Adventures in 3D Printing a Commodore Badge

Today, I did a thing. I bought a 3D printer for the purpose of printing the badge for the Commodore 1541 disk drive. Yes, it is overkill, but I’ll use it later. I feel justified.

# Having fun with my 1541.

The issue began when I purchased a 1541 disk drive. Previously, I had purchased an original VIC-20 and C64. I also have a newer Commodore 64 Ultimate, which uses an FPGA to recreate the original. The C64 powers on but doesn’t work—a project for another day. But I got it working with the VIC-20 and C64U.

Vic 20 + 1541 Diskdrive by Steven Reid, on Flickr

The drive itself worked great. Here is a fun little video of me using it with my VIC-20.

While using the drive with my C64U, it blew one of its capacitors. What a stink. Fortunately, it wasn’t one that stopped it from working. I bought a few off Amazon and plan to fix it later. Plus, I still need to clean the drive—it’s showing its age.

# The badge problem.

The part that annoyed me was that it was missing the C= badge on the top. Apparently known as the “chicken lips” logo, the hole at the top of the 1541 annoyed me. I went searching to see if anyone was selling one, but came up empty.

Then, one night, I stumbled across a 1541 badge file for 3D printing your own. This sparked an interest. I’d been wanting to dabble in 3D printing, but never really brought myself to give it a try. Motivated by that hole in my drive, I decided to take the plunge.

# Making a badge.

My printer arrived today. It took me about 15 minutes to set up and configure. I purchased a simple Flashforge Adventurer 5M. It received decent ratings and looked straightforward to use. And thus far it has been.

3D Printing a Commodore 1541 Badge by Steven Reid, on Flickr

I then pulled up some slicer software and searched for and found the 1541 badge files. I had to create a few accounts to get to everything, but otherwise it was simple enough to import. It took me a minute to figure out how to add supports and slice it. Some things aren’t that intuitive. After figuring it out, I was ready to print.

3D Printing a Commodore 1541 Badge by Steven Reid, on Flickr

I had purchased some tan filament. It’s a bit too light, but works well enough. After 9 minutes, I had my first real print. I let it cool a bit, broke off the supports, and had my badge. I did realize that it messed up one of the connectors. But in the end, it didn’t matter. It popped right into my drive.

3D Printing a Commodore 1541 Badge by Steven Reid, on Flickr

# No more hole in my drive.

With my drive intact again, now I need to decide what to work on next. I’ll probably try to find some better matching filament and print the badge again. I could also polish the plastic a bit to reduce any texture and defects. You can’t really tell from far away, but up close it is noticeable.

3D Printing a Commodore 1541 Badge by Steven Reid, on Flickr

For now, it looks good enough on my shelf with my C64 and my recently acquired VIC modem. It stands out, which works for my vintage collection. I could also just paint the badge. Lots of options.

3D Printing a Commodore 1541 Badge by Steven Reid, on Flickr

Now, to decide what else I should go 3D print?