The black anodized finish on the MNT reform lends itself really well to laser engraving, as long as you have a fairly powerful laser. Our hackerspace has an 80W Co2 laser, so I laser engraved Lain Iwakura onto my machine. I set the power to 80%, the speed to 20mm/s, and did two passes to get this finish. I really like how it turned out!
12 Likes
Nice!! Feels like a lifetime ago that I last watched Lain. XD
You also colored your trackball buttons. I spray painted mine but the color is slowly peeling off. Maybe you have some tips on how to create a more durable coating?
Thank you! It’s a pretty great series.
Actually these buttons are reprints out of PLA. I replaced the switches in the trackball with Choc Whites and snapped the covers while removing them. It’s only a matter of time before these snap the same way though because of how they’re printed, I just haven’t gotten around to resin printing any replacements. I want to redo them in clear red.
1 Like
I actually went through and redid the entire keyboard with Choc Whites.
Really lucky I had the desoldering iron or this would have been impossible. Have you (or anyone else) made any other mods to your machine besides the paint job?
1 Like
Yes, I made the same experience when printing my trackball buttons with PLA. Since I have to remove the buttons comparatively frequently to clean the trackball sensor, even the legs of the resin printed buttons snap every once in a while, sadly… 
Holy moly, even with a desoldering iron that must’ve been “fun”! Great job!
You can find a lot of other mods people have done here in the forum. I don’t think we have any special category or tag to collect them. Some of them are listed here: Community—MNT Research GmbH.