sudomod

Howdy y'all!

I got a Freeplay CM3 board from good ol' Ed Mandy mid-late last year, and I hadn't wanted to put it together because I had attempted to cut my first case and... well there was a lot less case when I was done, and it still didn't fit. That case was my burner, but it had gone so terribly I lost all confidence and just sort of threw up my hands and tossed it to the side.

Well, circumstances led me to need an emulation device for a road trip with my family so I got cracking on my new one.

I bought a grey case from RetroModding.com and all the buttons for an SNES-type build when I bought the Freeplay, only being fresh into this community and not understanding how... ubiquitous, we'll say, that design is. I decided I didn't want that anymore, I wanted to make it blue and use the grey buttons I already had from my cheap burner case.

I should say if you want to build one of these, you should follow Hipcat's build series on YouTube, he is obviously much more adept at this than me

The Case Cutting:

Screen fitting. I... don't have much experience using a dremel. I chose to de-solder the L2/R2 tacs from the add-on board and to place them where Hipcat did, behind the L/R buttons. ... what? The hose attachment broke so I had to raw-dog it and hold the large boi main body and, I dunno... It got away from me...

Don't give me that look, okay?

In fact, I have so little experience with dremels that I only have this dremel with an EU plug, so I needed to remedy that, janky style. ANYWAY.

After fitting the board - extensively - I took some ribbon wire and hooked up the PSP joysticks, and soldered them to the back of the board. (If anyone would like some internal pics, let me know - happy to post them if there's interest.)

Now obviously the start/select buttons won't be accessible with the placement of the left thumbstick, so I drilled two holes in the bottom bezel of the GBA, under the screen.

My partner's a painter and got pretty excited to paint it, so they slopped on some primer and made most of it white. Now, I intended for the tac switches for the start/select and L2/R2 buttons to be inside the case, but space constraints led me to choose a more "mad scientist" look that, actually, I'm super, super into.
In the end, all there was to do was a little config work and to get some 3D printed parts, touch up a bit of paint, but I didn't have time for most of that before the trip, so watch this space for a few more finished product photos.

Thanks for reading!

It's really unique

Nice looking build, I saw Ed had added Thumbstick, L2/R2 and back lighting options to his Freeplay Zero and CM3 kits. I love my Zero and CM3 builds, was always a big fan of the Gameboy Advance form factor. I added https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3024005 to my CM3 build to make the port area look a little cleaner. Doing so meant I needed more specialized Micro USB cables that had slightly longer ports but those were easily obtained thru Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071J ... UTF8&psc=1

MrErickson wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:12 pm

I added https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3024005 to my CM3 build to make the port area look a little cleaner.

Yes! I'm getting my designated "friend with a 3D printer" to print this and a better fitting cartridge cover.

I don't think there's a way to make it look clean without the 3D parts buuuut what else about this build DOES look clean?

papajsantos wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 23, 2019 11:34 pm

MrErickson wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:12 pm

I added https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3024005 to my CM3 build to make the port area look a little cleaner.

Yes! I'm getting my designated "friend with a 3D printer" to print this and a better fitting cartridge cover.

I don't think there's a way to make it look clean without the 3D parts buuuut what else about this build DOES look clean?

If you feel up to it, you could probably take one of the GBA mock-cartridges from Thingiverse and extend the sides out a bit to encompass your L2/R2 buttons so only the button caps are visible.

MrErickson wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 24, 2019 7:16 am

If you feel up to it, you could probably take one of the GBA mock-cartridges from Thingiverse and extend the sides out a bit to encompass your L2/R2 buttons so only the button caps are visible.

Good idea!