You might remember from a previous TIL that I had my Steamdeck configured to push my screenshots into a custom album on Google Photos. Obviously I had to change that now as well, but sadly couldn’t use the existing rclone-based setup for it.

My first idea was to utilize immich-go, as I have just successfully used that for the three day long import of over 50000 pictures from my Google Photos takeout into immich. But that turned out to not be the right tool here: in order to not even try to upload already existing files it will fetch an asset list from immich first, and while that really improves performance for large batch imports, it takes way too long for uploading a single new screenshot.

So instead I went with something self-built which utilizes immich’s API.

A custom upload script

The first part is this little bash script that will take a file as input, upload it to a pre-configured immich instance and also add it to a pre-defined album (which already has to exist). This lives in ~/.local/bin/immich-upload.sh:

#!/bin/bash
set -e

IMMICH_SERVER="https://immich.example.com"
IMMICH_KEY="your api key goes here"
IMMICH_ALBUM="your album id goes here"

INPUT="$1"
if [ "$INPUT" == "" ]; then
    echo "immich-upload.sh <file>"
    exit 0
fi

file_modified=$(stat -c %Y "$INPUT" | date --iso-8601=seconds)
name=$(basename "$INPUT")

# ---

echo "Uploading $INPUT to immich..."

upload=$(curl -sL --request POST "$IMMICH_SERVER/api/assets" \
    -H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" \
    -H "Accept: application/json" \
    -H "X-API-Key: $IMMICH_KEY" \
    -F "deviceId=\"curl/steamdeck\"" \
    -F "deviceAssetId=\"$name-$file_modified\"" \
    -F "fileCreatedAt=\"$file_modified\"" \
    -F "fileModifiedAt=\"$file_modified\"" \
    -F "assetData=@\"$INPUT\"")

id=$(echo "$upload" | jq -r .id)

echo "Uploaded file, asset id is $id"

# ---

echo "Adding file to album $IMMICH_ALBUM..."

payload=$(jq -n --arg id $id '{ids:[$ARGS.named.id]}')
album=$(curl -sL --request PUT "$IMMICH_SERVER/api/albums/$IMMICH_ALBUM/assets" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -H "Accept: application/json" \
    -H "X-API-Key: $IMMICH_KEY" \
    -d "$payload")

echo "... done"

Reacting to new screenshots

I use watchexec to listen for changes in my custom screenshot folder (see this TIL post on how to set that up) and calling the upload script with the correct file name. I downloaded a release build of watchexec and threw it into ~/.local/bin, then created another script ~/.local/bin/sync-screenshots that takes care of setting all of the correct parameters¹:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

WATCHEXEC="${HOME}/.local/bin/watchexec"
FOLDER="${HOME}/.steam_screenshots"

${WATCHEXEC} --exts jpg,png,mp4 --fs-events create --emit-events-to environment -w $FOLDER -o queue -p -v -- '/home/deck/.local/bin/immich-upload.sh "$WATCHEXEC_COMMON_PATH/$WATCHEXEC_CREATED_PATH"'

Putting it all together

Finally, a new systemd unit in ~/.config/systemd/user/sync-screenshots.service takes care of starting this bash script and keeping it running:

[Unit]
Description=Sync Steam Screenshots

[Service]
ExecStart=%h/.local/bin/sync-screenshots
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

I enabled and started that:

systemctl --user enable sync-screenshots
systemctl --user start sync-screenshots

Then I took a screenshot and confirmed that the script had run:

Mar 25 15:17:03 steamdeck sync_screenshots[77135]: [Running: /home/deck/.local/bin/immich-upload.sh "$WATCHEXEC_COMMON_PATH/$WATCHEXEC_CREATED_PATH"]
Mar 25 15:17:03 steamdeck sync_screenshots[77188]: Uploading /home/deck/.steam_screenshots/7_20250325151703_1.png to immich...
Mar 25 15:17:04 steamdeck sync_screenshots[77188]: Uploaded file, asset id is 141dc605-edef-48f1-83b5-00bd9d72b13e
Mar 25 15:17:04 steamdeck sync_screenshots[77188]: Adding file to album 0ce35e68-a564-4e26-921e-c486cd9e4725...
Mar 25 15:17:05 steamdeck sync_screenshots[77188]: ... done
Mar 25 15:17:05 steamdeck sync_screenshots[77135]: [Command was successful]

And indeed, upon checking my immich instance, I was also looking at the freshly uploaded screenshot. Mission accomplished!

