Murena 2 users 3D print your own protective case

[Manoj]

**21 May 2024: There are no further updates on this thread. The purpose of this thread was to offer an alternative method to users to create the back covers. Now, that the vendor has sent us the back covers which the team has started sending out to users. We are starting with the users who had crowdfunded us. The links to purchase the cases have also been added to the Murena shop. https://murena.com/products/smartphones/
On continuing with guidance on printing the 3D cases we do not have the expertise to advise on Blender or 3D printing nuances.Nor do we have the details of the cases manufacturing specifications from vendors.
The files that we shared in the initial thread have been removed as they had some errors as pointed out by users in this thread.

Users are advised to wait for the cases to be sent to them or purchase the same from the Murena shop.

In case of complaints please contact helpdesk for a resolution or if one is not available you should get a refund on the Murena 2

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Disclaimer: As a way to foster an open-source spirit and give users a choice, the source files made available here are for the benefit of the community, who can choose to print their 3D case, customize it and share feedback.

• The case is experimental and it’s shared with the community while still under development. Be careful when trying to fit it in the phone or you will end breaking the toggles and voiding the warranty.
• We recommend printing it in TPU material, which is more flexible and doesn’t carry major risks of damaging the phone. So, when printing in PLA or ABS, take extra caution while assembling the case around the toggles. The toggles are fragile and can’t be forced.

Note: the source files are intended for advanced Blender users who want to make a custom case. Inside the file, you’ll find the Murena logo in flattened format, which can be printed on the case. Depending on your design (e.g. embossed or debossed logo) additional steps may be required.

If you don’t intend to customize your case, you can always use the STL files provided here, which are ready to print, for your convenience.

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Murena 2 protective cases manufacturing is late. We expected the cases to be available end of January, but the supplier is now planning a production in March.

So we have decided to provide an alternate option for Murena 2 customers to 3D-print their own protective case for the Murena 2.

Updated as on (2 March 2024)

Here are the files you can download to 3D print and create this case…

Variation Preview Front Back view + Bezel around lenses Without bezel Printable files Source file
1 - Protected openings

Recommended material:

TPU only

2 -Buttons exposed on top

Recommended material:

PLA or ABS

A few notes and recommendations:

• 1 - Option 1 is the default case, which gives more protection to the buttons. It is intended to be printed with TPU. As mentioned before, if you choose to print it with PLA or ABS, take extra caution while assembling the case around the toggles. The toggles are fragile and cannot be forced.
• 2- The second option was designed to make it easier for those who want to print the case with PLA. It allows for fitting the phone inside the case without the risk of breaking the buttons (Important: don’t use TPU if you’re printing this version. The top openings above the buttons let the exposed area bend easily with TPU, causing the phone to slip from the case. It needs to be printed with a rigid material that lets the case grip the phone tight.

• File options for each version were also made available, so you can choose to print it with our without a bezel around the camera lenses.

• The bezel gives extra protection to the camera’s objectives (supports may be required during printing).
  …
  Some suggestions for the printing :

• We printed with a 0.6 mm nozzle to go fast, so some printing lines are visible. Printing it with 0.4mm or 0.2mm nozzles will get a smoother finish

• during printing, some structures are created inside the punch holes to support the ranging areas. That is to prevent warping and needs to be removed in the end. So a little dremel machine can be useful.

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[oliverba]

Can you tell me the final external dimensions of the 3d print?

[Manoj]

@oliverba

Can you tell me the final external dimensions of the 3d print?

Response from our Design team:

Given that the phone dimensions are 159.7mm, 73.3mm, 7.8mm the case was made with 1.3 mm thickness based on those dimensions. Therefore, the the external dimensions should be around 161mm, 74.6mm, 9.1mm.

also there isn’t an exact external dimension because it depends on the printing settings. For example, depending on the nozzle size, the case can be more or less thicker.

