I needed to replace a broken hot spot case recently. At first, I reprinted my original ugly square ZumSpot + Nextion design from years ago. I was happy to be able to print it using ABS with my new printer. But I got to thinking how my newer design, a rechargeable ZumSpot+Nextion Hot Spot could be modified to NOT include the battery, charger, and boost converter which would make it a much simpler design.
I was able to remove those things from the design; the switch, the socket for charging the battery and the hold-down stand-offs for the charge controller/buck converter board.
In my original “rounded corner box” design, I wanted the box to be a slim as possible. The typical way a Raspberry Pi Zero W + MMDVM board are assembled are with the modem board on top of the PiZero board using two mating 2×5 IDC header connectors. Instead of doing that, I included standoffs in the case to mount both boards separately on the same plane. I used a short ribbon cable with IDC connectors to interface them.
Later on, I added more depth to the case to include a larger battery. There is now enough room to mount the MMDVM modem board on top of the Pi Zero again. Without the battery and such, the inside of the hotspot has a lot of empty space!
One hurdle that I had to overcome was that the Nextion Display programming I worked out years ago was rejected by the latest version of the Nextion 3.2″ display. I had to upgrade my version of the Nextion editor and after doing that, the program updated my screen configuration. However, the custom fonts got corrupted and I had to redo all of those.
Here is the finished main screen and D-STAR screen:
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