Collecting information on alternative displays - please contribute

[luischo]

One way could be:
-power the board by 12V.
-measure on which inductor you get 5V to ground.
-one this point you inject your 5V finally.

Thanks, I'll try

[cheve]

Hi all,

I don´t know if this is the right thread (please move if not), but I wanted to share what can become a very long term project of mine.
I´ve been always attracted by the idea of building a GBZ pocket myself, but when I look at the screens, they either have the wrong aspect ratio, or the resulting image size is too small when doing pixel perfect scaling (compared with the original GB screens). But, inspired by this RetroBerry project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD4VzQpUiqg, I took a look at the square screens from Blackberry, and found the Q10 has a 720x720 screen that gives the same size of the GBP when scaling 3x

One of my first ideas was to fit a whole Q10 inside a GBP shell (keyboard almost matches the buttons required for DMG/GBC color)

But the problem is that the software support is a bit lacking (BB10 + Retroarch is already a bit outdated).
So, next thing could be to either connect the Q10 screen to the original GBC hardware (seriously), or better yet, connect it to the Pi Zero (also seriously).

As said before, this can turn into a very long term project of mine, and maybe Nintendo comes with a GB Classic in the meantime, but I'm decided to learn everything required.

Hey!

From these previous pointers I found a shorter term solution. I found a very similar screen (supposedly from the Blackberry Q5), 720x720, 3.1", but IPS instead of AMOLED. However, you can find them with a MIPI to HDMI conversion board, so they can be connected directly to a Pi (Zero in my case), and they work at 5v.
I'll have to spend some time creating a slimer mini HDMI to mini HDMI cable to save space, but they already fit very well inside the GB Pocket. The conversion board conflicts with existing Pocaio kits, but I still have faith to fit everything into a Pocket. If not, a DMG would be okay in the meantime

[tinkerBOY]

Hi everybody!!
I'm new here (and my english is not very good...), I was reading al this thread but I haven't find info about my lcd screen chip. I put some pictures if someone can help me to change this 12v to 5v for a raspberry zero.

Thanks a lot!! Its a very good and helpfull thread

If you need more photos or info, I'll share them.

I cannot see from the picture but this is probably the 5v regulator.

5vreg.PNG (635.63 KiB) Viewed 22090 times

Check it's datasheet.

[luischo]

I cannot see from the picture but this is probably the 5v regulator.
5vreg.PNG

Check it's datasheet.

THanks a lot, I'll try, but I have broken the piece, I need to order a new one

[Robochris]

Ill be honest, Im not reading through 70 pages of this thread. so ill ask, what is a good screen type to go with that is a step up from the composite we all used in the beginning? hows clarity and performance of hdmi screens? I dont mind spending a bit more for better quality but at the same time I dont need a super HD screen for retro games...

[infinitLoop]

Ill be honest, Im not reading through 70 pages of this thread. so ill ask, what is a good screen type to go with that is a step up from the composite we all used in the beginning? hows clarity and performance of hdmi screens? I dont mind spending a bit more for better quality but at the same time I dont need a super HD screen for retro games...

i'd say the next step up from composite is the SPI / ili9341 approach. it's a few GPIO pins to connect, and software to set up, but it's not all that difficult. it's low power too, so it usually gives you a longer battery life. problem with it is that it can be more intensive on the gpu, so some 16bit games can suffer.

if hdmi were easier to fit in the shell, that would probably be it.. the boards can be power hogs though, but the picture is sharp, and you just need to plug in the hdmi somehow for picture ( and sound frequently- bonus). problem with most of those is that either the screen itself, or its control board, are too wide for the shell.

after that is DPI, which takes up nearly the whole GPIO but has a really sharp and smooth picture

.

