Ok, I gave in...

[alxm]

Nice work! When the Pi Zero came out I also wanted to make myself a custom handheld in a GBA case, a modern GP2X if you will, with a custom launcher menu and everything. I lost track of it since I couldn't find the Zero for sale anywhere at the time Seeing this rekindled my interest though, looking forward to see how this goes.

 

[elwing]

I finally ordered one case on shapeways... It took me some time as I had to edit some parts a bit to match shapeways rules... It wasn't easy for a first... I took a polished green top and all the rest is polished yellow it's marginally more expensive than the white one... I'll probably will test some more expensive materials for my two other cases, but let's see how this one fits... I'll also need to assemble the two other units... Min quantity for the pcb was three and three sets of parts on mouser cost marginally more than for just one due to the free shipping minimal cost..

 

[elwing]

Surprise !
[doublepost=1501911247,1501881885][/doublepost]

Ok, that's just barely mounted together... It still needs a bit of sanding (the start and select are almost pressed when the case is correctly closed). I also still need to order the final batteries and find a way to add threaded bolts. I'll probably use some cut down spacer with epoxy for that...

 

[elwing]

Sorry for the long time without update...
I had a business travel and I had to wait for batteries...




Not all is perfect through...

• there's some space between top and bottom shell...
• the clicky switch selected are pretty good, but it still do not compare well with membrane ones...
• audio is really noisy, but I guess this is my fault, I suspect it's because the LCD I used has no shielding while the one in the original project had a small metallic support. that or it was noisy too.
• the pi zero is quite power limited, out of the box without any configuration, some PSX games are slow, even some SNES one do not run so well, there's for sure room to make both these console run well, but the pi zero is definitely not the same beast as a pi3...
• the screen as not a great view angle, and it's a portrait oriented lcd, it's not great to have some left-right differences.

but altogether I'm really happy with the result...
now I'm not sure what I'll do with the additional hardware for two other console... I was going to build them, and probably offer them at cost on tindie or such, but I got some really surprise when ordering the case... basically shipping + TVA + UPS special examination tariff means that I paid more in tax than on the case part, and the case including taxes end up costing more than all the component for 1 piboy zero... not fun...

 

[directive0]

Hey that turned out awesome! Well done! Mind if I ask what the case cost from shapeways?

I'm impressed a PiZero can run PSX games at all, though.

 

[levi]

The Pi Zero has a GHz ARM CPU in it, so you can compare it with a Pandora. It's only an ARM11 (with some weird extensions), so you don't get the same bang for you buck as you do with a Cortex A8 at the same clock speed, but if you run it at a GHz or so, you can still get a fair bit out of it. I'd imagine the GPU is better supported by Broadcom than the TI one is for our team because of the staff working on it too. So I'd have thought it would be somewhat comparable to a 600MHz Cortex A8 like in the rebirth Pandoras, which we know can run most PSX games well (although with the Pi CPU running 'hotter' in a number of senses, it is more thermally limited).

 

[elwing]

I haven't run extensive test for performances... In fact I only have one psx game on it, it's gran tourismo, and I suspect that it is a rather costly to run game... It runs a bit slow, like 2/3 of the speed, and that's on simple tasks like licenses tests, it is probably worst when other cars runs... This is with the stock options, I think we could get way better performances, and I am fairly certain that simpler games (rpg...) will run perfectly there...
[doublepost=1503485247,1503471111][/doublepost]

Hey that turned out awesome! Well done! Mind if I ask what the case cost from shapeways?

I'm impressed a PiZero can run PSX games at all, though.

Sorry... I missed that point... 32€ for the case +8€ for the shipping + 7chf of tva + 21chf for ups "border control taxe"...

 

[PowerGod]

You can find similar devices with the same purpose for less than that price, but still it turned out very cheap for a custom thing, good work, it's really cool !!

 

[elwing]

Well the form factor and the diy attracted me... Both my gcw0 and Pandora are better for such task...

 

[directive0]

You can find similar devices with the same purpose for less than that price, but still it turned out very cheap for a custom thing, good work, it's really cool !!

Like Rpi based ones, or you mean those random emustation handhelds that all have some kind of small caveat that makes them annoying? I mean I guess this has its own caveats, but like you said elwing; the diy part is the cool bit. I dig it!

Also, I know its like the height of cliche to talk about raspis but I'm really excited about all the cool projects they make possible.

 

[PowerGod]

Like Rpi based ones, or you mean those random emustation handhelds that all have some kind of small caveat that makes them annoying?

Yeah, but you don't have to build them

 

[pmprog]

Mine's slowly taking shape... Though to be honest, I've not even thought about the case yet. Originally I was thinking of trying to cram it in a GBAdvance case, but I decided to have a play and designed some of my own circuit boards, so I think my overall set will be too tall/deep now.
Thought I'd carry on soldering everything anyway, just to see if I can get it all running nicely, and worry about the finer details later Probably start looking at writing the virtual keyboard software soon, as I'm not planning on this just being emulation station.