GameGear Pi

[or3o]

Hi guys, I am currently working on a raspberry pi project and i figure i should make some kind of tutorial or build log, so here it is.

This project started when i orderd 8 broken gamegears on ebay. I was able to fix all of them but 1.

The gamegear looked ok on the outside but the inside was bad. The batteries has leaked all over everything.

At this point I decided to make my own handheld.
I knew i would need a few parts and a ton of time.

The parts i orderd where
12 tactile switches (i got surface mount because its all radioshack carried. Thru hole would be way easier.)
a 5 inch hdmi lcd display from ebay (it was about 25 dollars)
A raspberry pi 2
a micro sd card
a usb lipo charging circut
a 3.7volt to 5 volt step up converter
a replacement laptop battery
a 3 watt audio amplifier circut
and a micro usb externsion cable.

(this project also required som old video game controllers but that is dependant on how many buttons you plan on adding)

I began but cutting up a fake snes controller so i could take the shoulder buttons and the abxy

i used a dremel to cut out the area around the buttons so they would work as normal
i did the same to a playstation 1 controller to get the l2 and r2 buttons.
I replaced the original buttons with tactile switches

I cut out the areas where i wanted to add buttons and used hot glue to tack everything in place.
Once I got a fitment I liked I began doing layers of JB weld.
This is the part that takes the longest. I would do a layer, sand it back and repeat until you have the contours you like.

I spent about 10 hours doing this, Once it is smooth enough you can start applying primer.
Then you get out some fine grit sand paper and sand it back do as many layers as you need to for smoothness.


I took this time to cut out the screen area.
Then i began to test fit everything.

For the battery setup I took a laptop battery and tore it apart. (laptop batteries are made of 3.7volt 18650 batteries wired in series.
Just break them down to single 18650 cells.

Then I began some soldering for the buttons

I wired it so all of the buttons share a common ground (meaning less wires.)
I took note of the wiring colors I used because it becomes important later.
Then I hotglued the pcbs in place behind the switches.

I then used hotglue to tack the screen and batteries in place and test fit with all the batteries. (the batterys are going to be fired in parallel giving my 9ah of battery power.)

Test booted the system after installing a retropie image to the sd card ( i will go into more detail on this soon)

This project isnt done. the list of crap i need to finish is
solder button connections directly to the gpio pins.
solder in the charging circut and make a charging port in the case
and possibly order a new screen.
solder in audio amp and headphone jack.
So i have been back to work on this project,
I got the emulators up and running and then disassembled it.

After a few more hours of painting and sanding i solderd the buttons to the gpio pins and routed the wires. I then added the batteries (in parallel)

I got the screen working right by editing the config text file.
First i plugged in a usb keyboard.
turning the pie on when it boots up press f4
then i typed in
[code] sudo nano /boot/config.txt [/code]
in this editor i changed to these values
[code] # uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output

hdmi_force_hotplug=1

hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=1
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt 800 480 60 6 0 0 0

start_file=start_x.elf
fixup_file=fixup_x.elf
gpu_mem=128
[/code]

The project is still not quite complete, The 3.7v to 5v regulator isnt quite powerful enough to run both the pi and the lcd so I had to order a slightly bigger one. In the next installment I will be finishing up.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask

[Wonkie]

What 3.7v to 5v regulator will you be using? I have the powerbooster 1000c and it still gives me a low voltage warning with a similar setup.

[thurman86]

That is nice! I have a gamegear that I might actually try this with if I cant get it fixed. The screen just gives snow/static picture when powered on so I don't know if it is reparable so this would be a good backup plan for it.

[markyh444]

@or3o Very nice. Have you got some higher res pics somewhere we could see? I'm interested in a handheld project next.

[or3o]

@thurman86 If your screen is fuzzy it is just 2 capacitors on the main board that need to be replaced. Look at C54 and C55 on the mainboard, those are .47uf 50v caps. Those are the ones you need to replace. be sure to orient the caps the right way around (the board has the + labeled.)

@Wonkie i am actually running 2 power boosts in parallel.
@Markyh444 I will take it apart and get better pics soon as a few new parts come in.

[thurman86]

@or3o Thanks for the tip!

[TheLuthier]

Awesome job, @or3o! Would love to see some bigger pics :)

[or3o]

@TheLuthier oh wow i didnt realize how small the pics where! i will be sure to update it soon!