Nintemu: A Raspberry Pi Emulation Console

Morph-X

Hi everyone,

after completing two identical "Super Nintemu's" (as i like to call them): https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3564/super-nintemu-a-raspberry-pi-emulation-console/22

I really wanted to try and do the same thing with a NES. Again, this is a really straight forward build. No GPIO connections, just wiring the power through and making it work. It works perfect that way for me and a friend of mine who uses the second Super Nintemu i built for him.

So this project carries the name, not very surprisingly: Nintemu

So i started out with this really nicely looking NES. It's a 1985 NES which has been preserved rather well, yet it did have hardware problems. It wouldn't do anything anymore. Put in a game, switch it on.... nothing. It was quite dead, so this was a nice candidate for some modification. FYI: This NES will be accompanied by a Raspberry Pi 3 inside.

As you can see i can be really happy with this NES. No yellowing at all and only a couple of minor scratches on it. Next up was getting rid of almost all of its organs. Besides that i had to determine the Raspi's final positioning. One of my goals was to keep the cartridge socket and place a dummy cartridge. It was kind of tricky to determine the position for the Raspi since the space between the NES' bottom and the cartridge socket is rather small and i had to keep in mind there was still quite some wiring to be fitted in the case.
I also used my dremel to cut away all the plastics that will not be used anymore, so i'd have as much space in the casing as i could.

So i found a suitable position for the Raspi. In this position, a little bit angled, the USB ports have some clearance beneath the cartridge socket. Also, the raspi is somewhat centered, allowing me to have some room for all the wires that had yet to be fitted.
As illustrated, i reused some of the NES' plastic mounts to mount the Raspi in place. I did the same thing with my Super Nintemu's. It's nice to use the casings materials where possible.

Onwards to the rear of the NES. Just like my Super Nintemu, i wanted to create a HDMI and micro-USB port in the back. I thought about creating a new backplate, but decided it wouldn't look nice anyway. So i used the dremel to modify the existing openings a little bit so it would fit a female HDMI connector.

Then i turned my attention towards the ports at the side. There won't be any audio or video ports for that matter so why keep the openings. Again here, i decided i didn't want to hack it up completely, so i came up with the idea of closing the openings in a way that it would maybe seem like you can fit an optional component or whatever.
I took my cutting knife and some styrene i use for my scale modelling projects and created something that would fit quite nicely into the openings. Afterwards i gave it a matching color and removed the decal. I'm really happy with it this way.

Now to set aside the casing for a bit i took a busted up Mario Bros cartridge to create my dummy cartridge that will sit in the NES, but can also be ejected. Just for esthetic purposes. I feel like there has to be a cartridge inside.

I customized the NES logo and used it to design a custom label for the cartridge.
So next up, taking apart the busted up cartridge, removing what's left of the label, all glue remains and placing my own custom label.

Next was doing some wiring. Now, to create a HDMI and micro-USB port in the back, i simply use extension cables. Of course i reused the NES switch board so the power cord will be soldered to it, the reset switch will be wired to the RUN header on the Raspi and the power indicator LED will be soldered to the GND of the Raspi and to the +5V wire "behind" the power switch.
The micro-USB cable was a bit too long so i shortened it.

Then i took a 1.8V red LED and soldered a small resistor between the wires. Like mentioned before, this will be soldered to the GND of the Raspi's power input and to the +5V wire "behind" the NES power switch.

The orange and yellow wires are soldered to the RUN header of the Raspi for a power interrupt "reset" function. It's not super advanced, but i only use it when my system crashes. Closing or resetting ROM's i do with my controller anyway so i'm perfectly happy with it this way.
The rest of the above mentioned wires are soldered to the NES switch board.

Up next was i think the greatest challenge of this build. Creating 4 USB ports in the front. I prefer USB ports because that way you can choose whichever controller you want to use. I use NES, SNES and N64 controllers (all USB) so the versatility of having USB ports is great IMHO.

Using double USB extension cables i tried to find a way to mount these where the original controller ports were. After enlarging the holes with my dremel and modifying the USB mounts a bit i was able to finally mount the ports the way i wanted to.

Now this of course is nice to have, but i also want it to look nice. So having some spare ABS plastic lying around i started creating a cover to go over and around the USB ports nicely.
This is a nice kind of plastic. It's easy to work with, you can cut it easily and you can bend it when heating it, in this case with a heat gun. So i bent it in a tight 90 degree angle. Then i cut it to size and i created the holes for the USB ports. This all took me quite some time but i'm happy with the result.

With this done, the project was already near its end. Though it's still missing something. A finishing touch...

Decals!

Now with that out of the way, it was finally time to put everything together.

Luckily everything came together nicely, although i did run into some minor problems with the wiring where the cartridge socket is being lowered when inserting a cartridge and pushing it down. Initially the wires were directly below the cartridge lowering point, but that was easily solved by rerouting the wires a little bit.

Last but absolutely not least the casing could be put back together. A moment of bliss and a small amount of relieve when everything works out the way you had envisioned yourself.

So behold, my Nintemu. ;-)

This was a very fun project to be working on. To be honest, i didn't think i needed this much time to build it, but there were several things that required lots of attention, especially the USB ports and the cover plate that goes over it. The same goes for the coverup of the audio and video ports at the side. It's all fun to do, but they're time consuming details nonetheless.

Of course i installed RetroPie. As promised in my Super Nintemu project, i will be donating $ 10,- for every install i do.

Thanks for taking the time to take a look at my Nintemu. Feel free to ask any questions or whatever's on your mind. ;-)

Greetings,
Morph-X

obsidianspider

I love this! Thanks for being so thorough on your walkthrough of how you made it.

Morph-X

@obsidianspider
Thanks a lot! I'm glad you like it. I'm hoping this is somewhat helpful for people thinking of modding a NES.

backstander

@Morph-X I really enjoy following your builds! This is great and well documented. Now you're Reset button, is that a software reset like sudo reboot or how are you handling that? Just curious :-)

mattrixk

This is probably the cleanest Pi build I have seen. Well done.

obsidianspider

@backstander said in Nintemu: A Raspberry Pi Emulation Console:

@Morph-X I really enjoy following your builds! This is great and well documented. Now you're Reset button, is that a software reset like sudo reboot or how are you handling that? Just curious :-)

It looks like he has it hooked up to the Pi reset pins.

Morph-X

@backstander
Thank you!! As obsidianspider already mentioned, i wired the RESET button directly to the RUN header of the Raspi. So it functions merely as a power interrupt.

@mattrixk
Thanks a lot! That's really nice of you to say. It's great to see my work is appreciated by people "in the business". ;-)