My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Show off your completed Game Boy Zero, or post your build logs here!
prerunnerseth
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My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Post by prerunnerseth » Fri May 06, 2016 6:21 pm

I was inspired by the many Game Boy Zero builds on You Tube, but one in particular where the user used an original Game boy cart to house the micro SD card. I give the user props for a good functioning build, but with my ability to design PCBs and some more knowledge about getting hardware working I set out to build my own. My project is all working in prototype form except for the audio at this point because i didn't buy an audio amp board for prototyping.

What I did is design a set of custom PCBs to replace the original GB PCBs and clean up the project significantly. Even though i was capable of designing the battery charger and audio amp circuits myself, I took the lazy route and leveraged some readily available designs from Adafruit and copied the Layout and schematics into my project.

Specs,

Original Game Boy DMG-01 Case.
Custom Main PCB
Custom Cart PCB
Custom Button PCB with extra X - Y buttons.
Adafruit 3.2" SPI TFT screen
Mono 2.5W amplifier Circuit
2000mA hour LiPo Battery
Battery Charger circuit


Main PCB

Holds the Pi Zero in a cut out in the middle of the board. Bridges the Connections over to the Cart header for the Mircro SD card. Also bridges the required pins from the GPIO to the screen header. Has Micro USB port for charging. Has USB-A port for external devices. Holds the battery charger circuit and audio amp circuit. I will be using the basic PWM out gpio pin for audio. the audio on these games are pretty crude anyways. The battery connector sticks through one of the openings in the battery compartment with some modification to the opening. I decided not to try to bring out the HDMI port as it would have been very complicated and using a SPI screen the output of the HDMI is the same very low resolution of the built in screen. I am also using the extra GPIO pins for the buttons instead of using a USB device like the teensy. this eliminates the need for a USB hub if you want a USB port on the outside.

Cart PCB
replaces the cart board with a custom board that holds the Micro SD card. Replaces the card edge connector with a female 0.1 pin header. I will post pictures of the board layout software, but the actual implementation will become more clear once I have the boards on monday.

Button PCB
There were existing options for the DMG-01, but they only had A and B buttons, I used the super game girl board at first for prototyping, but it wasnt really designed for the DMG GB even though it was based on the original 2 button PCB--ABXY button pads didn't line up. I decided to make my own board specifically for the DMG GB with the extra X and Y buttons. I am selling the extra boards on Ebay. I received them today and have pictures.

Pictures and video.

Video of GPIO mapped buttons and Adafruit screen working in Prototype form.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM_RlXi ... e=youtu.be

Main board and Cart board Panelized (Layout Software screen shot)
Image

Button Board PCB
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wermy
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Re: My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Post by wermy » Fri May 06, 2016 6:28 pm

Very cool, thanks for sharing! I'm blown away by how many people are doing their own PCBs. :)

I'm going to move this to the GBZ-specific forum.
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prerunnerseth
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Re: My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Post by prerunnerseth » Fri May 06, 2016 6:37 pm

I'm an electronics engineer by trade. I layout PCBs at work all the time. Its pretty easy for me.

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crispy_tofu
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Re: My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Post by crispy_tofu » Fri May 06, 2016 7:25 pm

prerunnerseth wrote:I'm an electronics engineer by trade. I layout PCBs at work all the time. Its pretty easy for me.
Wow, cool! :D
Your project looks very professional, what software do you use?

prerunnerseth
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Re: My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Post by prerunnerseth » Fri May 06, 2016 7:30 pm

crispy_tofu wrote:
prerunnerseth wrote:I'm an electronics engineer by trade. I layout PCBs at work all the time. Its pretty easy for me.
Wow, cool! :D
Your project looks very professional, what software do you use?

for layout? Using eagle right now, but I also have used Proteus and Pads.

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crispy_tofu
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Re: My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Post by crispy_tofu » Fri May 06, 2016 7:51 pm

Yes for layout, I should give EAGLE a try... :D

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wermy
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Re: My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Post by wermy » Fri May 06, 2016 8:12 pm

crispy_tofu wrote:Yes for layout, I should give EAGLE a try... :D
Yep, I want to check that out as well. I'm pretty surprised how many people are doing custom PCBs -- I feel left out at this point! :)
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Re: My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Post by Sprockett » Sat May 07, 2016 12:10 pm

I would pay good money for one of those...

prerunnerseth
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Re: My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Post by prerunnerseth » Sat May 07, 2016 1:24 pm

Sprockett wrote:I would pay good money for one of those...

The main board or for the fully built gameboy zero?

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Re: My Gameboy Zero Build with Custom PCBs

Post by Sprockett » Sat May 07, 2016 3:46 pm

The pcb, my buttons are a bit closer though. I was going to etch one by hand, but I might try to use eagle, getting the correct positions will a royal pain :shock:

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