On my quest to have all my gadgets be transparent, I set out on a quest to make my Flipper Zero exactly that.
I knew this would be annoying, especially if there weren’t any third parties producing shells for the Flipper. After doing some web-sleuthing I came across some posts on Reddit mentioning that there was a 3D printable shell out there. That was it! I had to find it!
After finding the files on Printables.com. I wanted to have the shell SLA printed. I wanted my Flipper to look good… Though I have a Eleegoo Mars, that wouldn’t be good enough for me. I saw it was possible to order custom 3D printed parts from PCBWay and that’s what i did.
I uploaded the files to PCBWay and used the strongest plastic based resin they had. I even paid for two prints just in case (So worth because i broke one).
After about two weeks I got my shells. They felt solid but seemed to be unfinished (no sanding or polishing). I dry fit one of the shells on to the Flipper to make sure it would fit. This is when I noticed it wasn’t a perfect copy of the OEM shell. It wasn’t a huge deal because it was just some tabs that needed to be cut. It seems like the 3D model used for my print was of a earlier shell that needed these tabs for a different board maybe? It also has a smaller area for the IR lens.
Circled are the tabs and the area around the IR lens that I used a snip and a dremel to remove.
I unfortunately broke this shell trying to remove the tabs with a large pair of snips 🙁
Thankfully I ordered two and was able to find smaller snips to remove those tabs. After sanding the nubs down with a dremel everything fit. I soon tried to buff the outer side of plastic so it would be a little more transparent. I then used small dabs of loctite glue to hold in the lens for the screen. I don’t think I did a amazing job with buffing but I really like the end result nonetheless.