He has a dual boot setup running using rEFInd, and while that survived the OS update just fine, when he wanted to return to SteamOS after a quick stint in Windows today, he was greeted by a GRUB boot menu.

Detective foosel to the rescue.

Attempting to boot the SteamOS entry in grub resulted in an error like this (with another device UUID):

error: no such device: aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeeee
error: file `/boot/vmlinuz-linux-neptune` not found.
error: you need to load the kernel first.

Press any key to continue...

So it couldn’t find it’s boot device and due to that also not the kernel stored thereon.

Entering the Deck’s boot manager and manually booting \efi\steamos\steamoscl.efi also led to the same situation.

I was able to still boot into SteamOS via the fallback entry however (which also had a different boot device UUID).

And it took me way too long¹ to simply just get the idea to let Linux update its GRUB entries:

sudo update-grub

That fixed it.

No idea if the dual boot setup played a roll in this mess or if it was just some random hiccup, my Deck’s update went without a hitch 🤷‍♀️ But if it happens again I now have this entry to check 😁

Battle.net is currently having a spring sale and I’ve been eyeing Diablo II: Resurrected for a while now, so I jumped on the chance (and while at it also got StarCraft Remastered). But given that these days I primarily game on the Steamdeck, I needed to find a way to install Battle.net on my deck and also install individual launchers for the games.

Battle.net

I first made the mistake of trying my luck with installing the Battle.net launcher directly via Steam Proton. Trust me: Don’t. Lots of work, doesn’t end up well. Instead, I went with Lutris. Lutris has been installed for a while, but if that’s not yet on your deck, install that first via the Discover app. Then:

1. Enter desktop mode
2. Navigate to https://lutris.net/games/battlenet/ and click on “Install”. That will fire up an install script in your Lutris setup. Follow the steps shown to you by the app.
3. Once the installer has run its course, log into Battle.net. You should now be able to download stuff.
4. Right click on Battle.net in Lutris, select “Add steam shortcut” (if that’s not available, but “Delete steam shortcut” is - nothing to do, the shortcut has already been added). This will become available after Steam has been restarted, don’t worry about it now.

Diablo II: Resurrected

This will create a Lutris app that uses the same Wine prefix as your Battle.net install. This is important! In desktop mode:

1. Navigate to https://lutris.net/games/diablo-2-ressurected/ (not a typo, there is a typo in that slug indeed), click “Install”. Follow the steps.
2. If not yet done, launch Battle.net and install Diablo II: Resurrected.
3. Launch Diablo once via Battle.net, exit as soon as you can.
4. In Lutris, right click on the Diablo entry, select “Configure” and go to “Game options”
5. Click “Browse” next to “Executable”. Change it to to /home/deck/Games/battlenet/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Diablo II Resurrected/D2R.exe (so, one folder up, into the Diablo folder and there select D2R.exe)
6. Under Arguments add -launch
7. Save

Make sure the Steam shortcut for the app is added.

StarCraft

Just as with Diablo II, it is important that the StarCraft entry uses the same Wine prefix as Battle.net. Either duplicate the existing “Diablo II: Resurrected” entry or alternatively follow steps 1 and 2 above. Then do the following with your game entry:

1. Launch Battle.net, install Starcraft Remastered.
2. Right click on the designated game entry (either your duplicate of Diablo II, or the Diablo II entry you don’t intend to use), select “Configure”
3. Under “Game info”, change the name to “Starcraft Remastered” and the identifier to “starcraft-remastered”
4. Under “Game options”, change the executable to /home/deck/Games/battlenet/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/StarCraft/x86_64/StarCraft.exe and add -launch to the Arguments
5. Save

The art in Lutris should update automatically. Make sure the Steam shortcut for the app is added.

