Twenty LEDs. An unreasonable amount of ceremony.

October 5 follow-up: the native menu and saved profiles are now implemented. The current Windows button setup has passed user testing, including existing-app focus and a closed OBS launch-and-focus test. The text below records the earlier increment.

Build and remix

Build it, remix it, and make it your own. Ronin is a rapidly evolving work in progress, so the CAD, parts list and build steps may change. If you have questions, feel free to reach out.

What if the Voron Design Team released an official computer build?

They didn't. Because they're too smart for that. We, however, own a 3D printer.

Watch “The Computer They Didn't Make” on the Ronin project page. The 89-second instrumental commercial adds twenty seconds for reading the captions and contributor cards. Its closing promise: Don't count on it... soon™.

This is an independent, unofficial thought experiment, with no Voron endorsement. Ronin's product geometry comes from the updated assembly. The desk scenes combine native case and official Voron V0.2r1 CAD renders with generated room and person backgrounds. They show the proposed design, not a finished enclosure or tested CAD/slicer performance on the BC250.

The film and image archive keeps both original commercials, the earlier RGB film and all four original website stills available alongside this revision.

The actual lighting change

The old LED rings and foot strip are gone. The current SolidWorks assembly has two Rainbow on a Matchstick boards by Blamm, carrying ten addressable RGB LEDs each, with matching printed diffusers. These twenty LEDs are the case's only auxiliary RGB lights, intended to be controlled through the ESP32-P4 touch display. The display still has its own backlight. The main power button also has a fixed neutral-white integral ring; it is a power indicator, separate from the two auxiliary RGB boards.

The render now follows those boards' CAD positions. The opaque PCB and sheet-metal backbone block direct light. Light escapes through gaps and perforations and diffuses through the printed parts. Brightness in the film is an artistic rendering choice, not a measurement of the physical boards' output.

The revised cut shows the lit power-button ring and adds a close view of the rear cover's hexagonal vents. Bestagons deserved their moment.

Clear filament, frosted parts

The material is 3D-Fuel transparent PCTG, untinted. Printed PCTG still scatters light, so the rendering keeps a frosted surface and visible 0.20 mm layer lines. White, cyan, magenta, mint and rainbow studies use the same material. The RGB LEDs create the color.

The large rear cover's print orientation is still being worked out on the Prusa CORE One+ INDX. Upright sections would suit the preferred layer direction. Splitting the cover introduces a seam, while the one-piece tilted-fit trial leaves little build-volume margin. Neither option is a completed print.

The parts and their designers

The commercial jokes about the project. These parts get straightforward credit:

• Rainbow on a Matchstick by Blamm: two boards, ten RGB LEDs on each. They replace every previous auxiliary RGB source.
• Mosfet.Party's EPS Power Adapter and PS_ON adapter: the power-distribution and PSU-enable boards specified for the build.
• MandicReally: the source CAD behind the single 92 mm fan-shroud remix, credited to that part only.

The build also uses dual ARCTIC P9 PWM PST 92 mm fans, an ESP32-P4 touch display, a 1 TB Sabrent Rocket Gen4 NVMe SSD, and an Apevia 500 W SFX power supply. The NVMe layout puts the drive in the intended main-fan airflow path. Four USB ports sit on the right side, and magnetic covers are designed to be easy to remove.

The M.2 splitter targets storage plus Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth LE 5.3. The exact wireless card and completed host compatibility tests are still to be documented. The display's radio is a separate component; neither the splitter nor a render demonstrates those wireless capabilities working.

The revised film uses the display's installed day animation, with the resource-panel layout and LVGL fonts reconstructed from the firmware source. Its resource fields show the real "--" startup/offline placeholders. A short piece of the loop's original audio plays in sync with the screen, quietly under the instrumental score. Older static and lifestyle stills keep the earlier GUI reference artwork.

An October 3 hardware check confirmed live readings on the physical panel through UART0 USB serial, with Windows temperature supplied by LibreHardwareMonitor. That check used the existing resource helper and firmware. It did not implement the roadmap below.

Display roadmap

The panel already receives CPU, memory and disk readings over USB serial and plays local animations with audio. Four further features are planned for the firmware:

• Voice companion: use the panel's onboard microphone and amplified outputs for external speakers as the listening and speaking interface for a companion. The complete voice workflow still needs implementation.
• ARGB controller: control the two ten-LED Rainbow on a Matchstick boards from the touch interface, with colors and effects for all twenty LEDs.
• Gamepad wake of the host: use the controller to wake or start the BC250. Display connection-wake experiments are separate; they do not yet operate the host's power signal.
• Touch shortcut pages: Stream Deck-like buttons for configured host scripts or commands, selected by application, page or display screen. Context selection, action dispatch and host integration still need to be built.

The manufacturer audio lesson documents recording and speaker playback hardware. The current Bluetooth work demonstrates scanning/pairing experiments, rather than reliable host wake or controller handoff. Existing local touch controls and sound playback do not yet constitute the voice companion or shortcut system.

Planned Windows/Linux companion app

A local desktop-companion prototype has controls for the existing telemetry connection, a live host-monitor view and editors for twenty-pixel LED scenes, touch profiles and agent endpoint/model settings. The editors save configuration on the computer; they cannot yet apply it to the panel, run the configured scripts or connect to an agent portal. Physical LED control, touch-profile and voice integration, and Windows/Linux installers remain planned.

The Python resource companion is the working USB-serial telemetry helper.

The planned Windows and Linux app will configure:

• Advanced LED animations for the two Matchstick boards.
• Installation and activation of resource-monitor modules.
• Touch-button profiles for scripts and commands, including program integrations and actions selected by application, page or display screen.
• Configuration of the AI-agent portal connection used by the companion workflow.

These app functions and their display/host integrations remain future work.

Printing and assembly manual

The Rev0.3 printing and assembly manual is a working draft, revised alongside the CAD. It uses original illustrations from Ronin's assembly, a lavender-and-sakura palette and a little workshop humor. The parts list still has unresolved part numbers and dimensions. Missing components must be added to the CAD before final exploded views and assembly steps can be checked. The manual uses no Voron artwork or copied assets and has no official affiliation.

The manual is not a final build specification. Fit and assembly steps still need checking against the fabricated enclosure. Use it as a starting point for your build or remix, and expect revisions as the design develops.

Download the Rev0.3 manual PDF.

The SolidWorks assembly currently published in the repository differs from the CAD snapshot used for the manual illustrations. Compare the revision notes as you build or remix; some diagrams may lag behind the CAD. If you have questions about the differences, feel free to reach out.

The manual repository also includes the CAD component inventory and the unresolved checks. The inventory is not a complete purchasing list.

Where Ronin stands

The internals and resource display are working, with an initial cooling check documented. Enclosure fabrication, revised lighting integration and gamepad startup remain unfinished. Community BC250 builds demonstrate the platform's Linux-gaming potential, but their results are not benchmarks of the finished Ronin enclosure.

The cost figures are unchanged: roughly $375 spent so far, an estimated $275 one-off metal part, and a small-batch target rather than a confirmed production quote. The case study has the component details, display measurements and build status. The original BC250 article covers the wider reuse story.