build. For reliability, the short board using the separate 2114 RAM is the best version but be sure to do the digi-fix for the SID to icrease the volume on digital sample playback otherwise on games like Ghostbusters the speech will be very low volume. The 85-series CSG chips are the most reliable and rarely fail.
The KU board just looks really really nice. I've got 2 and they just look really well made.
The KU board would be better as test machine with the 8 RAM ICs and extra logic, and I find it a little more interesting. But the '66 board would be my go-to for reliability, apart from the short board of course
Is the S-Video connector hitting the case?
Humm i liked the keyboard, but after i saw how misaligned the keycaps are (due to the adapters for the original keycaps I guess), I'm going to give it a pass. But that black case looks awesome!
31:00 I would just use the original metal bracket. No need for a flimsy clear bracket on the side ports.
At this moment in time a many thousands of keyboards were designed for all kind of computers ever made. Only the last decade one standard keyboard layout is accepted as the standard keyboard.
Why not use this standard (Windows' PC) keyboard for the Commodore 64? With one very small microcontroller chip all codes can be translated to what the C64 needs. It will be much cheaper, one standard PC keyboard costs something like less then 10 pound / Euro / Dollar and everybody is used to it, most people can type blindfolded, but the C64 keyboard is not even a standard for the Commodore computers.
Yeah, I think it's a mold seam. not be a crack.
Just patch and paint your old case , will look like new again and cost very little.
Maybe the badges were extra? Just checked mine ... I have a blue badge to go with one of my clear cases, along with a blue LED. I hadn't noticed the imperfection you've pointed out ... and now that you have, that's all I see when I look at it! Disappointing :-(
Yeah, bit a shame but they do still look pretty amazing despite the minor flaws
I get that this is the first design (the breadbin). I just don’t get the love. It was boxy and uncomfortable to type on.
The 64C was fucking sexy and looked very futuristic at the time.
Sold out, sold out and sold out! Argh!
Nice ❤
🍪
🎄🎉🎆🍻🍻🍻🍻
@@TheRetroChannel 🌲🍪🥳🍻🍻🎆🍻🥃🥃🥃🥃🤕
Video looks blown out and over exposed here. Blinding white boxes. Thanks for the video though, very cool.
Yeah sorry about that, those white boxes really do not help. I need to make some more changes to my setup over the holidays
@@TheRetroChannel Or just wear dark glasses to look cooler ;-)