Spyder's Gameboy Pocket build (Gaboze Pocaio Round 2)

[Spyder]

I am currently working on a Gaboze Pocaio round 2 blank board. Today I soldered all of the SMT components, which was definitely a challenge with my gorilla hands. I enjoyed the required focus though. The only things I have left to put on the board is the TP4056 (because I ordered the wrong version,) the 40 pin header (want to put in the TP4056 in first but I did hammer the spacer down so it will be flush on the screen side,) and the screen. I ordered 10 blank boards because I thought it would be fun to make for friends or as a small side business at some point. I'm using one of my blanks to practice on also which definitely helped with my confidence. I did a test of the 51 pin connector with and without flux and I definitely recommend flux. I hadn't used it before today, but was so easy to drag the solder.

Case will be one I bought from God of Gaming (eBay) and will be a stock DMG looking pocket shell (Because I was a DMG kid and still have my original, working, old weathered unit. I'm waiting for my extra magenta buttons, ADS1015, and tactile buttons from AliExpress right now; but wanted to get the system started and running prior. I'm doing L+R buttons on the back, but not sure on placement yet. I want small inconspicuous buttons. Battery has yet to be decided because I don't know if I'm going to put it in the battery tray or in a game cartridge. I'm really trying to figure out a safe shutdown solution that would work off of the switch on the unit instead of a button and may house that in the cartridge area.

I've been playing around in EasyEDA with some ideas, but no clue if it will work as I am not even close to be any kind of engineer for this. Goal is to maybe actually use the Gaboze gerbers as a base and add a safe shutdown to incorporate to the switch, remove the L+R from the front of the board, Spider-man conductive pads, maybe a bigger screen (2.8 or higher), and build in the ADS unit as well. I'm getting ahead of myself though. Lets build a stock one first.

Enough typing already. Here are the picks of where I'm at right now.

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IMG_8796.jpg (7 MiB) Viewed 11758 times

[Spyder]

Got the correct tp4056 in today and my magenta buttons in, but unfortunately I may have accidentally order DMG buttons instead of pocket ones. Dang it. I guess I’ll have to order it again, I swear they changed their Ali ad after my order. Oh well. I’ll just run with 2 buttons for the moment, I could just do a staggered setup, but I think I would rather the right buttons and save these for a dmg project at some point.

[Spyder]

Got the power supply, screen, and pi all soldered in. Not sure if my screen isn't working or if its because I mounted the pi incorrectly and its not hitting the 2 pogo pins, but nothing happens except the LED on the front of the board comes on and the led on the power supply as well. The pi's led doesn't come on either, but it did prior to soldering. I'm going to attempt to desolder the pi and redo the mounting and hope that it works. Hoping its not the screen because I have no way to test it other than soldering it all to the board.

[Spyder]

Feeling a bit defeated right now as I've spent a bunch of money on this and have every part I need, but nothing. I need to figure out how to desolder the pi from the board, but I think I may have to just place another order to digikey and a screen and restart the whole thing (thankfully that would only be around $30 combined if needed). Super bummed out and just need to step back for a minute.

[makazatra]

Got a picture of the soldering?
Also check if ur battery is correctly attached (+ and - is correct)

[Spyder]

I'll try to get pics when I get back home. I know the battery is attached correctly because I had to switch the positive and negative on the JST connector already because it as backwards. I think my issue might be with my pi mounting because it is supposed to rest on the pogos on the pic I've attached and its not at all. The screen, I have no idea, but I may have ruined the cable resoldering it because I thought that might be the problem.

pogo.jpg (129.51 KiB) Viewed 11553 times

[Spyder]

Here are pics of my pi and screen soldering.

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Here you can see where it’s not touching the pogo pins. I’m not sure what the logos are used for on this board.

DEC301DC-EBAA-44E8-AA8F-6BE54693C2A3.jpeg (1.91 MiB) Viewed 11537 times

[makazatra]

Yeah, the pogo's are probably for power (i havent built one yet).

[Spyder]

I'm going to try to cut the 40 pin header in half and then de-solder it from the board and hopefully the pi. I have a spare zero without wireless I can put on it, but I think I can reuse the zero W on there now. I have a semi beat up zero W as well that I practiced with and actually had cut the headers off of from a previous project that boots up, so I could use that one if needed

[Spyder]

Cut off the pi, tested it, and it’s dead. Unfortunately I slipped and knicked the PCB so I’ll need to rebuild the damn thing. Dang it