Yet Another Pi Zero Portable!!

moosepr

@gazredtyke awesome, that's just under 21 hours runtime then! Will probably take like 6 hours to charge though! 😛

gazredtyke

@moosepr overnight then! haha, would you mind if I got in touch when my parts arrive for some help?

moosepr

@gazredtyke yeah no problem dude! If you start a post detailing the build, you will get lots of help from everyone!

gazredtyke

@moosepr thanks mate, could you let me know which gpio pins are needed for all the connections? Can't quite make it out from the photo...

moosepr

@gazredtyke I used this as a guide to connect the screen
http://marcosgildavid.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/getting-ili9341-spi-screen-working-on.html?m=1

Then the buttons, you can use any of the remaining gpio pins. You have to install some software on the pi that turns your pin input into keyboard commands, and in there you set what pin does what

gazredtyke

@moosepr I think I've thought of another way, if i desoldered the micro usb I could just solder the usb wires directly to the pi couldn't I?

gazredtyke

@moosepr infact scratch that, ridiculous idea!! I've just soldered 5 wires to a micro usb male, still smaller than the screen and battery when plugged into the micro usb port!

rockyhill

This is exactly what I need! I'll be making something like it when I get my hands on a zero. Have you played legend of zelda nes?

moosepr

@rockyhill only briefly, might have to have another go now

zelda

rockyhill

@moosepr
Oh man! 10 hours you say? great for trips.
Now one has to convince airport security to let something like this onto an air plane.

moosepr

@rockyhill yeah it managed to sit running the start movie on one of the n64 banjo kazooie games for 10 hours, although the controls stop working. I think the gpio buttons don't get a look in once the CPU goes full speed for n64

i am working on something that looks a little less dodgy. Waiting for the postman to come with my latest OSHpark order

gazredtyke

@moosepr Hi again, as I said I would I have started a similar project, my idea to rewire a cheap usb snes controller worked, I've replaced the regular usb male with a micro usb male, I've tested it with my battery and the LIPO charger module, retropie showed up on my monitor and I configured my controller without issue. I have a couple of questions though....
Do I need the df robot microcontroller? What purpose does this serve exactly?
Also I order a 2.8" tft but it must be slighlty different to the 2.2" screen you used. The pins are different to the ones in the link you sent me, also it's a touch screen, is this an issue?

moosepr

@gazredtyke sounds like you are making progress, you should start a thread and add some pictures!

I'm basically using the microcontroller as a fancy switch! The plan was to add some kind of battery monitor and safe shutdown mechanism, but i never got that far really. I got carried away with new projects.

The 2.8 inch version of the screen should work the same as long as it is a ili9341 screen. It should mention the driver as being ili9341 in the listing you bought from. The touch screen will mean that there are more pins than I have. You can ignore the touch screen part and just use it like a normal screen.

gazredtyke

I think I figured it out, I just wasn't looking properly, is VIN same as VCC?

gazredtyke

I don't know how to add pictures using my phone 😂

gazredtyke

It is ili9341 as well

moosepr

@gazredtyke yeah vin and vcc on the screen should be the same. Different makers will call them different things. The only time to watch is if you use something like an arduino, the vin and vcc may actually be different then.

can you upload your pictures to google drive, dropbox, or imgur? that way you will be able to share the image address on the forum.

the screen should work the same as mine :)

gazredtyke

Yeah I will be able to, bit worried about the next stage installing the drivers for the screen

gazredtyke

@moosepr Hi mate, I've had a look at the link you posted for connecting the screen, I've done all the soldering but I'm a bit lost with what I need to do next. What do I need to input to get the driver for the screen and where does this need to be put?

moosepr

@moosepr said in Yet Another Pi Zero Portable!!:

If i remember right, you need to go into the raspiconfig, and enable spi, disable overscan, and enable device tree, then you should be able to run the command "sudo modprobe fbtft_device pitft22" to actually get the screen active (the backlight should light). You can test it with the command "con2fbmap 1 1" which should pop your terminal session onto the tft screen (run "con2fbmap 1 0" to get it back)

There is then an app you need to download and build which basically copies the output of the normal screen onto the tft. There is an adafruit guide here, https://learn.adafruit.com/running-opengl-based-games-and-emulators-on-adafruit-pitft-displays/pitft-setup basically replace the adafruit-28 with adafruit-22 and you should get somewhere near