My Gameboy Zero project(s)

[gnarlynick]

I've found that a custom button board can be made for the display control board I have which did not come with one. Each button needs a resistor placed on it, a 2K Ohm (202), 4.7K Ohm (472) & 1K Ohm (102). This is how the display control board differentiates each button press. Wire the positive contacts of each button in sequence and the negative of each button attaches to one of the three resistors. I only made one button board for my three builds as I won't be keeping it in the final build, I am only using it to fine tune the display settings (contrast, brightness etc.) and I've found that the settings are retained between power cycles. I don't see much need to adjust these settings again so I won't be including one in the final build.

[spoiler="Button Board"]Front of the custom button board I made for the LCD Display:

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Rear of the custom button board I made for the LCD Display:

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I removed the JST connector on the side of the display control board (BW 3.5" TFT LCD Composite Display, Variant 2 from the wiki). Wired the pos & neg wires from the button board to the pos & neg pads on the display control board and booted up.

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I Can now adjust the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation & Tint of the display. I found by default, the contrast was really high and washed out some of the text. The settings are retained between power cycles so I can fine tune it and remove the button board for the final build.

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[/spoiler]

[gnarlynick]

I have most of the build completed on my green DMG. I got the charging and power circuit all wired in and mounted. I placed the Micro USB charging port on the top along side the power switch. I also carved some slots along the top using a file to allow the lights from the Powerboost 1000c to shine through. I used hot glue as a light pipe and I think it looks pretty good. I also got the audio circuit (minus the audio filter) completed. I only have the audio filter, USB hub and cartridge connector left to wire up and my build is complete. I got a little OCD and routed all the wires going from the backside of the case down the one end so the case opens up like a clamshell and the wires are all easy to manage when opening/closing the shell. Take a look and let me know what you think:

[spoiler="Current build status"]Here is an overview of the front and back of the shell with the power circuit, audio circuit, screen, Pi & control board all setup:

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Here is a closeup of the "light pipes" I made using hot glue and a file along the top of the case:

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Here is what those indicator lights look like when the case is shut:

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Almost complete

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[/spoiler]

[gnarlynick]

Here is my latest update:
This is going to be a text heavy post, I figured I would share a lot of information to sort of put it in one place as I got this information from various sources here and elsewhere on the web. Firstly, here are pics of my GBZ currently. I used acrylic paint and painted some portions of it to make it pop. For the Green DMG, I chose a royal blue paint:
[spoiler="GBZ"]

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[/spoiler]

I currently have the audio circuit, power circuit, display circuit, I/O circuit and control circuit complete on my build. Only thing remaining is to connect the cartridge connector to the Pi so the SD card will be read via the cartridge slot. I had to rewire the PWM Audio Filter and Teensy LC for space concerns so the wiring for the Teensy is now shorter.
[spoiler="Internals"]

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[/spoiler]

PWM Audio:
The PWM audio is enabled by navigating to /boot/ on your pi

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cd /boot/

and entering the following:

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sudo nano config.txt

Enter the following string at the end of the config.txt file and save it:

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dtoverlay=pwm-2chan,pin=18,func=2,pin2=13,func2=4

To exit nano editor, press Ctrl+X simultaneously. It will ask you if you want to save changes, answer yes and save it with the same filename. I am only using one channel (mono) connected in GPIO pin 18 but it doesn't hurt to keep it in stereo, you can edit the string to remove GPIO pin 13 from it if you wish.

~A word of wisdom~
go into the Retropie audio settings either by navigating to the Retropie folder on the Emulation Station home screen or by using SSH & entering the following command:

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sudo ./RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh

Change the audio volume mixer to 100% (it is at 40% by default).

I had a lot of noise in my speaker/headphones when turning the potentiometer on the audio amp up and adjusting the volume via the volume potentiometer wheel. I found turning the audio in retropie up to 100% and fine tuning the audio amp potentiometer worked well, I was able to make that noise layer nearly inaudible and have good volume ranges now through both the speaker and the headphones.

