I recently built my first "GameBoy Zero" using Kite's Circuit Sword and wanted to share it with you guys.
About a half year ago I saw Wermys video about building a GameBoy on which you can play all your childhood games in such a nice and comfortable way. I was totally hooked and did a little research, discovered this forum and just wanted to have my own one. I'm a big Nintendo fan since childhood and gathered a nice little GameBoy collection and own a few other SNES and NES stuff, but not that much. A GameBoy Zero would fit very nice in my collection.
After reading almost every post in this forum and ordering thousands of parts from the whole globe, finally the last part - the Circuit Sword arrived and I started building.
My intention for my built was to have an almost fabric look and haptic. People who aren't into GameBoy Zeros shouldn't recognize this is self-made. So I used an original case, original SNES-Controller Buttons, original D-Pad and back buttons, even the on/off switch and start and select buttons are the original Gameboy ones. That's also the reason why I used the dot matrix with stereo sound screen surround.
The built went pretty well without any big problem and the software part was super easy too, although I didn't have had any experience with Ras-pies or coding and stuff. After a few hundred times opening and closing and testing, everything fitted together perfectly without any pressure or gaps. It was amazing to see Super Mario Kart running flawless for the first time on my device and I couldn't stop smiling!
Last but not least I want to thank the whole community for being so friendly and helpful! I never experienced such a way of communication in any other forum. Special thanks to Kite, Wermy, Erik G, YaYa, HollyHoo and all others who helped me and made this possible! Although I didn't use any part I ordered and got some left overs. With some of them I definitely build another one and the preorder is already placed.
For my next built I want to improve the quality of the product, the next one shall be absolutely perfect and I take my time for it. I've seen a few very nice ideas from absolutely amazing builts of other forum member and want to adapt a few things on mine. For example the SNES style look with the dark grey circle around the front buttons or wireless charging etc., I got o lot of ideas spinning around in my head, but time will come and we see what can be realized - maybe with the help of the forum.
Again thank you all very much and please have a look what I came up with: