Overnight print of the latest base plate v3 (with support blocks and raised battery rails), updated cradle insert, and top cover. All three parts fit-checked with the Pico 2 W, TP4056 charge board, Ansmann AAA Li-Ion batteries, and Waveshare 2.13" e-ink display. Also pictured: a small solar panel being evaluated for future charging.
Up to this point the Rev 2 stack has been either three pieces (base + middle-platform + top-cover) or two pieces (base-v3-2piece + top-cover). This session adds a fourth design path: a drop-in AAA cradle that lives in the cover's negative space, plus a shallow base plate that snaps into the cover via four corner pegs. The middle platform goes away entirely; what was carried by the base now gets carried by the cradle insert and the base plate together.
The AAA cradle insert and base plate from this morning's print session worked mechanically, but the TP4056 USB-C charge board had nowhere to live. This session extends the enclosure 3 mm on the -X side, redesigns the connecting block to hold the charge board, adds battery retention troughs to the base plate, and cuts a USB-C port hole through the cover.
The screen inlay was dialed in. Next problem: the 3000 mAh LiPo pouch the case was originally sized for doesn't actually fit in the Rev 2 cavity. A photo study, a chemistry comparison, four base variants, and a 2-piece restructure later, the stack is 11 mm thinner and the cells can be slid in from outside without popping the cover.
The screen-inlay top cover went to the printer overnight. It came out well enough to hold the raw Waveshare 2.13" module in its recess, but three things needed fixing before the next print. Each one is a small SCAD edit; together they move the part from "roughly right" to "match the actual hardware."
The companion top piece to the Rev 2 "extended with joystick" base. Outer footprint 91.5 × 44mm matches base-v1 and middle-platform-v1 so the M3 through-bolts line up through the full stack. It combines two Rev 1 patterns — a curved bullnose top from top-cover-v3-rounded-top and a display slide-in housing with ±Y snap rails from top-plate-windowed-v1 — plus a new tapered joystick through-hole on the +X half of the face plate.
The parametric OpenSCAD enclosure design has made the jump from screen to plastic. First FDM prints are off the bed and components are fitting together.
Started as a quick question — "can I plug the Waveshare display into the pUEXT1 port on my Olimex ESP32-S3-DevKit-Lipo?" — and ended as a full parametric OpenSCAD case with five printable pieces: base, middle tray, top-mid display retainer, open-top cover, and four plastic weld-shut screws.
Parallel track to the 5-piece sandwich enclosure: a standalone base designed around the extended-with-joystick layout. Battery sits flat on the left half, the ESP32 board stack sits on the right and overhangs the battery top by 2mm, two USB-C ports punch out the +X wall, and the whole thing drops into four M3 corner pillars.
The Olimex ESP32-S3-DevKit-Lipo is now a fully supported second target board alongside the Pico W. The DevTool, setup CLI, and firmware all handle both boards natively — no forks, no feature flags, just a board selector.