Close
0%
0%

Retro Pi Christmas

This is my project for building a completely enclosed gaming console as a Christmas present.

Similar projects worth following
A few of my family members are really into video gaming, especially retro consoles (Gameboy... N64.. ect.). For this reason, I decided to make them a completely enclosed gaming console. Little electrical/programming skills will be needed, but will provide a better experience for the mechanical side of things.

I will be building a total of three of these devices. Most of the parts will be sourced from readily available places (digi key, amazon.. ect.). I am trying for a minimal cost if possible, with the largest expense being the batteries.

  • 1 × Raspberry Pi 2
  • 1 × Sheet of MDF 49" x 49" x 1/2" - Apparently smallest they had
  • 1 × RAV Power 15000mah battery Has 2.1A, 1A and a 9/12V port
  • 1 × 800 x 480 16:9 NTSC/PAL Backup Camera Screen
  • 1 × 16GB Micro SD Card

View all 11 components

  • Completion!

    Lucas Rolfes12/28/2015 at 19:10 0 comments

    So I am bad at project logs. It's on my todo list to get better at those.

    Anyhow, the project was complete using the new components list. Pictures will be loaded.

    Things I discovered over the past few weeks:

    It appears that the RPI 2 can be powered over standard USB from a computer, but there are erroneous things that occur in that case. Specially video quality and audio quality drops significantly in that case. Providing a supply that can supply up to 1A is sufficient to remove the sheath current associated with the limited supply, which allows the Audio and Video quality to improve dramatically.

    MDF does not like to be screwed together and is easily breakable, so it turns out a lot of my cuts using the circular saw were not quite as accurate as I hoped. For this reason, there was a lot of additional wood glue used in the gaps to ensure it holds together solidly.

    This is more apparent in the pictures, but a slot was made for the battery to hold inside of the *cabinet*, but can be removed if desired or if it needs to be charged. The middle compartment houses the RPI 2. Holes were cut in the MDF to expose the HDMI/Power/Aux/USB/Ethernet ports to allow access to use it as a computer if more games are desired or whatever may be. The top portion shows the screen, just held in place by the 3M adhesive bottom and the wooden enclosure.

  • SD Cards Formatted

    Lucas Rolfes09/15/2015 at 18:52 0 comments

    After a hickup associated with Windows 10 Technical Preview BSODing my laptop, and my Virtual Box not seeming to accept any USB devices, allthree SD cards are running Retro-pi 3 for Raspberry pi 2, each with the ROMS installed.

    Following the previous, non-existing project log (finally figuring out how to use these things), debugging of the Nintendo 64 controller will be used to ensure none of the wires broke when attaching the PCB to the back of the screen.

    A couple of the heatsyncs for the RPI's came in. I noticed that the SOC's were getting fairly hot when playing games such as LOZ Majora's Mask. Still don't have any plans on how to remove the heat outside of the container, once removed from the chip.

View all 2 project logs

Enjoy this project?

Share

Discussions

Similar Projects

Does this project spark your interest?

Become a member to follow this project and never miss any updates