[Robochris]

i'd say the next step up from composite is the SPI / ili9341 approach. it's a few GPIO pins to connect, and software to set up, but it's not all that difficult. it's low power too, so it usually gives you a longer battery life. problem with it is that it can be more intensive on the gpu, so some 16bit games can suffer.

if hdmi were easier to fit in the shell, that would probably be it.. the boards can be power hogs though, but the picture is sharp, and you just need to plug in the hdmi somehow for picture ( and sound frequently- bonus). problem with most of those is that either the screen itself, or its control board, are too wide for the shell.

after that is DPI, which takes up nearly the whole GPIO but has a really sharp and smooth picture

.

Im planning a pi 3 A+ build, Im not sure the gpu hit with the spi would be substantial. im also not sure they come in a 3.5" size.
Ive see others use hdmi screens in the show off section but never saw comments on anything further.
I know DPI is best but it just seems like overkill (and pricey) for retro games.

[infinitLoop]

Im planning a pi 3 A+ build, Im not sure the gpu hit with the spi would be substantial. im also not sure they come in a 3.5" size.
Ive see others use hdmi screens in the show off section but never saw comments on anything further.
I know DPI is best but it just seems like overkill (and pricey) for retro games.

for a 3 a+, the spi works pretty great - its just the zero they struggle on really. but yeah, for the ili9341 they only get up to 3.2, which is close but you do lose a little bit.

i think that the hdmi ones used to fit better a while back, but the manufacturers seemed to have changed most of them.. (if you dig around enough in here, you'll see that happening in comments).. i've messed with a few, and you can get them to fit if you shave the shell on the sides, and/or cut off a piece of the board, but on the ones i tried to go the distance on, i ended up breaking something in the screen either when i was removing the touchscreen on them (which you could leave on, but its useless, takes up a little room, and the screen isn't as clear) or some other point when i was removing all the bits on there that you need to, to get them to fit in there, and never actually got them working in a gbz. there might be some that work better, but the ones like the common "kedei" and "waveshare" ones aren't a great fit. really, the image isn't all that much better than a smoothly running SPI one. And SPI is way cheaper, comparitively.


check out my 3a+ build in my signature if you want to get an idea on what it looks like.

.

[Robochris]

for a 3 a+, the spi works pretty great - its just the zero they struggle on really. but yeah, for the ili9341 they only get up to 3.2, which is close but you do lose a little bit.

i think that the hdmi ones used to fit better a while back, but the manufacturers seemed to have changed most of them.. (if you dig around enough in here, you'll see that happening in comments).. i've messed with a few, and you can get them to fit if you shave the shell on the sides, and/or cut off a piece of the board, but on the ones i tried to go the distance on, i ended up breaking something in the screen either when i was removing the touchscreen on them (which you could leave on, but its useless, takes up a little room, and the screen isn't as clear) or some other point when i was removing all the bits on there that you need to, to get them to fit in there, and never actually got them working in a gbz. there might be some that work better, but the ones like the common "kedei" and "waveshare" ones aren't a great fit. really, the image isn't all that much better than a smoothly running SPI one. And SPI is way cheaper, comparitively.


check out my 3a+ build in my signature if you want to get an idea on what it looks like.

.

I just took a look at the A+ build in your sig. Nice work. can you link which screen you used there? it seems to fit nicely without being too small.

[infinitLoop]

I just took a look at the A+ build in your sig. Nice work. can you link which screen you used there? it seems to fit nicely without being too small.

i think the specific one in that build was this one from aliexpress: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3284941 ... 4c4dHgFi8P

and it was good and all, but you can just look for "3.2 ili9341 18 pin" and use pretty much any. the "wide" or "full" angle advert sometimes helps get a better one (they are meant to be mounted vertically, so the side-to-side angles in horizontal mount can give a polarizing effect in a lot... it's not the worst thing in the world, but can be distracting sometimes), and try to get one *without touch (although even when you order "without" sometimes they will just send you "with" anyway). that one linked above had a touch layer that i pried off.

although, what i would recommend probably is just get the one from pocketadventures.com since you can also order the adapter board there, and shipping is crazy fast typically.