Nobble's Pikaboy SP: Pokemon-themed RetroPie console in a GBA SP shell.

[nobble]

I have been putting off my WiiP for a few days and felt bad about my laziness. After I had been laying in bed night after night, restless, knowing that my project was watching me from the corner of the room, I hid it away and thought about my life decisions.

So I decided to go on a diet of raspberry pi and solder fumes. In my Wiik state, I had visions of Gameboys and Pigrrls reproducing small foldable Gamebabies while Pikachu stood in the corner grinning and nodding his head. He new the pokeyiffing would soon begin.

All of the sudden, I was greeted by giant god-like men. They told me that I was chosen to forge something with my hot iron pressed deep into pins and cross circuits quickly, with haste, like on prom night. Then I would regret my actions and have to live with it, wishing that I had bought a better battery protection module for the event.

In return of having to witness such a horrid vision, the π Gods granted me 3 wishes:

• My first wish, was to use as many parts as I already have to build this ungodly offspring.
• Second, I want to be cheap about this. I don't know how much more ramen my body can take.
• Third, to be able to replicate and possibly make more to sell, because why not populate the world some more?

Here's my basic parts to start off the build.

I took the pi zero out of the plexi case and wired up the screen to composite out.

My screen didn't function properly with the wiring from the connector that comes with the screen so I had to wire 5v directly to an onboard regulator. The screen and pi booted up just fine after that.

I even tested a few games for memes.

The SP casing I have is leftover from a case swap I did years ago. I don't have the top half, but won't be needing it really since I have to make it thicker to house the LCD board. I have been wanting to make a Pokemon themed handheld and finally decided to go for it. Nothing fancy, just something probably yellow with Pikachu features.

I will have to buy a teensy for the control mapping, unless someone knows of an easier way OR has a solution to map with Attiny85s because I have too many still from my arduinoboy.


I may forget about this project..

Only time will tell.

 

[Cephiros]

I'm using the gpio in mine your only mapping a handfull of buttons. Should be np

 

[DeoNaught]

I would suggest using the Gpio pins, because then it takes up less space, and then the usb is free.
Tis what I am going to do, since my Usb is fried .-.

EDIT:
you can use teensy, use that one persons script and then you are ready to go, the only thing is tho, That's the only usb you can use, unless you get a hub, which would take up alot of space

Nother Edit,
If you plan to make more babies, make sure you document well, it helps when selling, and revising.

 

[fibbef]

I'm using the gpio in mine your only mapping a handfull of buttons. Should be np

Thirded. I used Adafruit’s Retrogame for my past Pi projects. Pretty easy to configure, at least a Linux noob/nood such as myself could handle it. Drawback is afaik it still doesn’t implement analogs, which something tells me your project won’t have anyway. Go ahead and prove me wrong!

 

[nobble]

I decided to use the free buttons and d-pad that Handheld Legend sent me when I bought my backlight kit. In order to make these fit, I will need to cut away some of the plastic. I already made the d-pad fit by trimming each direction at the ends. Now I just need to drill bigger holes for the A and B buttons. I'll use tact switches for Start, Select, and X, Y.

Edit: Thanks for the tips guys, I just noticed the replies. I'll be sure to look into as many routes as possible so I can go about it the best way. And maybe prove @fibbef wrong and add 3ds sliders or something. Hehe.

 

[ShockSlayer]

yo just a heads up for anyone tag me if you use CC in your project pictures beacuse that's like CRACK to me

 

[nobble]

yo just a heads up for anyone tag me if you use CC in your project pictures beacuse that's like CRACK to me

TIME4CCmemes

Edit: @ShockSlayer ;3

 

[nobble]

My board decided to start growing some translucent fungus this week. When I went back to check it today, there was full size USB right on top of the micro USB OTG port. Also it gained an onboard power switch and now is basically one contained unit for making further testing easy until I install it into it's case. I may take pieces of the SP case and frankencase it into something completely unique. I just don't know if I'll have the room inside a stock case for everything I want. The driver board is my main worry.

 

[YveltalGriffin]

*bump* I'm here as always to vouch for using the RasPi's GPIO for DPI (display parallel interface.) You could go for 18- or 20-bit color rather than full 24-bit and still have GPIO left for controls if you wanted.

Benefits of using DPI: Digital, 60Hz, pixel-perfect output, no driver board required. Super easy to set up in software, too.
Cons: Little bit of spaghetti wiring, but some 30-gauge kynar makes it a piece of cake.

Sauce: http://blog.reasonablycorrect.com/raw-dpi-raspberry-pi/

 

[nobble]

Update: I'm inevitably putting this on hold till after the spring memes of MGC and my thousand other projects see some more progress. I am working on a similar RPi project. Go check out that worklog if you would like to see more portable retropie madness!