I wanted to show a quick preview of my Gameboy Pocket build that Ive been working on for a while.
A video of a brief teardown with commentary here: https://youtu.be/2cGTXz5O3Tk
Ive always loved the industrial design of the gameboy pocket and overall it is my favorite form factor among the 90's Nintendo lineup. The drawback however to using this platform is that you have such little space to work with. But after putting hours into tinkering, watching vids, asking questions and reading, ive gotten to a point where I can be slightly proud with the result.
I think what makes my build stand out for most pocket builds is the 3.5in screen that virtually takes up the entire width of the shell.
Specs:
Raspberry Pi 3A+
2500 mAh battery
Powerboost 1000C Helder's PSU
Teensy LC
3.5 inch 40pin LCD screen
Design pitfalls and advice for folks who want to try this:
The lower part of the shell does not want to fit together as tight due to my custom PCB button pad being slightly thicker than the stock MGB motherboard.
My advice: is if you want to use the lower screw posts and are going to make your own button pad as I did; make the thickness of your PCB less than 1.6mm
The screen cutout is extremely hard to do manually! My Mk01 gameboy pocket shell (yellow) was cut by hand with an exacto blade and utility knife. this took roughly 6 hours and still did not look very good in the end.
My advice: get access to a CNC machine and measure your screen accurately. I got familiar with my college's Nomad 883 that uses carbide to program cuts. This is not hard at all, and the results are very nice.
The buttons im using are resin printed from another Pocket shell project I am working on.
