Camble's GBZ

[Camble]

Alright, it looks like I finally have enough parts to start a build thread. I'd been waiting on my screen and a few other pieces so have mainly been working on the Gameboy case.

I plan to make my GBZ look as close to the original Gameboy as possible. Aside from the glaringly obvious full colour screen, at first glance it should hopefully look just like an original Gameboy, a sleeper GBZ if you will.

Planned features:

• 4 original colour Gameboy buttons
• DMG-01 style screen protector
• Tactile L/R buttons
• Internal WiFi
• Battery meter
• Tiny front-facing low battery/charging indicator

Components:

• Raspberry Pi Zero (obviously)
• Teensy LCD (obviously)
• 320x240 Composite 3.5" TFT LCD
• Powerboost 1000
• BangGood 2x3W Class D Audio Amplifier
• Custom 4-button PCB Thanks to grenade44!

Extras:

• 3M Double-sided phone tape
• Safe Shutdown Circuitry

I managed to source a DMG-01 with missing LCD lines and a corroded battery compartment, so I split the case and cleaned everything thoroughly.


Inside I'm using the existing cartridge slot, and will be retaining the battery compartment mostly intact.


Here's the first cut of the screen window. I plan to make a screen protector with a grey border to hide the unused portion of the LCD.


A quick mock-up to see what things will look like.


Here's where things start to go a little wrong. I cut these holes one day before my 4-button PCB arrived. A second faulty Gameboy is on its way. My plan for this case is to hack up the original PCB and add some buttons for a second GBZ, but that can wait for now.

[DirtyBullets]

Liking it so far nice and clean.

[Camble]

Today I mocked up the location of the boards in the case and I soldered a smaller gauge ribbon cable onto the Teensy.
[spoiler="Mock-up and Teensy"]
[/spoiler]

I want to make use of the HDMI port, or at least have the option available. Because I want to keep the battery compartment intact, I've had to remove the micro USB power connection from the Pi.


I also tested out my new display, and got it working on 5v.

[SidSilver]

Great work ! I like how it's clean

[Max]

Nice, it's really clean ! Keep it up

[Fleder]

Here's where things start to go a little wrong. I cut these holes one day before my 4-button PCB arrived. A second faulty Gameboy is on its way. My plan for this case is to hack up the original PCB and add some buttons for a second GBZ, but that can wait for now.

How about saving this one and, if you are okay with cutting and drilling your new PCB, doing it as [mention]banjokazooie[/mention] did.
Just drill out those button pads that are not placed quite right and move them?


Should be no problem with those clean PCBs, if you are willing to tinker with it.

Edit: I also got a spare PCB Board i created myself, where you can easily move the 2 new buttons, if you want to keep your PCB intact.
Just don't waste this good old GB Case

[Camble]

How about saving this one and, if you are okay with cutting and drilling your new PCB, doing it as [mention]banjokazooie[/mention] did.
Just drill out those button pads that are not placed quite right and move them?
Should be no problem with those clean PCBs, if you are willing to tinker with it.
Edit: I also got a spare PCB Board i created myself, where you can easily move the 2 new buttons, if you want to keep your PCB intact.
Just don't waste this good old GB Case

Good idea Fleder, but I wouldn't want to alter the new PCBs. I will probably do this with the original gameboy PCB though. Luckily I was considering making a second GBZ anyway!

[Ganreizu]

I want to make use of the HDMI port, or at least have the option available. Because I want to keep the battery compartment intact, I've had to remove the micro USB power connection from the Pi.
[spoiler="img"][/spoiler]

How do you go about doing this? Are those big silver holes the solder points? I want HDMI as well but need to remove the micro usb point anyway to make more space between the boards.

[Camble]

I want to make use of the HDMI port, or at least have the option available. Because I want to keep the battery compartment intact, I've had to remove the micro USB power connection from the Pi.
[spoiler="img"][/spoiler]

How do you go about doing this? Are those big silver holes the solder points? I want HDMI as well but need to remove the micro usb point anyway to make more space between the boards.

If I had a heat gun it would have been a piece of cake, but honestly... I wedged my soldering iron into the port with a small amount of solder to let it flow to the contacts. It was messy and the tracks came with it, but luckily it still works. You can actually see where the tracks were on the board in that picture.

[Camble]

Yesterday I set up audio output on the Pi and repurposed the existing headphone jack PCB. A couple of traces needed to be cut and modified on the back side.