New Project: Snaplocking Shockbox

[shadowkn55]

I'm currently in the early stages of designing a snap-locking mvs case. It will probably have a size that is similar to the shockbox in order to maintain compatibility of the plethora of insides available at southtown. The durability will be comparable to the official AES snaplock case. None of this broken hinges and crushed sizes that are issues with the current shockbox.

Now before I run out and spend piles of money on prototyping and a new injection mold, what are people's thoughts on this? I'm tentatively pricing them at $15 each but this can all change (higher or lower) depending on what I get back after I submit the final design for a quote. Even at the current price, I'm looking at having to literally sell thousands of these before breaking even. If the interest and demand is there, I can go ahead and continue the design to make this a reality.

Any thoughts or feedback appreciated.

 

[Joneo]

I like the idea. I think making sure the boxes won't have any indentations behind the inserts (like the official snap cases do) would be a well-regarded enhancement.

 

[Adderall]

I'd be up for this.

 

[shadowkn55]

There is a good reason for those indents on the case. It's so they could hollow out in the inside of the feature that appears on the opposite side. If you want it "flat" on the insert side, something else will have to go when you design the opposite side.

 

[cdamm]

i'd be up, but i wouldnt be interested in a price higher than $10 with the $8 price point of the southtown shock.

maybe if they are $15 to protect 1 or 2 of any super pricey carts i might have.

as far as design goes- just look at the genny clamshell cases for ideas. i think that would be great. also if on the inside of the case there was 2 clips (genny case style) for art kits, mm's, dip sheets, move strips, and the like. storage of the other media that goes with a cart is an issue.

 

[voltronbadass]

Is this what you were working on instead of going to the auction yesterday?

You didn't miss much anyway

And cdamn brings up a good point, I would say if they are going to cost more than $15 each then I don't think they would sell

 

[shadowkn55]

The quality of the shockbox is pretty indicative of the price you pay for it. I'm trying to go one step further and and do something a bit nicer. The shockbox also didn't have the tooling costs associated with it when it first came out. It reuses the mold for an older cassette that happened to fit it perfectly. Doing all this from scratch requires bigger upfront costs, hence the higher selling price.

I also do have something in mind for storage of the artsets and paper but not clips. Those have a tendency to make minor indents in paper.

EDIT: I was at the auction but the selection was so poor I left early. I went to round 1 to enjoy some good light gun gaming. About the price, it is flexible to a point depending on how many people actually commit to buying them. If I can't even get enough people to be slightly interested, it probably won't happen no matter the final cost.

 

[cdamm]

I also do have something in mind for storage of the artsets and paper but not clips. Those have a tendency to make minor indents in paper.

just a suggestion

 

[WoodyXP]

When I originally heard of the 'Shockbox' I was hoping for a snap-lock case. I was kind of disappointed when the shockbox turned out to be an oversized beta-max case. If your snap lock box becomes reality I'll be good for purchasing 80+.

 

[xiao_haozi]

I'd be up for some.

 

[Kid Panda]

im certainly interested if they are in the 10-12 range, gonna need about 40 of them

 

[shadowkn55]

About the physical size, I personally don't like how unwieldy the shockbox is. However, the large supply of pre-made inserts makes for a compelling reason to keep it that size. If I were to make it smaller like the AES snaplock, would the insert designers be on board in resizing their creations?

 

[WoodyXP]

About the physical size, I personally don't like how unwieldy the shockbox is. However, the large supply of pre-made inserts makes for a compelling reason to keep it that size. If I were to make it smaller like the AES snaplock, would the insert designers be on board in resizing their creations?

If they're not willing I'll do it. It's not rocket science.

 

[Ukee]

Well I know I will be buying a Shockbox for every one of my MVS carts and as mentioned with that price tag it might be a little harder to swallow when buying in bulk. However I can defiantly see it being handy to have a stack of them to use when transporting games around, plus I don't know how stocked up Southtown is on their boxes so if they should start limiting or run out of them that would most likely make you the next target to buy from which at that point I wouldn't care how much I payed. Who needs a grandmother as long as my games and protected!

 

[shadowkn55]

The higher price tag is due to the different processes to make the new cases. The shockbox is made by vacuum forming which is great because the initial costs are a fraction of getting a steel mold made. But there is a limit to the strength of materials that are available. As soon as I can the design close to completion, I'll shop around to see if there is less expensive alternatives to getting the tooling done to bring the costs down.

