witti's GBZ [WIP]

[witti]

Hello!

My name is witti, I'm from Germany and I'm studying at a university here. I've seen the GBZ videos on Youtube and decided directly after that, to do my own build. I've already played a bit with an old RPi 1, have experiences with electronics and soldering and thought, thats a doable project for me.

I've already bought a Raspberry Pi Zero and got a broken Gameboy from a flea market. The seller told me, that the screen is broken. Better for me, so I don't have to kill a working one.

Gameboy and RPi Zero

GAMEBOY_PI.jpg (148.21 KiB) Viewed 5678 times

One screwhead was badly damaged on my Gameboy and I broke a bit of plastic while trying to remove that screw, but its hidden in the batterycase and it should still be closable using a washer. Maybe I'll glue one down there to stabilize that part.

Today I gonna buy all the other parts I need. That are 18650 Li-Ion batterys (or would you recommend to buy smaller ones?), the ePatchChina display, USB-Breakout Board, some Buttons, fake SNES gamepad, the Adafruit amplifier and the charger listet as an alternative on the wiki.
I'm not sure if I wanna have an USB Hub, because I don*t wanna use a Teensy but GPIOs instead.

For now I can just work on it on weekend, because I don't have the tools to do it where I'm studying, so the next update and the real start of my project has to wait at least until next sunday.

[witti]

Hello!

Ok, yesterday I finally started building my GBZ. I got all my parts except for the SNES Controller for my X and Y Buttons and the Charger.
First thing I did was testing my ePathChina Display. I wanted to try it without desoldering the IC first and... It works! But it flickers a bit, especially on boot. I haven't tested it with games yet. Could that flickering go away by unsoldering the IC? As a screenprotector I'll cut the ePathChina one to fit. Thats why I left that small edge around the screen.

Next thing I did was preparing the button pcb. Soldering onto that traces was harder than I've expected... I've quite a high electrical resistance on some buttons and on the common ground between them. I hope it'll still work. If not I'll try to solder it a second time.

gbz_pcb.png (1.49 MiB) Viewed 5564 times

Last thing I tried to test out was fitting in my 18650 batterys. I haven't found a way to place them to fit behind the pcb. Maybe I'll need smaller ones for my GBZ. It looks really dirty for now, but i just wanted to see, if they could fit like that. I'd need one milimeter more to my pcb to close the case. (And you can see the screwhole I've damaged while disassembling. I'll glue down a washer onto that and it should be fixed.)

gbz_battery.png (719.13 KiB) Viewed 5564 times

Thats all I have so far. Im waiting for the controller to arrive, to finish my controlls and connect them to the GPIO, I need to fit in the batterys (or get smaller ones) and everything else -should- work like plug and play. I still fear drilling the holes for X and Y, thats why I'm waiting for that controller first.

[Fleder]

Hey man,

looks good. Except for the hot glue part
Good luck with your build!

[witti]

looks good. Except for the hot glue part
Good luck with your build!

Thank you!
I havn't worked with hot glue before.. I think it wasn't hot enough when i tried to apply it but this way I've learned something for the next time. Nobody will see that once I'm finished, so its not a huge problem for me, as long as it works.