Retroflag NESPi Case - Soft Power & Reset Hack
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@sabinn I don't see anything you can get from Amazon. Check out Pololu's Canadian distributors. https://www.pololu.com/distributors#Canada
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@throbinson best is in the eye of the beholder. Personally if it was between eta primes hack or mine... Well I'd go with mine. I'm not interested in safe shutdown with the reset button and it's why I went to the trouble of making the hack, I wanted it to function just like the original NES.
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First of all, a big thank you Yahmez for sharing this wonderful power switch solution.
For those of you that can't buy the pololu mini mosfet switch, you can build a simplified version with just a single P-channel power MOSFET (I used a TPC8114) and omit the gate protection zener diode, reverse voltage protection MOSFET as chances of that happening with an usb power supply is fairly minimal. I have done that and built everything on top of the existing power pcb. Functionally, it works the same as the pololu switch board sans the protections. However, be for warned, to build it this way requires good soldering technique and eyesight :P
At the top is any general purpose NPN transistor, MOSFET is square piece on bottom right
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@druz sounds like nice idea. it would be great to see it on a picture ;) dont give up uploading it, maybe try with imgur or something ?
cheers ;) -
@druz said in Retroflag NESPi Case - Soft Power & Reset Hack:
First of all, a big thank you Yahmez for sharing this wonderful power switch solution.
For those of you that can't buy the pololu mini mosfet switch, you can build a simplified version with just a single P-channel MOSFET (I used a TPC8114) and omit the reverse voltage protection as chances of that happening with an usb power supply is fairly minimal. I have done that and built everything on top of the existing power pcb. Functional, it works the same as the pololu switch board. However, be for warned, to build it this way requires good soldering technique and eyesight :P
hmmm.... having trouble uploading an image!!If online somewhere like IMGUR or Photobucket etc... maybe try right clicking it and clicking on 'copy image address'.
I had a few issues with IMGUR in forums and doing that versus using their copy link pop-up worked much better.
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As good as this mod looks... I was wondering if a simpler (fewer parts) method at all?
Having the power/reset work like a real NES is great, but I'd like to have something like the RESET sending a safe power off command, and the POWER shutting the power off/turning on the system.
Would that be a simpler mod? Is that what the ETAPrime mod does? Video shows him pressing the RESET button a few times, but never shows what the POWER button does.
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Hey Guys
hoping you could help me out here, just finished doing the mod and it powers up ok but a few issues
- failed the hardware test, it can power up without the ON cable plugged into the Fan + pin and it will stay on
- fan does not get any power
found the problem
The + pin on the fan was not soldered properly, the board is not double sided -
Still on the fence... ETAPrime vs this... was looking at the Pololu site, and it says to use either item #2810 or #2811... is one better than the other? or makes no difference at all?
Use to be someone on eBay selling kits, shame not anymore... think about $12CAD.
Prob is being in Canada, the part is about $4.50CAD but $20CAD to ship it.
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@throbinson Either one will work fine. There are distributors of pololu in canada... did you check if they have them?
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@throbinson In the 'ETA Prime' version the reset sends a signal to the Pi which then (through a script watching for the signal) initiates a shutdown. The power switch operates as it does in the original case simply hard cutting the power to the Pi.
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@druz That's awesome man! I was originally going to go this route till I found the pololu boards and compared the cost VS the effort required.
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@yahmez said in Retroflag NESPi Case - Soft Power & Reset Hack:
@throbinson Either one will work fine. There are distributors of pololu in canada... did you check if they have them?
Yup... none seem to have them that I could find. One seller was close, had a 2812,2813,2814,2815... but not the 2810 or 2811. :S
ETAPrime I think will work for me... safe shut down, and full power off, pretty much all I need.
I wonder, and sure it can be done... go the ETAPrime route and also add a 3rd button, very small momentary switch, just drill a hole in the case at the back or under the flap and attach to the GPIO as a reset button.
Mostly though just looking for a safe shutdown then full power off... I hope that I won't need to reset very often.
You said you were going this route before seeing cost-vs-effort... which route did you end up going?
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@throbinson Regarding the cost VS effort comment, I was talking about what @druz did (freeforming the components) until I found the pololu board.
Keep in mind, if your looking to safely shut down as simply as possible, you can simply navigate to shutdown in the ES menu and after it completes the shutdown just hit the power button, no mod required for that.
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@throbinson You could use this instead, it's overkill but in this case functionally equivalent to the smaller boards.
http://www.robotshop.com/en/45-40v-dc-8a-big-mosfet-slide-switch-reverse-voltage-protection.html -
@yahmez I kinda wish I knew more about this stuff, because probably a lot of suitable boards. All I see is a small board with a switch on it. Had to Google was a mosfet was. :D
I'm still a bit confused on what this mod does... ETA Prime's, the reboot is a safe shutdown, can press again to start up as well, sorta a manual reboot. Power kills the power completely. So basically, hit reset, wait for it to shutdown safely, then press power and it's off. Hit power again, it all comes on.
For this one... manual says "When done, the hack allows you to safely shutdown (via the power button) and reset (via the reset button) your Raspberry Pi." which I was unclear about... so, reset sends a command to restart the system? or just the current game? Then power sends a safe shutdown command, and once safely shut down, it then shuts the power off completely? or shuts down then I have to yank the plug?
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@throbinson yep, that's pretty much what it does, no need to yank the plug. The whole idea is for the MOSFET to delay the power shut off until the pie has properly shutdown. One advantage of this is, it will prevent you (or someone who's not familiar of how the power/reset buttons work) from mistakenly pushing the power button before hitting the reset switch and waiting for the safe shutdown script to execute. This is a far safer and elegant solution.
Again, for anyone interested in building this without the ready made pololu switch board (The pololu board is actually a good idea, I just didn't want to wait for the board to arrive and I had all the components on my bench :P), I have drawn up a schematic of the simplified build.
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Gotcha... thanks.
Debating buying 20kits worth of parts to make it worthwhile for ship costs and just sell them on eBay (Canada only) at cost+ship... then make back my cost on shipping and save some money for my fellow Canucks.
Probably $8CAD for the full kit... if there's interest at all? As it is, the Pololu after shipping is about $20CAD, the kit may help some people out.
I believe the original poster had a kit online, found an old link, but doesn't seem to be selling anymore. @Yahmez If I put a few kits up on eBay, are you ok with me linking to your doc?
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@throbinson Yes, I sold about 40 or so kits online but I completely underestimated the demand. I only put together the kits to help out a few online friends who had issues sourcing all the components, but I sold out in a few days. I decided against selling any more due to limited free time (I work full time and have four young kids). A few other people have been selling the kits since then, one guy made some custom pcbs to completely replace the stock switch PCB with all the parts for the safe shutdown mod. I am completely fine with you linking to my walk through, I shared it with the internets for anyone interested in trying it, not to make money.
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@yahmez Cool... thanks. Didn't know that much of a demand. I'll only put a dozen up I think, just to make back the shipping costs. That's pretty cool about the guy who made a new board for it... may have to search for that.
I did see on eBay some people are selling the cases pre-modded. Can't recall how much more they were or what mod was done though.
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@yahmez said in Retroflag NESPi Case - Soft Power & Reset Hack:
one guy made some custom pcbs to completely replace the stock switch PCB with all the parts for the safe shutdown mod
Is it this one - https://github.com/mafe72/Retroflag-NESPi-Front-Panel-Control-Board ?
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