Before anyone mentions going to China for manufacturing, that is something I won't do. I'd rather not do it if that was the case. Customs problems, communications problem, and accountability are among the major concerns for me. The Omega was tooled and manufactured in USA including the pcbs. So I'd like to try to keep that practice for as long as possible.

 

[BIG BEAR]

You may want to go with the smaller design as I found postage to be the deal breaker in a lot of cases.Large snaplock cases mean large postal containers!! You're talking the cost of the cases and you then you must figure in the postage based more so on the size of the postal container rather than the weight which is on the increase every year.
The SHOCKbox was and is the perfect solution to satisfying the needs of the MVS gamer. The main purpose of SHOCKbox was to protect your game from dirt/dust and to display in library format which was accomplished. Physical abuse was never an issue because the MVS cartridge shell was designed to withstand that.
My suggestion would be to manufacture the AES snaplock if at all possible as I'm certain you would have more demand and a better chance at being successful with the project.
BB

BB

 

[malignantpoodle]

Sounds like a great idea, although I probably wouldn't buy any simply because I already have 60 shockboxes. I like them all to match, so for me to do this I'd have to replace all cases (yes, I'm OCD like that). Other than for that, I'd be interested in them.

 

[pipes]

Interesting idea. If I didn't already have over 50 shocks I might be interested in this, but to switch over would be too costly.

 

[gegrago]

It would be amazing to have snap lock boxes for MVS and AES, I understand it would be difficult to have them at the same time. I definitely would need some of those for my MVS carts. The shock box is cool but I really like the snap lock design in the AES games.
Any chance of getting mvs cart replacement shells in AES style?
Good luck with the project.

 

[shadowkn55]

It would be pretty tough to get an aes style case to fit existing mvs boards without making them taller. There isn't a whole lot of space up top where I could add curves. But what I could do is move the label position to closely resemble the aes sticker. If anyone has that link to the mvs label stickers (not the standard spine ones) handy, I could probably do something with them to make them more useful.

 

[trenog]

I'm going to have to agree to the idea that $15 is pricey. Since these things are going to be large to accommodate MVS carts anyone that's not immediately in the US will have to pay a lot for shipping costs. It's why I'm just using plain old boxes to store my not-in-cab games. Hopefully your estimates will turn out to be on the high end after you get more information from the appropriate people. I am tentatively excited for you though

 

[ChuChu Flamingo]

There is a good reason for those indents on the case. It's so they could hollow out in the inside of the feature that appears on the opposite side. If you want it "flat" on the insert side, something else will have to go when you design the opposite side.

Its totally unneeded unless you like having the nice SNK logo etched into your cart. It is what pisses mee off most about disc based dvd games. Holes everywhere to leave nasty indent marks on your insert.

 

[shadowkn55]

Its totally unneeded unless you like having the nice SNK logo etched into your cart. It is what pisses mee off most about disc based dvd games. Holes everywhere to leave nasty indent marks on your insert.

I'll go with the DVD case example since it's easy to visualize and everyone has one to look at.

So these cases are made with an injection mold that consists of a top and bottom. Metal is cut away on each part and makes a cavity. Plastic is forced into the cavity and the part is made.

Now take a look at the clips that hold in the insert. If the hole that is underneath the clip was filled in, there is no way that you can pull out two halves of the mold and have the part intact. The clip would get stuck in one of the halves and break off. This is something called an undercut. To do something like this without breakage, it would significantly increase the cost of the mold and the individual part.

Now onto the back side where the disc is held. Most often, around the disc is a wall like projection and the opposite side is hollowed out. If it weren't hollowed out, you would have an accumulation of excess material compared to the rest of the case. When you don't have a uniform distribution (i.e. even thickness all around), you'll get sink marks or indentations where the extra material is. A perfect example of this is the dimpled cases I showed in the Omega thread. The area underneath the cartridge molding was flat with the rest of the surface underneath causing the dimples on the top. When I hollowed it out to be uniform with the rest, the dimpling went away.

 

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Yeah I realize that for injection mold it would be more expensive.

What I am talking about is massive amounts of crevices. Or how about putting a piece of paper over it? Just something to prevent these without doing it ourselves. Some of the gamecube double disc cases had like maybe one or two crevices and thats it.

It just shits over collectors.

 

[shadowkn55]

The holes right where the clips are is required but the 3x4 formation of square holes is totally unnecessary. I believe that is a trend by case makers to cut costs on materials and passing it off to consumers as "eco-friendly." They serve no purpose in terms of sterics or limitation workarounds except to reduce the total amount of plastic used.