[pswiatki]

Something is not exactly right:
when I open the STL in the cura slicer I get an error that the model is not “watertight” and it keeps showing problems with the the bottom and edges (the measurement unit seems to be incompatible with the slicer, too - meters instead of mm - but the slicer autoMagically fixes it):

When I try to export the STL from Blender it is even worse, as it seems the logo and text on the bottom face are somehow incorrectly written to the STL file so the slicer complains even more:

The X-Ray view (rotated so that the back/bottom is facing the camera) shows:

So, something odd with the text. Is this the reason your original STL does not show the text at all
(also: did you disable it in your export to STL?) ? How should I correctly export the model from Blender to avoid these errors?
By the way - another oddity shows up when the model is exported to STL:

Why is it doing this?
The versions:

Blender:

version: 4.0.2, branch: makepkg (modified), commit date: 2023-12-05 07:41, hash: 9be62e85b727, type: Release
build date: 2024-01-16, 15:01:28
platform: 'Linux-6.7.2-arch1-1-x86_64-with-glibc2.38'

Cura
v5.6.0

[pswiatki]

The same result is produced when I try the second model (volume button not covered).

[Manoj]

Thanks for the detailed feedback. Will pass on to the design team to check and revert

[Manoj]

As a response to some of the issues raised by @pswiatki the design team has reverted

• The editable file was made available for those who want to customize their case. So we saved the file with modifiers, but it does require some tweaking and certain level of experience with Blender.

• the oddities you mention in the file are actually because it includes a boolean modifier. It contains all shapes used for the cut-holes and it can be found in the scene outliner named as “CUTHOLES”. So, before exporting to STL in Blender, suggest you go to the modifiers tab the apply the the boolean modifier first. Then it won’t appear in the slicer anymore.

• The editable file also contains our logos and we’re sharing it because some people may want to include it in their case. E.g. We think it’s possible to “carve” it in the case or maybe even do an emboss effect using extrusion. So we haven’t merged the logo into the 3D model, to give some flexibility (and of course, it can be deleted too if they don’t intend to use it).

About the warnings in CURA:

• The autoscale warning is because Blender uses meters and CURA uses mm (it is a common warning in files exported from Blender), so CURA handles it automatically with autoscale. The warning shouldn’t prevent them from printing the file so there’s no need to worry about it. If you wants to clean the warning issues, you needs to change scale unit in Blender before exporting it to STL.

• Regarding the “watertight” warning, it can be closed without worries. FYI, it’s probably due to some flipped normals in the 3D model, which doesn’t affect printing. We’ll investigate and see if we can get rid of this warnings and post an update.

[pswiatki]

Oh, thank you so much for the answer and all the details. I am coming from the CSG/SM OnShape world, which uses a different approach to 3D modelling. I had the impression the blender model was just a step before the STL export, but this is not the case, as pointed out. I now realize the modifiers, once applied, would vanish from the project, so maybe it was a good idea to leave those unApplied. Hah! I just realized I did not see those modifiers clearly because they are hidden in the viewport. I simply missed that fact. I shall play with it more to get a nice STL out of it. Also, I asked my brother (a compositing professional) to help me out with embossing the logo and slogan in the blender model. We’ll see how it goes.

By the way: as far as the scale is concerned - one can simply do:

and get rid of the warning in the slicer that way. Just tried and it seemed to work OK.

[pswiatki]

Hmmm… some oddity occurs when I try to apply the modifier. Everything looks the same as in your screenshot:

But when applied the result is not good:

Seems the CUTHOLES incorrectly extends to infinity - what am I doing wrong?

[Manoj]

From the design team:

The issue you’re facing relates to the modifiers stack ordering. The solidify modifier needs to be applied first, before the boolean modifier. Otherwise, it will cause the edges to be extruded inwards inside the cut-holes, consequently flipping the boolean object faces outwards.

So, you need to select the object that contains all modifiers and apply them from top to bottom in the hierarchy.

Here’s a little walkthrough:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

[pswiatki]

Thank you so much, @Manoj. I appreciate it greatly.

Somehow I had an impression at least some of the modifiers would already be applied (as the 3D viewport shading mode is, as far as I can see, a bit misleading. Even more so, because:

so I had the impression any existing modifiers which were not applied yet - would be before the export commenced.

But OK - I now understand the issue with the incorrect result of application of the boolean modifier.
However, there is a deeper question: what is the design philosophy adopted by the creators of this project? If things (here: modifiers) are left unApplied one needs to perform additional steps before the model can be successfully exported to STL. The same is true with the slogan + logo, but for those more steps are needed, as they have no relevant modifiers defined (yet). All good, all good - one just needs to be aware of the additional steps needed.

