Commander X16

Hello, I searched the forums for this issue but didn't see anything. I have a Commander X16 board that I need to mount into a Lazer3D case and just ordered a low-profile ESP32 serial board and riser card to communicate with the outside world via WiFi. I've been reviewing assembly tutorials on YouTube and I noticed there's no hole in the back of the case in the card slot I/O area to have the WiFi antenna stick out. How does this all fit together? As far as I can tell it won't fit but hopefully someone has already dealt with this.

Thank you,
Gerry

Do you have the original Lazer3D case? If you got one, or inherited one - I think it lacked a punch out at the back.

But you could request a replacement back panel (for the ones I ordered they also included re-prints of the serial number, so you didn't have to peel it off the original). The "2nd Gen" case includes a back panel with the appropriate slot, and a "key" to hold the expansion card into place.

I've got a photo somewhere, will try to find (hopefully we're talking about the same thing)

EDIT: Here maybe...
viewtopic.php?p=34221#p34221

Thanks for your response Voidstar. Yes, we are discussing the same thing. I received my case in July so I may have a '2nd gen' case. Thank you for the pixes and they answer my question. I was also thinking about purchasing a Dual MIDI/Wavetable card. But the ESP32 is lying on its side in your pictures so it's a good thing I ordered a couple of riser cards. The first I/O slot on my board is rotated 90 degrees so, how many slots will I lose to the serial board's horizontal orientation?

I'm assuming the reason the low-profile cards don't fit vertically in the Lazer3D chassis is that the case design was developed before a reference I/O card size could be defined and more board real estate was needed than was permitted by the case. Perhaps a taller '3rd gen' case will be developed that will make room for both low-profile and standard sized I/O cards. These bumps in the road sure teach us a lot.

Thanks again,
Gerry

Well... You lose them all.

And for the 90-degree rotated one - bad news: the riser card will point "down-wards." This works out for me on my carbon fiber case, where the board is vertical.

So we may need an expansion "extender" - I've actually seen such things for modern day thin-profile servers. Or maybe a "riser-card inverter" to twist the black base to be facing upwards.

The "pizza box" aesthetic is what they were going for on the case - and just supporting a single expansion card was the compromise. I still haven't given up on using the VIA2 UserPort for serial IO - just I'm not very hopeful that it will get over 2400 baud. And even so, then that's another header to then tether out the back.

There have been rumors of a taller profile case in the works, to at least support standard half-height cards (if not full height). It's a bit boxy looking, reminded me of a miniature PDP-8 really. Now with another X16 production run in the works, maybe Lazer3D can justify enough orders being made to support this larger size (1600 boards in the world, and growing!).


note: the actual serial card will be blue, this one was just a practice.