Once all of that is done, head back into game mode. Feel free to change the art for the newly created entries, e.g. through something like the SteamGridDB plugin for Decky. I also set up a dedicated “Battle.net” collection and added Battle.net itself plus both games to it.

You should now be able to launch your games through their individual Steam shortcuts. Note that the way we have set up things, Battle.net will not be fully available, so if you need that (for multiplayer or for unlocking DLCs) you’ll need to launch through the Battle.net shortcut instead. In the case of the Cartoon skin for StarCraft Remastered, launching Starcraft once through Battle.net sufficed however ^^

As late February of 2022 rolled around, Valve finally started to work through the queue in weekly batches, and I was eyeing my inbox quite nervously in constant fear of missing my order window. I finally got my mail as part of the third batch on March 14th at 17:36 and ordered the deck minutes later. Then the second phase of waiting started, first for the shipment notification which came on March 16th, and then for the actual delivery. Some delays in shipping made my deck just miss a Friday delivery window and instead I got it into my hands only on the coming Monday, which happened to be March 21st - my birthday. And thus the Steamdeck turned into an unintended birthday present to myself 😅

Now almost one year later I can confirm what I hoped when I reserved mine and what I suspected when the first reviews came in: Yes, this was one of my best acquisitions of 2022!¹

I may not use it daily, there are still days and sometimes weeks during which I don’t play due to the one or other reason, but when I play something it’s been pretty much exclusively on my deck for the past year. Pretty much anything I have so far thrown at it has worked just fine and I’ve spent some wonderful hours on it, playing things like Death Stranding, In Other Waters, Need for Speed: Heat, Gears: Tactics, Return to Monkey Island and much more, and also the one or other multiplayer session of the The Ascent with my partner.

Not only did I game on it however, it also fuelled my tinkering and making hobby. Right at the start of this year on January 1st I swapped its noisy Delta with a much more silent Huaying fan that I bought from iFixit, and also replaced the 256GB SSD with a 1TB one. The iFixit guides where spot on and the deck turned out to be even more self repair compatible than the iFixit repairability score of 7/10 suggested. Only a few days later I opened up my deck again on my quest to create custom action buttons for my partner’s deck² for our anniversary, which were a huge success not only with him - I made it on Hackaday for the second time in my life ³ 🤭 And now I already have two third party hall effect joysticks lying around here that I plan to swap in ASAP, and of course I still have plans for even more custom buttons.

Recently I also set up Emudeck on it and immediately played through Simon the Sorcerer on ScummVM. Of course there’s now also some Zelda ROMs on there that are just waiting for me to give Hyrule another visit. And a gift of Cleo on GOG also made me set up Heroic Launcher and itch.io for more store options. Of course at some point I also ensured I can use the deck as a development system and installed VS Code on it plus a full OctoPrint dev environment. I installed Decky and am very much enjoying plugins like HLTB and SteamGridDB. I’ve made sure my screenshots get synced to a special album in Google Photos so sharing stuff is ridiculously easy. And I printed the one or other accessory for myself, my partner and friends.

Finally, I should also say that it has changed my perspective on PC gaming. Before I got the deck, there were regular investments in a faster GPU, more RAM, a faster CPU, a better power supply, to keep a capable gaming system on hand and not lock myself out from the wonderful world that is PC games. But now? I rarely power up my PC these days, after also switching to working from my laptop in late 2022, for energy saving reasons. I’m still happy to have it available, for streaming, video cutting, Blender and the one or other Tabletop Simulator session, but overall I’m going to save a ton of money in the long-term now I think. The 1080Ti I have in there is still good for all the above for a long time to come, and with the deck being able to play what I tend to play so far, and in a way better way for me - handheld on the couch - I see myself rather invest in a Steamdeck 2.0 than regularly throwing money at more and more ridiculous GPUs.

So, all in all, even one year later I’m absolutely happy with my deck as you can see. It turned out to be the perfect device for me and has finally made me tackle my gaming backlog⁴. I’m a happy gamer 😊

I stumbled across this Reddit post that recommended to use the itch.io Windows launcher instead of the native Linux one:

Itch.io has an app, that even has linux version. But it has issues - it can only use one wine version, if you have it installed globally, it can’t even handle linux games well. It pretends to install them, and when you launch them it opens a directory with the zip file… Or it just doesn’t work after installation. Then you need to add all the games to steam, setup their images, and other stuff. There’s boilr for that, but it doesn’t find everything, and most of the indies are not in the database anyway.

