ELUDE's GBZ [30% complete]

[eludebear]

Hey everyone thought it'd share my project! I am super stoked about this project, this site and eventually my GBZ having never done anything like this before I had always wanted to make something with a Raspberry Pi couldn't think of a better starter project! Waiting on some parts to come in to complete but they are arriving soon!

Only thing I plan on doing different from Wermy's guide is not using a game cartridge or use the old button pcb board, other than that everything should be the same.

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Heres my Gameboy! My original one from when I was a kid never abused it always took care of it but its sat in a closet for the last 15+ years thought Id breath some new life into it.

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My workshop for the next few weeks! More tools and parts on the way. I'd estimate I've spent about $150 so far on this project and I shouldn't have to buy anything else. Luckily only tool I needed specifically for this project was solder equipment.

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Case cleaned up pretty good, this is a rough draft It has been cleaned up a lot more since this stage

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Pretty handy drill guide from the kitsch website where I ordered the button pcb board from.

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I am kinda disapointed in how my L/R buttons turned out, I couldnt find the tactile switches from the main guide in store and I really didnt want to get a 100count on amazon so I just went with some store bought buttons. Problem is i kept drimmeling and drimmeling to get it to fit and then turned it over and realized how big of holes I made. Not sure how Imma patch this part up but ill think about it.

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Since the recommended Adafruit one is out of stock everywhere I ordered one of the BW screens off Amazon, and messing around with the solder iron the other day realized it would probably be nice to get a helping hand so I dont burn my fingers off or garage down.

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Well I didnt pay enough attention to the fact that ATian on Amazon was not one of the good sized screen pcb's. Sent back and ordered one from e-life which should have the right sized one? Replacement arrives tomorrow so well see.

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Since I had nothing else to do I cleaned up the case a bit and decided to trim these button holders from the cheap controller I purchased from Microcenter. I feel this will make the buttons more stable than having them loose.


Thats it for now, new screen comes in tomorrow (Should have been today but UPS experienced 'Delays' Thanks UPS... Thanks.), DMG-01 PCB button board comes in early next week as well as all the goodies from Adafruit (Battery, PowerBoost, Usb breakout, Amplifier)

[LimberEight]

Don't worry about the back, worst case, you by a new shell from eBay. I did a quick search and found an entire shell for €6. Another option would be to use shoulder buttons on the cheap controller like @chiz did. Or finally, you may be able to salvage the front off the controller, again, just like @chiz did. (Sorry I've just gone through chiz's entire thread, so it's still fresh in my mind)

[Flowlance]

Looking good so far! Good luck with the replacement screen and the project

[eludebear]

Don't worry about the back, worst case, you by a new shell from eBay. I did a quick search and found an entire shell for €6. Another option would be to use shoulder buttons on the cheap controller like @chiz did. Or finally, you may be able to salvage the front off the controller, again, just like @chiz did. (Sorry I've just gone through chiz's entire thread, so it's still fresh in my mind)

Wow yea I saw his yesterday its so fancy. I love the way he used like plastic shields and what not. Not sure If i want to go all crazy with the L/R buttons I actually have a controller just like what he used so could do it but I think ill just stick with the pokemongo Blastiose buttons on the back for now.

[eludebear]

Looking good so far! Good luck with the replacement screen and the project

Screen came in and was the board I want and apparently works fine off the 5v! Cause I hooked it up to the Pi and it ran.

[eludebear]

SCREEN COMES IN DAY!!!!! UPS FINALLY DELIVERS

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BW e-life screen arrives and is correct size woo hoo. Also allegedly works off 5v so i dont have to solder anything together we will see.

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Holy cow it actually works, soldering the video connections was a pain in the butt, tried my best to get the wire in the hole for the R/Y wires.

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Decided to black magic marker the inner screen hole of the case and the silver on the screen. Turned out OK but not much of this will be showing.

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After trying to get the screen in there right I felt like it wasn't sitting very good in there so I decided to grind down the plastic around the edges flatter.

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Looks way better.

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I said to myself YER A WIZARD HARRY when it actually turned on again!

Not to mention got RetroPie loaded up on my SD card, not sure how to configure that next but I am pretty sure I need a working gamepad or controller neither of which I have at the moment, will have to wait until monday when the rest of my loot comes in.

Also not sure If this is just how the screens are? Maybe I got a bad one or I didn't solder it all the way but when the screen is completely black theres quite a bit of white wavy movement going on the screen but once it goes to something like the RetroPie logo its not noticeable.

[eludebear]

Screen update

Well since my parts don't arrive till tomorrow I had time to tinker with the screen and try to add the brace for the top screws.

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Heres what the screen looked like before it had a lot of white static going on, hard to see in just a picture but it also was kinda flickering.

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Thanks to @ChunkeeMonkee we had the same screen variant for BW and said placing the bypass would fix it. Also this was a PIT to solder, showed my fingers to scale of how tiny this board is. Soldering to the chip on the right turned out way easier than jumping the two red cables kept having issues with the blob of solder moving around... Finally got it though

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And was a success! Hard to tell from this picture but the quality is way better now.

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Next I scoured my garage for anything to make a brace to be able to screw the top of the case down again and was looking at cutting the plastic on the BW camera case and decided to test the nintendo screws in the hole.. low and behold they fit perfectly!

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Just cut it down then use an exacto knife to shave down the top so the screw hole is flat otherwise its too big.

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Comparison of the two

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End result! Looks pretty good and works.

[ChunkeeMunkee]

You're very welcome Elude! Glad I could help out!

Going to start putting my own build log together soon. I'm at about the same stage as you so far.

Looking good so far Elude - nice idea with the screw posts! Good luck with the rest of the build!

[sotonguy]

Looks good, I'm looking forward to seeing how this build progresses.

[eludebear]

Been a few weeks since my last update. Got some parts in and one that I ordered the wrong thing. Also was down and out for about a week with a medical condition (nothing serious) but made me wanna lay around instead of work on stuff. (All better now!)

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Got all my parts from Adafruit and also my button control board.

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I opened it up and was scratching my head where my X/Y button's were, and realized I ordered just the replacement board and not the one that comes with X/Y Buttons. Didn't really wanna wait another week and spend $20 getting another board or trying sending this one back so decided to hack up the $5 controller I bought and see where it goes.

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My board cut down to size, I plan on just hot gluing it together and seeing where it goes. Also In the picture I had it in the wrong side, the X/Y will be on the other side of A/B

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Bought a new multimeter from Harbor Freight for $5 since my other one was old and didnt work. Tested all the connections and they seemed to be fine. We will see.

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Holy turd monkey it works, setting up the Teensy took about 5 mins thanks to the Wermy guide given this noob had never used that program before it was quite easy.

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Playing Quake, although I noticed that my Up/Right buttons are sticking together when I push up so I cant really run straight going to have to check on that next time.

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Lastly edited the boot code to run on 320x240 thanks to this forum post. Now the text is readable.

http://www.sudomod.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1106