PI ZERO SP BUILD LOG

[Senpi]

I'm building a pi zero SP. Numerous challenges await, and it's much cheaper to build a DMG even with helder's DMG board. That being said I'm aiming for as little casemod as possible, and not sacrificing a working SP. To my knowledge that has never been done before. It requires an allin1 board with controls, powerboost 1000c, and PAM8403 stereo amp. I'm making it myself. If there's interest in this board it would make my life and this project alot easier. It's going to take some time to build as I'm using actual boards from adafruit to get this right the first time. I'm also really broke and work part time at minimum wage. Good news and bad news. Good news: it's coming out this year. I'm working hard on it and it's my only project. Bad news: it's liable to cost about $100, and the build is far more involved than a DMG with helder's allin1. In fact if money is an issue please go that route because this thing fully assembled and ready to play is about as much as a used PS4. But if you must have a pizeroSP there is no better option. I'll be posting build stuff here, and the sooner I get the diagram done the sooner I can ship it out and get it populated. I'll post pics of what I'm working with later today.

[codeman0624]

I'm building a pi zero SP. Numerous challenges await, and it's much cheaper to build a DMG even with helder's DMG board. That being said I'm aiming for as little casemod as possible, and not sacrificing a working SP. To my knowledge that has never been done before. It requires an allin1 board with controls, powerboost 1000c, and PAM8403 stereo amp. I'm making it myself. If there's interest in this board it would make my life and this project alot easier. It's going to take some time to build as I'm using actual boards from adafruit to get this right the first time. I'm also really broke and work part time at minimum wage. Good news and bad news. Good news: it's coming out this year. I'm working hard on it and it's my only project. Bad news: it's liable to cost about $100, and the build is far more involved than a DMG with helder's allin1. In fact if money is an issue please go that route because this thing fully assembled and ready to play is about as much as a used PS4. But if you must have a pizeroSP there is no better option. I'll be posting build stuff here, and the sooner I get the diagram done the sooner I can ship it out and get it populated. I'll post pics of what I'm working with later today.

I'm very interested in this, since I'm actually working on the same thing right now. Which screen did you buy?

I'm aiming for everything to have a "stock" look and feel, with the only visible modification being the addition of X and Y buttons. But I have already run into a problem. I'm not able to find a slide potentiometer or a slide switch that matches exactly what is on the GBA SP motherboard. So I'm considering removing these components from a board and reusing them. Any thoughts or suggestions?

[Senpi]

I bought the bw backup camera screen of Amazon that everyone is using. It comes with it's own driver and that's a necessity for me. The visible working part of the screen (approx 1.2mm black border) is a perfect match for the already existing case. I could probably find a slide potentiometer but it would take weeks to ship in and probably made by foxconn. I sourced 5mm diaphragm tac switches which are about 25% smaller than the SP originals requiring a whole new pcb layout. The entire board is custom made from a company called "pad2pad" and populated using reflow paste and a modified toaster oven. I'm currently working a job where I'm at about 15hrs a day, so it's kina on hold till mid July. Most everything I sourced can be bought off Amazon, but I'll work on that linear potentiometer here soon.

[Senpi]

Also the screen driver will absolutely not fit behind the screen itself. Requiring a custom ribbon cable. I have 4 gameboy SP in various stages of teardown to assist with designing process.

[codeman0624]

I bought the bw backup camera screen of Amazon that everyone is using. It comes with it's own driver and that's a necessity for me. The visible working part of the screen (approx 1.2mm black border) is a perfect match for the already existing case. I could probably find a slide potentiometer but it would take weeks to ship in and probably made by foxconn. I sourced 5mm diaphragm tac switches which are about 25% smaller than the SP originals requiring a whole new pcb layout. The entire board is custom made from a company called "pad2pad" and populated using reflow paste and a modified toaster oven. I'm currently working a job where I'm at about 15hrs a day, so it's kina on hold till mid July. Most everything I sourced can be bought off Amazon, but I'll work on that linear potentiometer here soon.