Sounds reasonable to go with the Windows version then, so I followed the post and got everything working. Quick summary in case the link goes stale:

• In desktop mode, download the Windows installer from https://itch.io/app, add it as a non steam game, configure stable Proton for it, launch it, complete the installer and log in.
• Open Dolphin, navigate to home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata
• Click on the search icon, check “From here”, search for itch and enter the first found folder of that name. Look at the address bar, you’ll be in a subfolder of something like /home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/<number> for a random <number>, this parent folder is what to use for <basefolder> in any following steps.
• In desktop Steam, open the preferences of your non-steam itch.io installer “game”. Replace “Target” with <basefolder>/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Desktop/itch.lnk and “Start in” with <basefolder>/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Itch. Rename it to “itch.io” or whatever else you want it to be called².

I then followed the steps to also allow Steam Rom Manager to detect my itch.io games, and created a custom itch.io parser. Here I had to slightly deviate from the suggested steps. Again, summarised here for reference:

• Parser type: glob
• Title: itch.io
• Steam category: ${itch.io}
• Steam directory: ${steamdirglobal}
• ROMs directory: <basefolder>/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/itch/apps
• Executable modifier: "${exePath}" (with quotes!)
• User’s glob: ${title}/{*/,}!(Unity*).exe (this one is different than on the Reddit post, see below for why!)
• Leave anything else as is.

I changed the glob pattern as the original setting of ${title}/{*/*,*}.exe was happily detecting the Unity crash handler executable contained in some games as additional entry, obviously not what I wanted.

After some trial and error I thankfully was able to solve this with the slightly different glob pattern of ${title}/{*/,}!(Unity*).exe. It now matches any exe right in the game folder or one folder deep that doesn’t start with the string Unity. And if push comes to shove I can add additional forbidden patterns as well.

Even Unity games now only generate one entry, and seem to work fine once I’ve figured out the right Proton version 👍

Once again we are using rclone for syncing.

First I created a new target gphoto by running ~/bin/rclone config again and then following these steps. Quick summary:

1. New remote
2. gphoto
3. Empty application ID and secret
4. Full access
5. No advanced config
6. Use web browser to authenticate

I then created a new album:

rclone mkdir gphoto:album/Steamdeck

and adjusted ~/bin/sync_screenshots to use the new remote and remote path:

REMOTE_NAME='gphoto'
REMOTE_DIR='album/Steamdeck'

That was all.

Obviously the same can be done with any of the other sync targets that rclone supports, of which there are many. For ownCloud or NextCloud it looks like WebDAV is the right option to choose.

Update 2025-03-25: There’s now also a TIL on how to do the same for Immich.

I came across this gist by pegasd that accomplishes this via rclone, a path monitoring systemd service and some reconfiguration in Steam. However, I had to adjust things slightly for everything to really work - I could imagine that some past Steam update changed things slightly vs when the gist was created:

1. I had to make sure that I selected the option to make Steam create uncompressed screenshots.
2. I had to manually start the path watcher.

Here’s a quick summary of how I managed to make things work on my deck (all credits go to @pegasd, replicating things here mostly so they don’t get lost in the future).

Prerequisites

First of all I switched into Desktop mode.

Since I had not yet done this since upgrading my Deck’s SSD, I set a password for my user account by opening a terminal and running passwd. I also made sure to install Firefox from the package manager.

Setting up the screenshot directory

I opened a terminal and created a dedicated screenshot folder:

mkdir ~/.steam_screenshots

Next I had to tell Steam to use this folder. Still in desktop mode I opened Steam settings and on the “In-Game” tab set the screenshot folder to the one I had just created. I also made sure to check “Save uncompressed copy”, as otherwise Steam won’t use the just configured custom folder.

Installing and configuring rclone

Next, still on the deck, I downloaded rclone (“Intel/AMD - 64 Bit / Linux”). I opened the file browser, opened the archive I had just downloaded and extracted the rclone binary into ~/bin (if that doesn’t exist yet, just create it).

