A DIY Raspberry Pi 2/3 Gameboy / SNES Gameboy - 'The Gabeboy'

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If you like this project and I've been a help, feel free to buy me a coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/iduncantUpdate 22/01/2024The most recent verison I have now fully constructed and tested. A couple important details added.As the RPi needs a consistent voltage to run, you'd need a supplementary sensor to monitor the battery cell (or you can let the BMS board just cut off power then you know it's time to charge). So I've included a hole and support for a small amazon voltage meter that tracks the battery's voltage. Then you know when it's running low.Secondly, I've included a cutout for a rocker switch so you can turn it on and off.I didn't want to de-solder the USB header and wire the control pad directly into the RPI as it was tough without having a heat gun, so I very lazily ran the cord out of the case and just plugged it in!Because power mangaement, and lithium ion batteries are somewhat dangerous if not handled correctly, I'll need to leave you on your own to get the following categorigal parts sorted out:One lithium cellBattery mangement / charge protection boardStep up converterON the rest of the components, the point of this project was to make it so I didn't need to modify an existing circut board as in the Adafruit one.So this is using a raspberry pi3An amazon Snes USB controller (came in a pack of 2)and a 3.5 inch SPI TFT touch screen. The one I picked was by osoyoo because it had a 5v port on the back making it very easy to run power into that and power the pi.If you're looking for more detailed instructions on how to build this please let me know and I can write it up and document it a bit more for people who are interested in making it!Update 14/01/2024Updating with version 3 with updated board supports for the circuit board from the back side of the case. It's needed to help support the board where the buttons are pressed. Also lowered the supports around the select buttons and moved them so that they are not interfering with the soldered usb wires. Futhermore I added the guide holes in the button supports as the buttons seem to have small protrusions from them when they come out of the generic USB controller.The other major change is that there are now 4 screw holes to hold the whole thing together. One in each corner. A major issue was that the top wouldn't close with the original design and required gluing. This should now permit you to use some longer m3 screws to keep it shut on all corners.This is still a 4 button design, I have not added in the left and right shoulder buttons to the back of the case yet. That will be for a next version.Update 08/01/2024We've now built a first version of this using the following components:Raspberry Pi 22500 mAh lipo batteryWaveshare like TFT screen off amazonan SNES USB controller off amazonA couple things added, a small switch to cut the power to the system, but it does require the user to shut down the computer first (not great for a 12 year old!)Also there's a TP4056 battery charger and protection module as well as a battery holder, and a small step up voltage converter set to 5.2v to make sure the board is well and cleanly powered.We de-soldered one of the USB ports on the board and directly soldered in the USB controller to one of the usb ports. Removing the port was a bit of a hassle, however thankfully we'd just gotten a heat gun to make it a bit easier.A couple issues I came up against, the placement of the pins to keep the board from the controller in place were a little off, so a new version needed to be made (it's in this) also tolerances were way too tight, so every hole for each button has been opened up to make movement easier.the TFT we used has not got a great refresh rate so it's a little choppy, I'm looking into this part and seeing if that's something we can solve. I didn't get the actual touch driver running, but it wasn't something I had really wanted to do.The version 1 took a lot of sanding and modifying to get every component in there, so I've added all the changes we did manually to the file and the v2 reflects that.Will update when I've built another. I'm also looking at doing two batteries in parallel to have the system run a bit longer Another issue was not having any screws at the top, this kept that section from closing cleanly where the top of the screen is, so we glued it, in the v3 I'll reposition the holes so that it's on each corner.This is still in progress, and yet to be tested, but I was not interested in cutting an existing circuit board, and I am using a waveshare so I didn't have access to GPIO's for making my own custom controller.I decided to create this so I could use a USB SNES controller from Amazon without modifications beyond taking it apart.I wanted this to be a simple assembly job for my nephew, so i tired to work to the dimensions of each component. When I have this finished up and tested I'll post a fuller build.Thanks for checking it out!