Do you mind sharing a list of things that you've sourced so far?

[muniosi]

Good stuff mate. Love your username btw

[Senpi]

Good stuff mate. Love your username btw

Thanks. I'm waaay too much into anime.
And I'll share my source parts within a week. Though I don't think this project is viable anymore. Came across an android gaming device on gearbest and it completely outclasses any single board cpu. It's running unreal engine 4 and is getting high 30k in mobile benchmarks. All for $199. This project has already cost me more than that and doesn't even play 32x games. I'm at a loss as to finish it or not. I'm about 4 months and $150 away from a fully working pcb, so if I can't make a sale product there's really no point. And I'm not nearly as skilled or experienced as helder. Plus my board has a shit ton more stuff on it, and is so tiny that the program I'm using is having difficulty routing traces on a 2 sided pcb. This project is in hot water...

[codeman0624]

Thanks. I'm waaay too much into anime.
And I'll share my source parts within a week. Though I don't think this project is viable anymore. Came across an android gaming device on gearbest and it completely outclasses any single board cpu. It's running unreal engine 4 and is getting high 30k in mobile benchmarks. All for $199. This project has already cost me more than that and doesn't even play 32x games. I'm at a loss as to finish it or not. I'm about 4 months and $150 away from a fully working pcb, so if I can't make a sale product there's really no point. And I'm not nearly as skilled or experienced as helder. Plus my board has a shit ton more stuff on it, and is so tiny that the program I'm using is having difficulty routing traces on a 2 sided pcb. This project is in hot water...

Well that's too bad if you gave up on it. I've never thought of doing these projects as a way to sell parts and make money, it's always just for the fun of it.

You could consider going to a 4 layer board. I've made several through Elecrow, and they seem to do a very good job for relatively cheap. You can get 5, 4-layer boards for less than $10 each:
https://www.elecrow.com/5pcs-4-layer-pcb.html

I've already made decent progress on a schematic and layout for the custom board I'm making. I'd love to talk about your design and component choices for your custom board, it could probably help us both.

The biggest challenge I'm seeing right now is getting the screen to properly fit within the upper half of the clam-shell. It's very thin, so the components on the driver boards are just too tall. I believe with some heavy component replacement/modification I could get it to fit. But does anyone else know of a 3.5inch screen with a very low profile driver board that I could use?

[Senpi]

I'm very excited about collaboration between users. I would be more than happy to collab with you. I'm in the middle of revamping some .bin files but when I'm done I'll share my parts list so far. I'm not the best at making boards, but I can crunch numbers like deep mind. I'm adamant about a 2 layer board to keep end user cost to a minimum, and it must contain both the powerboost 1000c AND the PAM8403 stereo opamp to be an effective product. I may have solved the screen driver board problem by using the cartridge slot to house the zero w, and the inspiration comes directly from the sp itself. It housed the entirety of its PCB on one dual layer board. I'm confident that 3 boards stacked well will suffice with a 2.5A 1 cell. Battery life will suffer but performance and aesthetics will not. I haven't found the slide potentiometer yet, but I have some more leads on the part including the original manufacturer foxconn. I just bought a switch and am more than pleased with the performance of the device and intend to hack it to all neon hell. I'm still in this for profit, but if not I will have at least 1 working model. It'll save SD space on my switch. I also have a "ghetto switch 3D" in the works but that is neither raspian, nor gameboy, nor ARM, so it doesn't belong on the forum. This project is still alive and well but isn't going to happen as swiftly as anticipated. A working prototype between the two of us by the end of the year would be fantastic but is wishful. Will update soon.

[abrugsch]

Just a suggestion... you might have to use an SPI screen then you won't need a driver board as such (see minty pi) and you'll only need a few wires going through the hinge.
Those screens are cheap (see @moosepr's sig threads about it) and fit nicely. (We already had a little discussion about an SP but it hasn't gone anywhere yet...)