Erik's Build

[erik_gee]

Hello! New to the site and wanted to share what im working on.
Im a computer engineering student and have worked on a few electronic projects on the side, huge hobby of mine. Love games, love making things, that why i started with this project.

some of my parts are different and i had a few different ideas but ended up scrapping some of them, here is my part list. I had a lot of stuff scrapped from other electronics or already in my parts bin, but ill list what im using:

Bought:[spoiler="Parts"]GB shell - http://www.ebay.com/itm/181590084104?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
2x hdmi adapter - http://www.ebay.com/itm/201481328234?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
Battery Charger/booster - http://www.ebay.com/itm/291644400220?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
5x audio amplifier - http://www.ebay.com/itm/201574969988?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
button pcb - http://www.ebay.com/itm/231974209588
micro usb extension - http://www.ebay.com/itm/391349333231?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
8 button tactile button matrix - http://www.ebay.com/itm/111942968211?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
2x snes type controllers - http://www.ebay.com/itm/182115879367?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
clear glass screen protector - https://handheldlegend.com/products/gam ... 9634764355
3.5 inch car monitor - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0045 ... UTF8&psc=1
5200mah battery(updated) - http://www.ebay.com/itm/391465376956?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT[/spoiler]

already owned/ salvaged:[spoiler="Parts"]switch
wires
speaker
battery
leds
volume wheel pot
headphone jack
otg adapter
tactile buttons[/spoiler]

I started a few days ago, used rasps to file out the screen area. I left 4 small lips on each side to hold a screen protector.

close up on the edges


Then i affixed the lcd to the case, got it even and glued it in. Need a screen protecter to cover the silver parts however.




As you can see, i put a yellow jumper cable on the display board. The lcd actually worked out of the box with 5v but i noticed on anything above 45% brightness, the screen would have phasing issues and lines would appear. After i short circuited the 5v, the screen looked much better!

Then i moved on to the ports. Files out the contrast port to fit a full size hdmi. I used the hdmi adapter i listed above. Using an exacto knife, i cut off the surrounding plastic on the adapter. After i did so, i realize the pi was having troubles fitting against the lcd board. woop! I ended up filing some of the plastic around the top and bottom of the adapter to fit it in the port how but i left the side to fill in the blank area.





Then i filed down the usb port. Im using my otg adapter for this. I had to again cut the plastic off around the adapter for it to fit in the port. With the way my pi is positioned, my adapter is just barely too short to make it to the port, so i will be extending the wires a bit so that it will reach. Shouldnt be more than an inch of wiring.

Then i worked on my battery compartment. Im using a replacement battery for an old phone i had. Its 3800 mah Li-ion so should be beefy enough to last me a good few hours. I tested it with my battery charger and it fully charged in around 2 hours, but i will need to do more testing on charge time with different variables. The battery was just slightly too big so i had to remove the battery terminals on the case, as well as file down the ridges and terminal holders.


(also had to cut out this whole at the top of the compartment so the pi would fit corretly.)

I have a bit more done but ill save that for another post when i finish a few more things!

[wermy]

Nice! Love the full-sized HDMI.

[Kilren]

Looks like the build is coming along nicely. Good work.

Fixed your spoilers.

[spoiler="How to do spoilers"]Start with your spoiler tags.
(spoiler=](/spoiler]
Next, add the subject of the spoiler after the = in quotation marks.
(spoiler="Testing Spoilers"](/spoiler]
Then add the content between the brackets that you want.
(spoiler="Testing Spoilers"]The hidden material(/spoiler]

You did everything right with your spoilers, except forgetting the subject in quotation after the = sign.
Hope this helps.[/spoiler]

[erik_gee]

Thanks guys! And sorry about the spoilers, still a little new to these things haha

[Kilren]

Thanks guys! And sorry about the spoilers, still a little new to these things haha

No problem! Why we're here. Let us know if you have questions. Good luck!

[erik_gee]

my button matrix isnt in yet but this is the plan.




Im planning on forgoing the sd card cartridge just because i dont have very stable hands and i dont believe ill be needing access to the card very often. Instead my idea is to put this arduino button matrix into the cartridge instead. Im deciding to use the pins on the pi instead of a microcontroller for the game controls. I will need to see how many pins i would have left. The remaining pins will be wired to buttons on this bored, that way i can have some extra controls. Possibly use these buttons for save state saving and loading maybe? Havent decided yet. I can always change what each button does later to add some extra control.

