Pi in a Dreamcast VMU Build - WIP

moosepr

WOW!!

celly

@obsidianspider yes! Glad you got it all. Can't wait to see the finished product.

ABrugsch

are those actual Garbage Pail Kids? wow memories!
(or do they still make them?) one of the things that annoyed me moving from USA to UK as a kid was that the garbage pail kids got smaller, and went from having a cutout shape for the sticker part to just being fully rectangular. I think I ended up throwing my collection away, or just sticking them to things...

obsidianspider

@ABrugsch They're Garbage Pail Kids!

obsidianspider

My screens showed up in the mail today!

No protective stickers over the actual display itself, so hopefully the minor imperfections I'm seeing on both screens are just some dirt.

A quick mockup of setting a screen inside a VMU looks very promising.

moosepr

@obsidianspider chip at the top sure it better!! plus the driver being upside down to begin with, means not having to worry about changing it!

obsidianspider

@moosepr Now I'm trying to figure out what GPIO pins map to the pins on the red board.

moosepr

@obsidianspider is this any use?

linez

obsidianspider

@moosepr This is about where I'm at. Your diagram helps quite a bit. I'll have to see if I can follow the traces and translate that to the pins on the red board before I try soldering things up. I want to make sure things work stock before I take it apart.

moosepr

@obsidianspider lets see if i can fill in the blanks for you
1 - 3.3v
2 - gnd
3 - gpio 8 (pin 24)
4 - gpio 25 (pin 22)
5 - gpio 24 (pin 18)
6 - gpio 10 (pin 19)
7 - gpio 11 (pin 23)
8 - 3.3v (can be the same as pin 1)

my schematic is a little messy, lots of crossovers. tis something i need to refine

obsidianspider

@moosepr Well, it looks like I came up with the same answer, so that's good. Now I need to tweak a RetroPie setup to see if I can get things working!

moosepr

@obsidianspider thats the easy bit

raspi-config - enable spi

sudo nano /etc/modules - add in

spi-bcm2835
fbtft_device

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/fbtft.conf - add in

options fbtft_device name=fb_ili9163 gpios=reset:25,dc:24 speed=40000000 bgr=1 rotate=0 custom=1 fps=60

reboot

obsidianspider

@moosepr I'm workin on it! I'm workin on it!

obsidianspider

So, it works, kind of. Both screens are showing garbage data on the pixels on the right, one is showing them on the bottom as well. I haven't tried adjusting resolution yet, but the screen is mirroring what's going to HDMI correctly, aside from the garbage pixels.

I do have overscan disabled in /boot/config.txt

lilbud

@obsidianspider do the dead pixels show up under the VMU bezel?

moosepr

@obsidianspider hmmm are those the 128x128 screens, or the 128x160?

obsidianspider

@moosepr they're the "red board" screens.

Setting the HDMI resolution to 128 x 128 in /boot/config.txt didn't help.

Great refresh rate though. Very smooth.

@lilbud The whole screen shows. I'm going to actually end up coloring in the white surround black to hide it a bit. This is just "set in" but you get the idea.

moosepr

@obsidianspider just for shits and giggles, try running it with the other driver

options fbtft_device name=fb_st7735r gpios=reset:25,dc:24 speed=40000000 bgr=1 rotate=0 custom=1 fps=60

then if that works, try adding some size in there

options fbtft_device name=fb_st7735r gpios=reset:25,dc:24 speed=40000000 height=128 bgr=1 rotate=0 custom=1 fps=60

all in sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/fbtft.conf of course

obsidianspider

@moosepr That gave me a different kind of garbage. The bad pixels moved to the other side, things are upside down, and the bottom output is garbled.

moosepr

@obsidianspider odd!! it behaves differently to the one i have got. Although mine is probably wired differently (you may also have a totally different screen on the board)

notro did point me in the direction of using the flex driver, where you can basically set the full init commands. I did start looking, but decided to wait till my boards arrived (they have literally just been marked as shipped!!)

here is all i know so far https://github.com/notro/fbtft/issues/453