sudomod

Hello everybody, thought i'd throw my hat into the ring and join this flourishing community. My GBZ project started about a year ago, well before wermy's little project went viral
My progress is/was being documented over on hackster.io but it's stalled a little in recent months (trying to nail down a little software sub-project, new baby, general life woes, too many projects/not enough time etc...)
but the tl;dr version is that i started out planning on doing an adafruit PiGrrl last summer. ordered all the parts and was waiting for a chance to print out a case at my hackerspace ( SoMakeIt ) and in the meantime I came across a pair of broken DMG's so figured a real Gameboy would be better than a faux one

It started out using a Pi-A+ as the zero hadn't been released yet but of course the PiZ makes much more sense

The project has scope creeped beyond all recognition as people keep coming up with cool ways to improve the project, like DPI displays...

but I have something up my sleeve that AFAIK no-one has done in a GBZ yet and will be ready for unveiling soon.

Anyway some pics!






Where I'm at:
gutted the case of a dead and poor condition DMG.
Using the 2.4" adafruit SPI PiTFT, I've made a 3D printed harness to hold the screen and the Pi in position to keep the cartridge port area clear.
Desoldered all the superfluous stuff from the Pi A+ (now using a PiZ so that was a giant waste of time!)
I've desoldered the original DMG-AMP chip to re-use as the amp in the project.
Control panel to use I2C MCP23017 (or SPI 23S17 variant) port expanders keeping the GPIO free to use DPI
got the C code working for the [to be revealed] component

need to:
Cut the original PCB to keep the original power switch.
design the control panel PCB for all my custom bits.
drill the extra front and rear buttons.
Fit everything in.
tidy the casing (it's badly worn/yellowed so needs retrobriting so I'll probably just spray it as that covers any filler needed from the button mods)
make custom lens (laser cutter! yay!)
some other stuff I've forgotten

This looks interesting!

Really interesting to see how your build has evolved from your original plans into something more in line with Wermy's build, especially with that screen. Is it a monochrome panel?

And your tippy-top-secret element has me intrigued

The screen in the first pic is just the original mono DMG screen. the second one is the adafruit PiTFT 2.4" colour. I'm still on the fence about using a composite screen as they (in my mind) look like ass. the SPI screens are fantastic image quality, but the SPI Framebuffer driver is slow as hell... I'm hoping I'll be able to DPI a decent display. either that 2.4" adafruit one without the controller board or another similar sized one

abrugsch wrote:The screen in the first pic is just the original mono DMG screen

Doh! Schoolboy error - I've actually not seen the original screen still in the case but without the screen protector, totally didn't recognise it!

ChunkeeMunkee wrote:Really interesting to see how your build has evolved from your original plans into something more in line with Wermy's build

my plan was always to have 4+2 buttons, but otherwise keep it looking original, and to keep the cart port clear for *something*... originally a stealthed USB stick, now something else... also maximum use of reproducable parts like custom PCB's and 3D printed internals to make it easier to make another one. (perhaps using repro cases to not have to destroy potentially perfectly good originals. - fortunately my guinea pig was in a pretty poor state)

I managed to get some cheap non-working GBC's from japan (£20 for 3, shipped to the UK!) for GBCZ (GBZ2) only to find all 3 worked perfectly well!

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot... I've also 3D printed a harness for using off the shelf Phone LiPo batteries instead of adafruit (expensive in the UK) LiPo's.
So far Anker Galaxy S4 batteries look like the best bang for buck. I also have a few Sony Xperia batteries floating around that could be used

Quite wide batteries. Will you be cutting away the battery compartment?

Wow, nice find with those GBCs!

Looking forward to the grand unveiling of your *something*!

Camble wrote:Quite wide batteries. Will you be cutting away the battery compartment?

Definitely. I was going to anyway in order to fit the adafruit 18650 in but I think an off the shelf removable battery is cleaner.
I was going to link S3 batteries but they seem to have gone from amazon. maybe S2 though they are a bit lower power, but fit the hatch a bit better