In spite of the seat of honor it enjoys in virtually tens of millions of households, the formal Nintendo Switch Dock is undoubtedly far from great. For one particular, it is not milled out of a hefty block of aluminum. A much less apparent but no fewer critical difficulty is that the ports are positioned sort of awkward – [Kevin] from Modified believes that the USB ports must be experiencing the front aspect, while the HDMI, Ethernet, and charging inputs must be on the backside — a fair posture. He set out to repair both of these troubles at the exact time, and tells us the CNC-heavy rebuild tale in a short but charming movie.
The primary dock is composed of two PCBs, and these two boards are the only point [Kevin] did not redesign from scratch. As they are linked with a versatile cable, he could freely rotate and therefore wholly reposition the ports-geared up board with out soldering. He additional some standoffs to secure this board to the scenario, and right after 3D printing a few iterations for check-fitting, the milling went on for all of us to marvel at.
The ensuing dock is really, purposeful, and even has some additional functions — for occasion, the “i” in the embossed Nintendo symbol lights up when the dock is in use. In no compact component owing to the Nintendo brand, we really don’t assume this 1 to grace retailer cabinets, but we hope that it gives inspiration to other makers to do their builds. If you like this rebuild and crave additional, no matter whether you are hunting for inspiration, CNC work insights, or really milling video clips, [Kevin]’s milled Xbox case job is an fantastic “Watch next” decision.