I just finished my second build and I wanted to share with you all the knowledge that I have learned from both of the builds. I only have process pictures from my second build, so those reflect the changes I made from the mistakes I made in the first build.
[spoiler="Parts"]I used pretty much all the parts mentioned in Wermy's guide, the only exception is I bought a Screen off of Amazon, and I bought the amazing screens available at RetroFresh[/spoiler]
[spoiler="Case Whitening and Modding"]Nothing special here, the retr0bright formula worked perfectly.
When you are working on modifying the case, the key is patience. With the battery compartment, you can be a little rough, but it is still easy to slip and the Dremel does not distinguish between the inside and the outside of the case. For the screen, I found that it is nice to draw guide lines before dremeling if you want to do a small inside border for your screen to sit in. With the buttons I suggest printing out a guide, cutting out the circles, then taping the guide down and using a dremel to very carefully cut out the holes, then very very very slowly start widening it until the buttons just fit smoothly. I tried using a 11mm(ish) drill bit on my first build and I got some wobble and it caused a less than perfect hole. I got the plastic button guides from the SNES controller that I bought for my first build's buttons.
[/spoiler][spoiler="Screen Modification and Mounting"]I am very happy that I got the screen with the smaller control board.
The modification was easy!
Testing to make sure it works is very important. Throughout the process if you test as you go, you will save yourself a lot of headaches in the future!
Make sure the screen is straight! A lot of patience will go a long way, you don't want a crooked screen.
When mounting the bracket, having shorter pegs is better than having too long of pegs, as too long will ensure you will have a gap on the top of your gameboy and you don't want that.
[/spoiler][spoiler="Audio Circuit and Controller Board"]The biggest issue I had with my first build was having clearance in the middle area so that the case would shut fully with no cracks, thus keeping everything as compact as possible was my goal. The smaller sized screen board was perfect for this, as I could put the audio filter below the ribbon cable. This involved putting in the potentiometer first, wiring up the pot output and ground from the pot down the left side of the case, and wiring the audio out and ground cables out to the right side of the case where the Pi0 will be.
Next, I put electrical tape over the ribbon cable, as I wanted to put the teensy there so the Powerboost 1000c on the other side of the case could have as much room in the top of the case as it wanted. I then soldered the wires from the custom board (thanks Kitsch-Bent) to the teensy and then put the buttons in and screwed the board down.
Now is the time to program the teensy if you haven't already, then plug the teensy into a computer and make sure all the buttons work![/spoiler]
[spoiler="Pi Zero"]Now you can put in your Pi0!!!
BUT WAITTTT!!!! Don't be like me and mount your Pi0 before you solder wires to your trigger through-holes on the right side of your controller board
I found that two layers of perf board kept the HDMI port at the perfect level.
Once you have the Pi in place, you can cut your audio wires and video out wires to size and solder them to the Pi. DO NOT TOUCH THE POWER WIRES FROM THE SCREEN BOARD.
[/spoiler][spoiler="Speaker, Audio Jack, Audio Amplifier, and USB hub"]This part is pretty straightforward, and is similar to Wermy's guide, except the input wires to the amplifier are already routed to the bottom of the board. The USB hub can also be seen unconnected in this photo, as I was trying to figure out where I was going to mount it.
The USB hub is then connected exactly as it is in Wermy's guide, and then with all the components that will be on this side of the case mounted, the power bus is made and mounted into the bottom right corner of the case, with long wires that will be connected to the other side of the case running off to the side.
[/spoiler]It is getting late here, so I will post the rest of the build tomorrow. Thanks for looking so far! As a treat I will show 1 photo of the completed builds.
