Recently I bought myself a Raspberry Pi and quickly got fascinated by the RetroPi project and EmulationStation.
Since I obviously love portable gaming Systems, my idea was to go portable with the Pi as well.
So I searched the Web and quickly came across a lot of projects already handling this idea..
The projects that fascinated me the most were the "Raspberry Pi Gameboy Pocket" (Pi-Pocket) by XodusTech
and the "Portable Pi project" from TheBenHeckShow from Youtube.
So based on what I saw there I decided myself to make use of the old GameBoy Classic to build in my Pi!
Firstly because of the better space management and secondly because I found a broken one for cheap money!
My Goal was simple: Keep the case as original as possible and make use of the buttons and ports.
I photo-documented everything from the first step and thought why not share my procedure, even if it's not finished yet. (But more about that later)
So lets start!
The Case:
This is the clear cased DMG-001 I picked up on a local FleaMarket. I would have preferred a grey one but this guy got it's charm, too.
The first step was to get out all the parts, figure on how to positioning the Pi and what parts to be reused.
Since the battery compartment gives the Pi a good inner case and plays a big role as pressure-resistant for the buttons, I decided to just dremel it out partially.
Ports:
To get the Pi to fit into this, the LAN and USB ports had to go... I'm really no friend of desoldering ports of the Pi but since those are huge and can't be used anyways, it was Ok for me. (Of course I could've desoldered all of the ports, but yeah, maybe I will or have to do so on a later point of this project.)
The Pi fits just perfectly into the case and doesn't really need to be secured at first. The SD Card is easily accessible from the Cardridge slot.
But then I though why not solder one USB port back so my WLAN adapter works internaly.
This way I now have one internal USB port and another one accessible from outside where the old Ext.Connector Port used to be.
Re-use of parts:
Next up was to cut out the button part of the board to re-use those.
And just for the first testings this amateur-like speaker wirering.. xD
Fits perfectly!
For re-using the Power switch, power socket and volume-controller some parts of the mainboard had to be cut out as well.
The Screen:
I ordered a 2,5'' LCD from china to fit the old screen specs as good as possible but there still is some blank metal visible which I simply covered with tape in the end. (Any bigger screen sizes needs you to destroy some inner plastic and wipes the ability to screw together the housing correctly.)
And this is what it looks like screwed together for now.
Well so far so good. Now the sad news: It took like over a month to get that 2,5'' screen and it started smoking after 5 minutes of testings. China stuff.. -.-
And since I'm not willing to reinvest in this crap and those screens are hard to find with composite video out, my personal Gameboy-Pi-Project is on ice for now.
There is still much to do like:
- think about a battery solution
- interpose the power switch
- solder and connect the buttons to the GPIO pins
- find a good audio solution which includes to use of the volume controller and headphone jack
- replace the scratched front window
..and probably a lot more
But those things can only be done when I know about the new LCD specs and got the right regulators and stuff for that in front of me.
Well, I just wanted to share my ideas and experience with you guys and I think that's it for now.
Of course I will continue this documentation when there are any news and time.
Thanks for your interest
