Its been a long trip... but it lives!

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zetazot
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Its been a long trip... but it lives!

Post by zetazot » Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:54 am

Back when the V1 boards came out... I ordered everything I needed. I was on a mission. I would make myself a Mintypi. Little did I know did I know that it would be a 10 month adventure! I've learned a lot on the way... nothing too fancy for the experts, but I can solder now, I can access my Pis remotely via the Terminal on my Mac and plenty of other things that I didn't know how to do before this project.

Just a quick note... I didn't take any pics of the soldering and the wiring, its pretty much a stock build – nothing fancy and you don't need to see the rat's nest of wires under the hood.

August 11th, 2017.
The parts are all here!
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August 13th, 2017.
I decide to paint the Pi logo white to match the DS buttons. At this time I was planning to use a Ginger Newman's Own Minty tin... but once the paint was on, I decide that it wasn't going to work.
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August 14th, 2017
The red and white Penguins Mint tin arrives. After bingeing on the mints I lay the tin down with the 3D printed parts. Yeah this is what I want... (Let's not fool ourselves... eating the mints is a serious perk in this project.)
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August 18th, 2017 Disaster strikes!
A friend and I watch the tutorial videos and got to work. After soldering the Pi onto the PCB, I notice something is wrong. We soldered the Pi on backwards! When we attempted to remove the pi from the board, a couple of the pads decided to stay on the pi and ruin the PCB. We quickly checked to see if there was more... but the V1 boards were all gone. When I posted this picture on instagram, Helder (or was it Wermy? I don't remember, its been a while) reached out to me and mentioned that he had a space screen. I missed his reply for over a week and by then, they were gone. :( It was time to take a break and wait for the V2 boards that Helder mentioned to come out!
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May 8th, 2018 Disaster Part 2!
A couple of weeks before this, my friend and I took another crack at the Mintypi. We had the V2 boards since February, but life had conspired to delay our second attempt. We sat down watched the tutorials again and started. Our first attempt had us solder on the pi crooked... paying attention to the tutorial video would have been really useful here... we didin't use the 3D printed face-plate as an assembly jig. "Measure twice. Cut Once." should translate to "Watch tutorial twice. Solder once."

Even with this set back we were able separate the pi from the board and take another crack at it. The second time around... or would this be the third?... we got it right. So I got it home, put the mintypi image on the SD card, loaded the ROMs and started doing the final assembly when disaster struck again. While screwing down the face-place for the screen, I held the screen in place with my thumb. I repositioned the pad of my thumb for a better grip and in doing so, the pad of my thumb switch over to my thumb nail... I heard the tiniest of cracks. When I turned it on, I was greeted with this. SO CLOSE! Seriously, I was seconds away from being done! Of course the screen PCBs were sold out on sudomod. Discouraged I took a short break and then reached out to the forums for a solution. In the mean time...
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May 9th, 2018
Wermy's protective sleeve arrived in the mail. I had ordered this a few days before breaking the screen to celebrate the completion of my Mintypi. It was bittersweet to have it arrive the day after breaking it, but is sure did look cool protecting the tin!
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May 19th, 2018
With Helder's help, I figured out which screen I should order to replace the one I broke. They took a little over a week to get here from China. I used the original screen to practice soldering to a test board and I had a spare screen in case I broke the screen again. The first time I tested the new screen I had soldered on the V2 board, I got a white screen. Something wasn't right... It was then that I realized that one of the pads had detached from the board when I took the original screen off. After panicking a little bit, I noticed that the pad didn't have a lead coming off of it... so I went back to my other connections and made sure they were properly soldered down. When I fired up the mintypi a second time... it booted up! (There may or may not have been a celebratory beer or two or three drunk at this point.) Later and after I sobered up a bit, I had to go back and cut a sliver off of the screen face plate so it would show the whole 2.4" screen. The V1 screen face plate was meant for a slightly smaller screen. I also had to cut out some of the plate behind it so the screen could fit in.
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June 6th, 2018 D-Day
I had noticed that the Mintypi was taking forever to charge and after consulting with my friend we realized that we had forgot to put some solder on the little power board. Once I took care of that, the Mintypi charged up pretty quick. All the ROMs I wanted were loaded up and I was finally at a point where I would actually get to play some actual games instead of tinkering with it. Success! I'm pretty happy with my Frankenstein of a Mintypi. The V1 3D printed parts, the V2 boards, and the non-standard screen give it a character that's all its own!
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So now I get to sit back play some games and wait for the V3 boards to show up. For some reason, my son wants a Mintypi too and I might need a spare. :) Wermy, Helder, and everybody else, thank you for your help and support. This community rocks. This has been a lot of fun, even with the setbacks!

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hartsmooth
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Re: Its been a long trip... but it lives!

Post by hartsmooth » Wed Jun 20, 2018 3:33 pm

Nicely done. Great to see you persevered through all the hardship, finished it, and picked up some skills along the way! That's what it's all about :D

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ArKade
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Re: Its been a long trip... but it lives!

Post by ArKade » Wed Jun 27, 2018 11:32 am

*sigh of relief* Someone else took longer to finish their mintyPi than it's taking me to. Well, okay, maybe just slightly longer, but still! Good job there, sir! That is a fantastic looking mintyPi, and you should be proud of it. If this is your first one that you messed up on the entire way, I can't wait to see the next one! You'll have a hard time finding a better tin than the one you made your first one with, though... Good luck!

Mario.Semiglia
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Re: Its been a long trip... but it lives!

Post by Mario.Semiglia » Sat Jun 30, 2018 2:10 am

Nice job looks awesome! I just finished mine yesterday,... still some issues when trying to close the tin but ill figure that out, I had a similar experience with my gbz but when doing the minty pi I was kinda confident. You will see it on the next project you pick up :D. Nice build

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dryja123
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Re: Its been a long trip... but it lives!

Post by dryja123 » Mon Jul 09, 2018 9:09 pm

Awesome looking build, I'm really glad you stuck with it.

Facundito
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Re: Its been a long trip... but it lives!

Post by Facundito » Mon Jul 09, 2018 10:39 pm

I have the same first problem, i solder it backwards!and destroy the pcb board pins. Im waiting now to buy a new board to give it a try

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Wailer
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Re: Its been a long trip... but it lives!

Post by Wailer » Wed Jul 18, 2018 1:05 pm

He who solders it the wrong way...
(And perseveres)
Lives to solder another day...

Long time but great job, and love the penguin tin!

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