I then went back to the terminal, ran ~/bin/rclone config and configured a new remote gdrive following these steps. Quick summary:

1. New remote
2. gdrive
3. Empty application ID and secret
4. Full access to all files
5. No service account credentials file
6. Use web browser to authenticate
7. Not configured as a shared drive

Automatic sync

I created a file ~/bin/sync_screenshots

#!/usr/bin/env bash

RCLONE_BIN="${HOME}/bin/rclone"
REMOTE_NAME='gdrive'
REMOTE_DIR='Privat/Steamdeck/Screenshots'
SOURCE_DIR="${HOME}/.steam_screenshots"

${RCLONE_BIN} sync "${SOURCE_DIR}" "${REMOTE_NAME}:${REMOTE_DIR}"

and made it executable with chmod +x ~/bin/sync_screenshots.

Then I created a service file for it, ~/.config/systemd/user/sync_screenshots.service:

[Unit]
Description=Sync Steam Screenshots

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=%h/bin/sync_screenshots

and another file setting up a path watcher, ~/.config/systemd/user/sync_screenshots.path:

[Unit]
Description=Sync Steam Screenshots

[Path]
PathModified=%h/.steam_screenshots
Unit=sync_screenshots.service

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

I enabled the automation:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable sync_screenshots.path
systemctl --user start sync_screenshots.path

A quick test

I checked that the path watcher was up and running with systemctl --user status sync_screenshots.path.

Then I created a quick test file in the synced folder

touch ~/.steam_screenshots/test

and verified it showed up in the target folder on my Google Drive.

Next I deleted the file on the deck and verified it got deleted in Google Drive.

Finally I booted back into Game mode, took a screenshot there as well with Steam+R1 and verified this showed up on my Drive.

Success!

Update 2023-02-19: There is now also a TIL on how to do the same for Google Photos. Update 2025-03-25: And now there’s also a TIL on how to do the same for Immich.

My partner and I both got ourselves SteamDecks in 2022. Since then he’s repeatedly mentioned that he’d love to have colored buttons on his, matching the XBox controller layout, as many PC games use these colors for their button hints during quick time events and similar. But sadly, nothing like that is available yet.

With that in mind, and after losing my initial fear about opening up the deck thanks to swapping my fan and upgrading my SSD on January 1st of this year, an idea for a surprise started to form in my head. I had watched a ton of videos on silicone molding and resin casting, I have several 3d printers at my disposal, and there was just enough time left in my vacation and until our anniversary to pull this off. So I went to work. In total secrecy.

Research & material collection

The first thing I jumped into was some research in order to be able to make a plan and know what to get.

I ran across this interesting thread on button casting which gave me a good idea of what I’d need in terms of materials. It also taught me that I needed to figure out what kind of mold I’d even need to create for the buttons. Were they flat on the bottom in which case a single part mold would suffice, or were they curved or otherwise featured, in which case I’d need to create a two part mold? Instead of disassembling my deck right away (too obvious with my partner being around) I decided to instead checkout this excellent disassembly guide on iFixit which showed me that the buttons are indeed inset on the bottom, and so I’d need a two part mold.

That in turn meant I needed to look into mold release for multi part silicone molds in addition to silicone and resin. The material list in the thread sadly didn’t help me - I couldn’t get half of this stuff in Germany - but here’s what I finally settled on:

• Reschimica Silicone RPRO 30 (silicone)
• Trollfactory Silicone Mold Separation Cream (two part mold release)
• clear two part epoxy resin (I got this from a friend who happened to have some collecting dust for several months, still sealed)
• food vacuumizer pump and container (to degass silicone and resin, based on an idea from this hackaday article - a real vaccum chamber and also a pressure pot would have been nice, but I didn’t want to break the bank over a bunch of buttons here 😅)
• Mica powder (to color the resin)
• white 4mm rub on letters (to put the lettering on the buttons)
• clear UV resin (to seal the lettering in)
• wooden stir sticks
• plastic mixing cups
• small paper mixing cups
• 10ml syringes and 14g blunt needles (for injecting the resin into the mold)
• plastillina clay (to fix the buttons during the silicone pour)

Thanks to owning a resin printer, I already had a UV flashlight, nitrile gloves and a respirator on hand.

