PowerBlock and Retroflag NESPi case
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@brandonshire I am with you on wanting to do as much as you can without brutalizing the mounting board with the switches. However, it looks like the way the power is wired through these switches, reset breaks the circuit, and power completes it. You could bypass the board and route the power directly to the Pi and to the USB board, but you still have both switches "married" because of the way the traces connect them. I was hoping they could be disconnected via the wiring somehow, but it is not built to allow that.
Once you commit to cutting the traces, you realize that the board simply becomes a convenient platform to do your soldering and that it still serves to hold the switches and LED solidly. That is not a bad situation, and you now have options for how you want to use them. Just be mindful of how the pins connect on the one side and where power is going as it leaves that board and you are fine.
Most solutions have people taking the switches out of the power circuit completely and instead wiring them to GPIO pins.
I have not used Powerblock, but I expect you could make it work assuming it will fit.
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I just ordered a Retroflag NESPi Case. As soon as it arrivers I will take a close look at it and post a tutorial about how to combine it with a PowerBlock. Since the case is shipped from Hongkong it will take some days, though.
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@Brandonshire I actually just started working on modding my NESPi case with a PowerBlock, and so far it's going pretty well.
Instead of cutting traces, I desoldered the connector coming from the micro-usb input, and soldered in a jumper instead. I cut the wires that connected to the usb hub board, and cut off the connector for the GPIO pins, soldering the wires to the switch pads on the PowerBlock. I checked with a multimeter, and the power button works as a toggle switch, with the reset button functioning as an in-line normally closed momentary switch (which should in theory serve as a soft-reset button).
I also desoldered the leads of the LED, hot glued it to the little plastic piece, and used some female dupont connectors to wire it to the PowerBlock, no resistor necessary.
I soldered the connector from the micro-usb input board to the 5v in pads on the PowerBlock, and the wires that connected to the usb hub board to the 5v out pads, but unfortunately the wire was too short, and I ran short on time yesterday, so I have not been able to test it out yet. (fingers crossed!)
I did have to desolder the 2x2 pin header from the PowerBlock to make room for a fan, as well as dremel out one of the supports that the base screws into to make room for the PowerBlock, but the remaining screws hold it together fine.
This was only my second time soldering, and I had no problem once I got used to the process.
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@jtmack1 That is exactly the sort of solution I was trying to figure out if I could set up. I'll be very interested to hear how it works for you. It seems like the reset button should let the switch operate as a momentary switch, while the power button will let it operate as a "longer term" switch. Assuming the Powerblock can interpret both of those things separately it seems like that should work. Anyway almost all the parts for my replacement board for the switch are here so I'll probably end up going that way but I'll be interested to hear more about how your solution works out too.
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@jtmack1 The switches in the NESPi case can be used as momentary switches.
I wrote something about in the thread here - how the latching power switch can be hacked to a momentary one. -
@Brandonshire I'll make sure to post about it once I get a chance to put the finishing touches on it! To the best of my knowledge, the PowerBlock should initiate a shutdown when you press the reset button, and once finished, sees that the switch is back on, and boot it back up again.
@cyperghost The PowerBlock actually needs a latching switch, so it worked perfectly for my needs without having to mod the switch. Thanks for the info, though!
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@jtmack1 said in PowerBlock and Retroflag NESPi case:
To the best of my knowledge, the PowerBlock should initiate a shutdown when you press the reset button, and once finished, sees that the switch is back on, and boot it back up again.
Interesting. So, the fact that the Reset and Power switches are basically on the same circuit works in favor of your design, as it allows them do do the same thing except that with Reset, it continues back into a powerup cycle.
If one were wishing to leverage separate functionality for Reset (such as exiting emulators only) it would have to be isolated from the power switch by cutting traces and bypassing, then wiring it to separate GPIO.
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Here is the post I just made about my build, if you want to check it out.
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@jtmack1 Great! Thanks! That's very helpful.
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Just noticed this post, I have modified a Nes Pi (v1) case with a power block, any questions still?
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Have you been able to set it up so that the reset button works as anything other than a power button? How did you hook up the power and reset buttons to the power block?
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