I’ve been working on a Minty Pi since I heard about the Minty Pi project (their v3) from Helder and Wermy. Because I missed the cutoff for the preordering system and there was no way for me to get one any time soon I decided to make my own.
As you might have guessed, yes, this isn’t my first attempt at making a small portable Retropie machine. Let’s just say, version 1 was a complete failure (but taught me things), and version 2 taught me the importance of space efficiency.
This is now version 3. It’s fully playable with anything for 4 face buttons and two shoulders. It has a 2000mah battery good for 4-5 hours of gameplay.
BackShow
- D85E88E7-8FC9-442A-B035-ADF7B7A55E94.jpeg (3.17 MiB) Viewed 2653 times
SideShow
- 3A7899C1-694A-4D67-91EE-7D5455F075B3.jpeg (3.07 MiB) Viewed 2653 times
Front runningShow
- 73E6D1EC-8C20-4EF5-A68E-9F3C7B5CDB3D.jpeg (3.43 MiB) Viewed 2653 times
Here’s my parts list—
($13.99)https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-240X320- ... way&sr=8-4 Hiletgo 2.8 lcd screen- pain in the ass to work with but a website helped a lot.
($4.99)Adafruit PiGrrl 2.0 Gamepad - works ok for now.
($19.99)Adafruit Powerboost 1000C - probably overkill but it runs everything without a hitch
($14.99)https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Lithium- ... 3.7&sr=8-63.7V lithium Ion 2000mAh battery - works ok
($10.00)Raspberry pi Zero W - wish there was an audio out port
($2.50)10 6mm tactile switches - they work for now. Gaming past an hour kinda hurts.
($1.50)2 12mm tactile switches - nice feel for the usefulness
($1.00)SPDT slide switch - definitely helps to turn off the system
Altoids tin - any flavor is nice
22ga copper wire
28ga rainbow wire
Electrical tape
Hot glue
The biggest pain in the butt was to get the screen up to enough refresh rate that I had very few issues with lag. I used this https://pi0cket.com/ili9341-raspberry-pi-guide/website to get the screen up and running (lots of testing) then tweaked the screen size (320x240) and the screen speed (12000000) till I could run SNES and Gameboy without many issues.
I am by no means a hardware or software guy but I am a tinkerer. Everything here was off the shelf. Despite me needing to modify the hinges to support the screen it was a fun and challenging project. I’ve been able to play with it for over a week and already have upgrades in mind.
I’ll be working on a pi A+ next.
Thanks for checking this out.