And at least one ready to go FDM 3d printer for helping me in the mold creation process.

Creating a two part silicone mold

Next step was to create my two part silicone mold and for that I first needed something to fix the buttons to, do the pour for the first part of the mold, flip that over and create the second part of the mold. I did some more research and came across two interesting videos, “How To Make Custom PS5 Controller Buttons” and “Upgrade Your PS5 Controller with DIY Resin Buttons - Better than the Original!”. In both, EJ uses a 3d printed box with custom bottom to hold the buttons in place and create a keyed two part mold. So, I did create just that as well. My mold box consists of several parts: two halves forming the box, a bottom for the first part (creating the keying), a smooth bottom and a top brace for the second part. The bottoms slot into the box halves, the top brace is just friction fit. Why the top brace? To hold some toothpick halves in place that create channels for resin to go in and air to go out when the mold is closed.

I designed all this in FreeCAD¹ and this is how it looks:

You can find the STLs here. All of the parts were printed on my heavily modified Prusa MK3 with a 0.6mm nozzle and a 0.3mm layer height in black extrudr PLA NX2 - you might have to adjust the tolerances on other printers or with other filaments, which is why I also included the FreeCAD file (which could be cleaner, but it worked for me).

Once I had the mold box ready it was time to disassemble the deck and get the buttons in my hand. So I waited until my partner was out of the house and then got going.

First, I disassembled everything based on the aforementioned iFixit guide. I attached the buttons to their spots on the keyed bottom plate of the mold box with some thin, rolled clay wormy dealies and then thoroughly cleaned them with some q-tips and isopropyl alcohol. It is important to be very thorough here - any dirt or even just a fingerprint will show up in the silicone mold and thus in the resin casting as well. I actually found that the outlines of the letters molded into the original buttons left an impression. The level of details you can get from silicone molds is astonishing!

Also make sure that you keep the lettering of the buttons oriented the same way, that way you will also be able to re-use the mold later for buttons with inlayed lettering (which is my plan for version 2.0 of this project).

I then slid the bottom plate into the grooves of the mold box halves, sealed the seam with some blue painters tape and just to be safe also wrapped two rubber bands around it.

Now came the time for the first pour. I weighed out 35g each of part A and B into a plastic mixing cup (my silicone gave instructions for mixing 1:1 by weight, stick to your instructions!) and then thoroughly mixed it with a stir stick. Then I poured that into a second cup, from high above, in a thin stream - this is first to get some of the bubbles out but more importantly to prevent any unmixed silicone from getting into the mold. This cup I then degassed. For my first pour I actually used a power sander to vibrate the bubbles out, but for the second pour I went with the above mentioned food vacuumizer - it’s easier, you get way less shaky hands out of it, and the results also look better. So, into the food container, lid on, pump on. I degassed until bubbles stop coming out. Then I slowly poured the silicone into a corner of the mold box, once again in a thin stream from up high. Take your time here, the slower, the less risk of errant bubbles making it into the mold. Then I degassed the mold again for a couple minutes and let it cure based on the instructions.

Next, I demolded the first part by removing rubber bands and the tape around the box and then carefully pulling the two halves apart. I then slowly removed the bottom plate from the silicone part as well, being careful to keep the buttons inside². I then cleaned them off of any leftover plastillina clay and any small bits of silicone.

After that I placed the first part of the mold on the smooth bottom plate and slid that back into the mold box. I then applied a generous coating of two part mold release. I used an old drybrush for that and liberately spread it all across the silicone and box surfaces, making extra sure to get into all the corners and creases. I taped the box seams again and then put the top brace in place. I broke four toothpicks in half, also broke off most of their tips, and then inserted one into each of the brace holds, pushing into opposite ends of the buttons underneath. This was to create channels for the resin to flow into and air to push out of the mold.

I once again mixed 70g of silicone from 35g of each part A and B, moved into a second cup, degassed it and slowly poured it into the mold. Then that was degassed as well and left to cure.