The green and red dots are leds that i will be wiring to my battery charger, red for charging green for fully charged. There is a 3rd led i could use for "loud in use" which basically just means the device is on but i dont think that is necessary, so im leaving it off. Im gonna file out the gameboy logo on the front of the cartridge and put in a piece of black painted plastic i carved from the bw lcd screen protector. That way when the device is off, it is just black, and then when charging, the lights will show through.

I made these images in photoshop and should to scale with eachother so i will have plenty of room as you can see. The plan is to carve a longer slot into the cartridge that will allow me to slide the top of the cartidge up, gaining access to the controls under it. The back of the cartidge would simply be glue to the gameboy, use as a frame/housing for the buttons and leds. A normal cartridge opens up byt sliding down, so ill have to carve out a sliding slot in the opposite direction.

Since my matrix isnt in, ill get into more detail when i get to it, as of right now i still have to work on some other aspects. Stay tunes!

[Robots86]

Hi erik can you tell me where you connected the jumper cable from and to. Cant tell with the hot glue.
Thanks

[erik_gee]

Hi erik can you tell me where you connected the jumper cable from and to. Cant tell with the hot glue.
Thanks

Of course. For boards with my layout, you want to jump the 5v to the 2nd pin on the chip to the right, in between the inductors. The 5v being where the red wire is. These are the 2 areas circled in blue bellow on my board (before i jumped it)


In this orientation, pin 2 is the 2nd pin from the bottom on the right. Just solder a wire to these 2 spots and you should be good !

In case you wanted more info or in case anyone else is having troubles with different types of boards, this chip converts the 12v from your car to 5v. Since we are already have a 5v source, we want to skip the chip because we no longer need the conversion. The 2nd pin is the 5v output normally, so we simply grab our 5v from our source, jump over our converter, and put the 5v where it would normally come out of, on pin 2.

If anyone has a different layout and is unsure which chip, look for the one that says something along the lines of " chmc 1509". You will always need to connect to pin 2 which can be found using this diagram. Pins are read around in a circle:


It is VERY important your chip is oriented correctly when you count. There should be a notch at the top of the chip, as shown in the image. When the notch is on top, pin 1 is top left. Sometimes instead of a notch there is a dot besides pin 1. In my board photo, i had my chip upside down, thats why my pin 2 was in the bottom right corner,just rotate it around and youll see its in the same spot for pin 2 as the diagram.

In summary, connect 5v red wire to the 2nd pin on the chmc 1509 chip
Sorry, a little long, but i hope it can help more people

[chiz]

@Erik
I'm very interested in the battery performance and how that i9020 3800mah extended battery will fit in the DMG case. Hoping you can post pics showing some pics with the battery in the compartment. Also, do you know if that battery has protection built-in?

If this battery works well, I think you may have found the "holy grail" of the GBZ batteries.

[erik_gee]

@Erik
I'm very interested in the battery performance and how that i9020 3800mah extended battery will fit in the DMG case. Hoping you can post pics showing some pics with the battery in the compartment. Also, do you know if that battery has protection built-in?

If this battery works well, I think you may have found the "holy grail" of the GBZ batteries.

It took some chisseling to get it to fit but it worked haha I posted a pic earlier of the compartment, had to file down the battery ridges and remove some of the tabs that held the springs in place but it went it. I'll post a pic of it later inside the compartment when I'm back on a PC.

As far as the battery itself, it does have built in overcharge protection as stated on a few pages I read. Also the battery charger I use also has overcharge protection so even if the battery itself didn't, I should be covered. And for performance, I unfortunately haven't tested in the system yet. All I have done was solder it to the charger and test that it did charge (and not blow up!) And it charged just fine. I do believe it was from China when I got it, and resold at an American store. So the mah could be off. But I'll know more once it's properly testes and share my results.

I will say this though, I used this battery on my old phone and it did well. Originally battery was 1200 mah I believe and when I replaced it with this, I got much more time out of my phone. So if it's not the labeled capacity, ID say it's at least as good as a 2500 mah battery and I'm fine with that,especially since it's just been sitting in a junk pile haha
Also they are about 10$ on eBay if you search so the cost is next to nothing