My Gameboy Zero project(s)

[gnarlynick]

Hello all,

I am truly inspired by this project and am taking on the daunting task of making three of them. I would just like to say I am proud to join this community of makers and I love the positivity being spread throughout these forums.

This is my first really in-depth hardware hacking project. I've done various GBA/GBP backlight mods, a GBC frontlight mod and other miscellaneous minor projects of tinkering with electronics; some successful, others not so much. I look forward to sharing ideas as I go along with this community.
[spoiler="Before"]I got the shells all cut; A Dremel with a Flex Shaft is an amazing tool for precise cuts, highly recommended. I have to Retr0bright the two white DMGs, one more so than the other as you can see. I'm thinking of buying some black acrylic paint and filling in the natural lines on the DMG like the one running above the screen or the cutouts for the speaker to really make it pop.

I left the headphone jack mount on two of the DMGs as the first one I just followed wermy's tutorial verbatim and I thought I could improve upon it in some ways after the fact. We shall see if that headphone jack makes it to the final build or not considering space. I wish I had left a 1 mm or so ledge around the screen to mount a screen lens to to protect the LCD screen. I will just end up attaching the lens to the LCD screen itself now. I ordered the clear Glass lenses from Kitsch-Bent and will have to artfully place some thin black double sided adhesive to make it look nice as it'll be completely visible from the outside and serve as the screen bezel.

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I ordered various colors of Kitsch-Bent's silicone DMG buttons and I really like how these feel. I am going to exclusively use these for my D-Pad, Start/Select and A/B/X/Y buttons. Also got the Teensy LC wired to the Kitsch-Bent control board for two of the three DMGs and all button presses are registering correctly.

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[/spoiler]

[spoiler="After"]Coming Soon[/spoiler]

[spoiler="The components I have purchased for these builds"]SCREEN:
-BW 3.5" TFT LCD Composite Display (Variant 2 from the wiki) w/ Custom-Made External Button Board
-Kitsch-Bent Clear Glass DMG Screen Lens
-2mm Double Sided Black Adhesive Tape (For Screen Bezel)

MAIN BOARD:
-Raspberry Pi Zero v1.3

CONTROL:
-Kitsch-Bent Common Ground DMG Button PCB (A/B/X/Y)
-Kitsch-Bent Silicone DMG buttons
-Teensy LC

CARTRIDGE I/O:
-Prerunnerseth's Micro SD Card Cart w/ Advanced Filtering
-Samsung 32GB Class 10 Micro SD Card
-OEM DMG Cartridge Slot
-Aluminum Foil (For Shielding Various Interference-Sensitive Wires)

POWER:
-CJMCU Micro USB Interface Board (From Banggood.com)
-Adafruit SPDT Slide Switch
-Adafruit Powerboost 1000c
-Adafruit 3.7v 2500 mAh LiPo Battery
-Gaffers Tape (For Battery Protection)

AUDIO:
-Adafruit Mono 2.5W Class D Audio Amplifier
-PWM Audio Buffer Board (From Helder) populated w/ 150 & 270 Ohm resistors & 33 nF & 10 uF capacitors.
-Adafruit 8 Ohm 0.5W Mini Metal Speaker
-10K Ohm Double Dial Taper Wheel Potentiometer

I/O:
-Targus 4-port USB Hub

MISC:
-3D Printed screw post provided by wermy
-22 AWG (For Power) & 26 AWG (For Everything Else) wire
-Kapton Tape (For Shielding Internal Components)
-Electrical Tape (General Use)
-Hot Glue (For Mounting Various Components)[/spoiler]

[wermy]

@gnarlynick
Welcome! I'm going to move this to the "Show-off Corner" section for you -- that's where folks put their build progress/log threads. Looking forward to seeing your updates!

[Kilren]

I do like the green case quite a bit. Where did you snag that from?

[grenade44]

I do like the green case quite a bit. Where did you snag that from?

It looks like a green play it loud edition. They made a nice collection of colours, i believe they are very rare these days.

Play It Loud series

Deep Black (1995)
Gorgeous Green (1995)
Radiant Red (1995)
Vibrant Yellow (1995)
High Tech Transparent (1995) (US)
Traditional White (1995) (JP)
Cool Blue (1995) (UK)

[gnarlynick]

It is the green Play It Loud case. I could not find a decent looking aftermarket green case. The green ones aren't very rare in the US, the blue ones are super hard to come by however; They are beautiful but I'd hate to tear that one apart. They can be found on eBay to varying degrees of success on condition and price.

A bonus to using a Play It Loud / colored case:
[spoiler="No need to Retr0bright it"]

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[/spoiler]

[gnarlynick]

I bought the kk_gb_zero_b PCB with a Micro SD socket attached. I noticed the terminology Kitsch-Bent used in their wiring diagram differed slightly from terminology used for full sized SD cards. I found this image online that helped define those for a Micro SD

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[spoiler="So I mocked this up to assist me with wiring my cartridge pins to the Pi Zero"]

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[/spoiler]

[Robots86]

So far so good. Id love to get my hands on a green dmg

[Flowlance]

So I mocked this up to assist me with wiring my cartridge pins to the Pi Zero.

Thanks for the diagram! I ordered the same board and was wondering how to wire it... Definitely will be using this

[LoafSlice]

I bought the kk_gb_zero_b PCB with a Micro SD socket attached. I noticed the terminology Kitsch-Bent used in their wiring diagram differed slightly from terminology used for full sized SD cards. I found this image online that helped define those for a Micro SD
MSDPinouts.jpg

So I mocked this up to assist me with wiring my cartridge pins to the Pi Zero.
kk_gb_zero_hookup.jpg

1465526390556145739065.jpg

did you get this from Kitchbent? I think I got version A. gggeeeez

[gnarlynick]

did you get this from Kitchbent? I think I got version A. gggeeeez

Yes, I believe revision A had the Micro SD Socket in the center of the board, revision B (the one I have) has it on the edge so I can cut a slot in the side of the cartridge case and access it.

Although, I am having connectivity problems with it at the moment. I think it is error on my part as the socket shipped unattached to the board so I soldered it on and may not have all 8 contacts attached properly. I will have to check later for shorts but as of right now I can't boot when the SD card is in the game cartridge but the Pi will boot when the SD card is directly inserted into the Pi socket. Got some troubleshooting ahead of me.