Another 5h later I carefully demolded my two part mold. I once again removed tape, rubber bands and the top brace, pulling out the toothpick halves in the process. I then carefully pulled the two halves of the box apart again and equally carefully peeled the two parts of the mold apart from each other.³ I could now remove the buttons, clean them, place them back into the deck and reassemble it. Then I cut off some of the silicone bits that had been sucked into the internal hollow structure of the buttons which I did not want to replicate. I was very diligent here to not cut away too much. And then I was the proud owner of a two part silicone mold for SteamDeck action buttons.

Resin time, resin time, do do do do, resin time

Wear gloves and a respirator during this!

With the mold now ready for action, it was time to try my hand at resin casting. I first assembled the mold, securing the two halves with four rubber bands. I also attached the mold to a piece of cardboard in the process on which I noted down the location of each of the buttons inside the mold. This is really important to keep track of which button goes where. With everything being mirrored thanks to the buttons basically lying on their faces in the mold you otherwise get terribly puzzled and end up with buttons of the wrong color. Ask me how I know 😅 If you get confused on which button is which, take a close look at the spaces they left in the mold. The B button of the deck is slightly curved on its outer side due to following the deck’s case curving, and that has helped me a ton to keep track of it and everything else in relation to it.

Next, I mixed up 40ml of resin, so 20ml of each part A and B (my resin gave instructions for mixing 1:1 by volume, check your instructions!). I degassed it in the vacuum container and then spread it across four small paper cups, roughly 10ml each. I then added red, greed, blue and yellow mica powder to each of the cups, mixing that in thoroughly, before placing the cups into the vacuum container and degassing them again. Next, four syringes with blunt 14g needles were filled with the four colors of resin and then the buttons were filled with the respective color. After getting confused with the colors on my first try, I double and triple checked each color before filling it in on the second. I carefully inserted the needle into the inner channel and then slowly pressed the resin in until it came out of the outer channel. On my first try I made the mistake to overfill, which caused some unintentional color mixing, so be sure to really stop right when the resin comes out of the air channel.

I then let the buttons cure for 24h before taking a first peek.

They looked great, but a quick fingernail test on one of the resin pots showed the stuff was not fully hardened yet. It turned out to take 72h until I could proceed with the finishing steps.

Finishing the buttons

I kept the buttons attached to the mold for the final steps, as that helped a lot with keeping everything aligned and less fiddly (it was fiddly enough as is). I carefully placed the sheet with rub on lettering I had bought over each button, making sure to center the corresponding letter. Then I rubbed the letter on using the blunt tip of my letter opener. The stuff didn’t want to stick to the smooth top surface very well, which had the upside of allowing me to redo something if I messed up, but also the downside of me having to be very careful to not mess things up that were already fine. In the end, it took me some tries but I prevailed.

Then I got out the UV resin, put on the respirator and gloves, and with an old brush softly brushed on a thin layer of resin on each button, careful not get any drops on the side or pooling, but sealing in the letter. I then cured that for several minutes with the UV flashlight.

Once the resin was cured I carefully pulled out the buttons from the mold and then cut off the sprue with a flush cutter.

A quick test fit in my deck showed that I needed some light sanding on one side of X, but that was quickly taken care of and then I had a working set of custom SteamDeck buttons 👍

Where do we go from here?

Considering that until Monday January 9th 2023 I had never before touched silicone or epoxy resin, and that by Monday January 16th 2023 I had four self-cast SteamDeck buttons in my hand that while far from perfect looked great, I’m very happy with the result. And the same goes for my partner, who really had absolutely no idea of this until I presented him the finished buttons on our anniversary. He was and is in awe 😊

However, single colored buttons with rubbed on letters sealed in with UV resin is not my end goal here. After seeing the amazing results one can achieve with inlaying in EJ’s videos, I’m really looking forward to trying that out. So the next step will be to cast some inlayed buttons with the same mold. And I have already printed out the letters on my resin printer 😁

Update from 2024-02-14: The buttons have now been in very heavy use by my partner for over a year, and they still look the same as on day 1! No changes on the letters that I rubbed on and sealed with UV resin, and no changes on the buttons themselves either. 👍