Splash Screen
I installed the original DMG boot up (Nintendo scroll) as the boot up splash screen on my system. I also removed the initial rainbow splash image that first shows upon booting the Raspberry Pi, as well as removed the text scroll so it is a black screen for a few seconds (the Nintendo scroll and 'coin ding' happens following this).
To remove the rainbow splash screen, navigate to /boot/

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cd /boot/

and enter the following command:

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sudo nano config.txt

Enter the following string at the end of the config.txt file and save it:

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disable_splash=1

To remove the text scroll following the rainbow splash, while still in /boot/, enter the following command:

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sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt

While in cmdline.txt, follow the instructions below:

change console=tty1 to console=tty3
And add logo.nologo after quiet loglevel=3

make sure it is all on the same line

The logo.nologo option is what turns off the raspberry logos on boot.

I got the DMG boot up splash screen .mp4 from the following sudomod thread provided by user Kilren:
http://www.sudomod.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=255

I FTP'd into my Pi using Filezilla (enter the current IP Address of your Pi, username is pi and password is raspberry, port is 22). In Filezilla, navigate to /home/pi/RetroPie/splashscreens and create a folder in that directory and place the GB-DMG boot up.mp4 file into that new folder. Now navigate to to the Retropie folder on the Emulation Station home screen or by using SSH & entering the following command:

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sudo ./RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh

Edit the splashscreen and choose your .mp4 splashscreen from the /home/pi/RetroPie/splashscreens/ folder. You can also preview it here which will cause it to play on your GBZ screen. Now, when you boot up you will have a DMG boot up before Emulation Station loads.
[spoiler="DMG Splash"]

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[/spoiler]

[gnarlynick]

I was able to get the cartridge connector attached thanks to the image provided by prerunnerseth below:

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[spoiler="Cartridge Connector"]

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[/spoiler]
Now I just have to wait for the actual cartridge board to arrive and I should be able to just slap the Micro SD card into it and my green DMG build is completed. =D

If only the other two were as far along....
[spoiler="Not Done Yet..."]

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[/spoiler]

[Kilren]

It's definitely coming together!

[gnarlynick]

So I was able to find some cheap, broken Pokémon Red & Blue carts (pictured are my working carts from my personal collection, the broken ones have bad labels as well and haven't arrived in the mail yet) as well as a dead black Pocket Bomberman Color cart (There is no longer a ROM flashed on the EPROM so it does nothing when played).

I am going to put my Micro SD cart boards in these and they fit the color scheme I went with for each Gameboy. Just waiting on those boards to arrive. I also should start looking at the professional labels people in the forums have been cooking up to add the finishing touch to these.
[spoiler="Carts"]

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[/spoiler]

[gnarlynick]

My next feat is to create a suitable USB Hub to plug into the USB port that now resides in the old Ext port on the Gameboy. I believe I've seen this idea floated around here before and I don't foresee any issues in doing it. I luckily had a spare USB Hub sitting around that was free from my work (wish I had grabbed more than one) so all I had to do was buy a Gameboy Four Player Adapter on eBay, which are surprisingly very cheap everywhere you look (less than $10, mine was $5).

I plan on opening the adapter up and removing the 3 Ext ports, the board and the cable. I will replace it with a 4 port USB Hub (using only 3 of the 4 USB ports, of course) and run the USB ports to where the 3 Ext ports once were. Should be quick and painless in comparison to everything else this project demanded up until this point.

[spoiler="4 port USB Hub and Gameboy Four Player Adapter"]

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4 Port USB Hub

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4 Port USB Hub disassembled.

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Gameboy Four Player Adapter (Unfortunately does not come in Play It Loud Green )

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Gameboy Four Player Adapter Rear.[/spoiler]

[alien0matic]

Wow the USB hub is perfect for the 4 player adapter.

[ChunkeeMunkee]

Wow, coming along very nicely! I really like the colour highlights on each one. Your homebrew light pipes are a very cool addition.

Looking forward to seeing these finished!

[gnarlynick]

Wow the USB hub is perfect for the 4 player adapter.

Ya I thought so too. I was staring at it one day and it clicked. This USB Hub listed in the wiki should be similar.