Pi in a Gameboy Advance Build - WIP

[moosepr]

@obsidianspider I had forgotten you were tacking the NDS buttons in there. Maybe @Sephiros can help with hints and tips. He looks to know his way round frankencasing

[obsidianspider]

After experimentation with some corrugated cardboard. I think I'm going to try changing course a bit. It may not work, but we'll see.

I spent a few hours in the garage today interspersed with some "testing sessions" cough playing StarFox cough, and while it's not done, things are looking promising...

[moosepr]

@obsidianspider

[obsidianspider]

Excited by the fact that I didn't break it when I removed the Ethernet port and one of the USB connectors I decided to try removing the display connector this morning before work. I managed to mangle the connector, but it's removed and the Pi still works. I'll be testing after I remove each component to make sure I don't break it, or if I did break it, where I broke it, so I can try to fix whatever I messed up. (Don't worry, I won't be boring you with a shot of the Pi as each component disappears.) The resistors and capacitor near the display connector had me worried for a bit when some solder blobbed on them.

[backstander]

@obsidianspider

(Don't worry, I won't be boring you with a shot of the Pi as each component disappears.)

You should make an animated GIF of each component disappearing ;-)

[moosepr]

@obsidianspider i found this and thought of you

http://www.sudomod.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&p=26192

[obsidianspider]

@moosepr Awesome! I've seen a few guides here and there and this will be helpful. I'm also trying to save the bits I cut from the inside of the case to use as a base for gluing things together.

Also: Removing the HDMI port SUCKED. The surface mount plus through hole pegs were too much to heat at once, and I got impatient. I ended up tearing a bunch of traces, and actually melted the L4 resister into oblivion. Thankfully though, due to an X-Ray of a Pi 3 that I found, those resistors are just for HDMI, so it was OK to remove completely.

The good news is that the Pi still works. I left it run Street Fighter Alpha 3 and StarFox 2 for a few hours, plugged into a 1A iPhone charger (to test the theory that you can power it with a PowerBoost 1000C), with a 2500mAh LiPo sitting directly on the SOC and nothing got too hot, the battery or the chip.

Progress!

[obsidianspider]

I think this is going to work.

This morning I removed the rest of the ports aside from the power port (I'm not sure if I'll need to remove it yet, it's not much higher than some of the capacitors near it, but it's at the edge, so we'll see.

I readily admit that I am a hack and that this could have been done more neatly, but this was my first time trying to strip down a board and keep it functional. And, it is!

Why was I trying to do this? Well, based on my earlier mockups with some cardboard, I figured that if I could turn the pi sideways, trim the edge under the USB ports, and use a game cartridge to cover the sticky-outy bit, it'd fit.

A quick mockup with the screen, 2500mAh battery, and cut down Pi make it look like this will work. I should have more room inside once I redo the ribbon cable I soldered to the screen board.

And, as @backstander requested, a GIF of the components disappearing. ;)

[moosepr]

@obsidianspider hahahaha love the gif! I bet you could cut a bit more off the end with the USB and ethernet ports

[obsidianspider]

@moosepr I want to keep all four USB port pads available, so that's about as close as I could get it. I'm not sure how the board will be oriented inside the case just yet, but this is really promising.

[moosepr]

@obsidianspider yeah it's looking good! You will have the most powerful GBA in the world! 😀

[backstander]

@obsidianspider
Wow! Now that's progress!
I love the animated GIF haha!

[obsidianspider]

It's Friday night, so that means it's time to cut some stuff up in the garage.

I was trying to fit the Pi 3 inside the Gameboy Advance game that I bought from eBay (Is Madagascar any good? I still have the PCB in good shape.) and I determined that I would need to make the Pi narrower, and also a bit shorter. I decided that I would only really at most need two USB ports (Maybe one for USB audio (I haven't determined if I can live with the on board audio from the Pi) and maybe one for a USB port for plugging in a keyboard or something.) so I could trim the end of the Pi down a bit more.

Yes, it still works. I think. It powers up, no funky red LED flashing and I can SSH to it.

The Pi now fits inside the Gameboy Advance case with the end covered by a trimmed and gutted Gameboy Advance game.

Its looking pretty good in the case with the control PCBs

Next up I'm going to try connecting some things to the Pi 3.

[obsidianspider]

I got the TFT soldered to the Pi and things seem to work.

They seem to fit well in the case, but I don't have anything but the Pi and screen in the case in this mockup.

[obsidianspider]

I don't care if it's almost 11 PM, I'm really encouraged, so I decided to try hooking up a USB port to the remnants of the board, and it works!

[moosepr]

@obsidianspider awesome stuff! It's really coming together now!

[obsidianspider]

@moosepr It's definitely not a project for the weak willed. I'm still not sure where the heck I'm going to possibly put a USB port, but today I'm going to work on connecting leads to the USB pads and then will probably work on the audio circuit. I'm not sure about how I'm going to do the battery thing yet. I've seen posts in various places about a low voltage smart shutdown and things like that. Apparently if you over-discharge a LiPo you'll kill it.

First though I'm in a parade this afternoon so no time to fuss around in the garage where I tend to lose track of time. ;)

[moosepr]

@obsidianspider yeah lithium batteries don't take too kindly to being really flat. I think the adafruit boost doodad has protection built in. If your not using that then there are other options. Some cells have built in protection, or you can add an extra protection board

[obsidianspider]

Today I removed the USB port from the Pi and soldered up the appropriately colored wires. I applied some hot glue over the wires for strain relief. I sliced off the excess since I needed the board to fit inside the Gameboy Advance game.

When I tried to fit the Pi inside the gutted cartridge I found that I still needed more room as the wires and glue made the Pi too thick. I removed the top of the "front" part of the game and I also shaved the area for the screw hole flat on the inside.

Then with that going well I soldered up the test USB port to the end of the wires, and that worked, so then I tried desoldering the plug from my USB sound card. That didn't go so well. When I was putting the board in my PCB vice I heard a crack, and sure enough, the capacitor for the headphone plug ground cracked off. I thought that maybe it wouldn't be a huge deal, so I soldered across the pads to make the connection to ground. I figured that headphones can't draw that much, so eliminating the capacitor may be ok. Well, it wasn't. After I soldered up the sound card to the Pi I was getting a blinking red light and the Pi would not boot.

Just in case it was my USB leads and not the sound card I tried connecting up a USB port and keyboard to the Pi along with a controller, and sure enough, everything booted just fine. That said, when I plug in a USB drive, the Pi won't detect it, and I'm not sure why. The drive does work in my Genesis hub Pi 3, so I don't think it's a Raspbian issue. I am thinking that there may not be enough power getting to the USB port, so I'm going to try an alternate power source like straight from GPIO and see what happens.

I put the GBA game on the end of the Pi and it runs just fine, so even smooshed in the cartridge, no bad contacts.

[obsidianspider]

Well, I'm thinking maybe it isn't a power issue. I tried going to GPIO for power and then I started getting lightning bolts on the screen, so instead I used a breakout board to solder up the USB power directly to the 5V in that I'm using to power the Pi and my USB drive still isn't being recognized. The controller and keyboard both work just fine, but those also aren't using USB 2.0 speeds. (Per lsusb -t they communicate at 1.5 Mbit)

I also tried plugging in a USB 2.0 hub. That's not recognizing, a USB Wifi adapter isn't recognizing, and no USB drives are recognizing. The USB drive has a steady blink once per second or so.

I'm not convinced I didn't mess something up with the USB ports when cutting things down, or maybe connecting up that damaged sound card fried something.