By the way: there must be one additional thing that is needed, as even after the modifiers are applied, the project is exported to STL and that STL later opened in a slicer - I can still see something approximating a union, instead of difference where those boolean modifiers were supposed to act with the CUTHOLES collection:

Why it behaves like this - it puzzles me greatly.

[Manoj]

Response from the design team:

Regarding the “apply modifier” setting from the export view, it does apply all modifiers to the object, but it doesn’t clean up the file.

Since the only thing that will be exported to CURA is the case itself, that should be the only object remaining in the scene. So, in order to use the source file that we made available, you need to clean up the scene and remove all artifacts before exporting to STL. This means, removing all lights, residual objects and leftovers from the modifiers, like the cut-hole objects and its collection.

Note, even after you’ve applied the boolean operand, Blender preserves its objects in the scene, so they need to be removed manually:

[pswiatki]

Dear @Manoj!

Thank you so much for the response. So… now I know. I actually noticed one little option in the EXPORT and it works just as well (no need to remove objects in the blender project):

Sure, this “selection only” ought to be:

The export (STL), when loaded to the slicer (CURA) looks proper:

Logo and slogan are included (I modified the blender project a bit):

Hope this helps!

[pswiatki]

Are you sure blender’s internal dimension unit is centimeters and not meters?
I am asking, because I saw a warning in CURA saying it applied 100 thousand % enlargement. That would equate to 1000x (thus making mm from meters).

[Manoj]

Please note the stl files have been updated.

[pswiatki]

OK, so the case was printed (from TPU) and it is loose. The phone does not fit snugly into the printed piece. My friend who printed it said there could be an issue with the design - I haven’t got the details of the problem, but will share those as soon as I know more.

btw #1: has anyone printed the case successfully and can confirm M2 fits properly inside?
btw #2: has production of these cases finally started? When can we expect them?
btw #3: does the factory use the same project that was shared here?

Looking forward to getting the answers.

[pswiatki]

Oh, now I see the update. It is dangerous to add more information to the original post and not mention the fact as a separate entry in the thread. People may not notice the update immediately (as in my case - only now I see there are new project files and STLs).
Are the internal dimensions any different from the original project?
Since the mid-March has already passed - is the production finished and cases are being sent out to customers?

[Manoj]

@pswiatki

It is dangerous to add more information to the original post and not mention the fact as a separate entry in the thread.

The fact that the files have been updated is mentioned in a post just above your previous post. I have highlighted it so that users do not miss it.
The date the files were updated is also available in the original post where the files are linked.

[pswiatki]

OK, good, Somehow it did not show in my browser. Now it does.

Also, just got communication (eMail) relayed through the KickStarter.
So, it seems (a) you have been manipulated by the Chinese, (b) it is this 3D project (done in blender) that is going to be used for 3D printing you order some place to get the cases for the backers. I see. If so, once again I ask The Community: has anyone printed the case successfully and the phone fitted snugly inside?
My experience was this: a friend of mine printed it using TPU and the phone happened to be loose inside the case, so the peace of mind (that the phone would not fall out) was absent.
This is what was reported to me. I wonder if the updated project is any different (especially in regards to the internal dimensions). I see the cover of the volume button has, interestingly, disappeared. Wonder if it was a good idea in the first place…

[LittleTurtle]

trying to get a case via online 3D printing shop. Having seen the file for TPU case they have given the size as: Size (x,y,z): 76.716 x 162.300 x 10.394mm.

I saw in the forum pictures above the size is (x,y,z): 75.9 x 162 x 10.4 mm

I suggested this to them and gave the phone’s dimensions, they say they can’t judge from phone dimensions and want the exact case size.
I note a user who has printed it, has said on this page it is not snug (it is loose).
Since it is expensive and not possible to correct once they have printed and sent it, can you confirm what the exact size should be.

What they have quoted is:
M2_case_printable_COMMUNITY_covered_volume_For_TPU.stl
Size (x,y,z): 76.716 x 162.300 x 10.394mm
Technology: FDM
Material: TPU 95A
Infill rate: 100%
Resolution: Draft (0.3mm)