And today I can show you some pictures and video of the wolf in sheep's clothing.
ALIVE! -- IT'S ALIVE!! Muhahaha
As my little helper I want to give a big "Thank you" to my assistent Dr.Emel who was always a work maniac when it was his turn to work on the project.
And another huge "Thank you" goes to Retroman for the great idea for that conversion!
Here are some pictures of the work in progress. All the mounting tabs and most of the plastic parts inside the GameBoy had to be removed to fit in the 3.5" display and all the boards.
The major problem was the controller PCB of the display. I had to desolder some of the capacitors and a coil and move them to other places or the backside. I had to cut down the three menu control push-buttons.
My plans were to use the original front buttons of the GameBoy but they wasted to much space inside with the original PCB. I had to ask Dr.Emel to do some destructive work and after that the buttons were glued in to give the authentic look from the outside.
I wanted to have a portable battery powered GamePi. I use a 2S LiPo 1300maH (7.4V).
I was glad that the 3.5" TFT is still working at 7 volts (at about 200mAh).
When I am at a stationary place I can use a 230V to USB power adapter. For mobile short use the internal 2S Lipo will be fine (maybe 1.5 hours). For long time use I am thinking of a LiPo Power Bank with 16000mAh (about 60 Euro) which will give me several hours run-time.
I have used a small 4 port USB hub that is soldered onto the onboard USB port of the Raspberry Pi but without the red +5V wire.
On the second picture below you can see the big opening for the HDMI to VGA adapter.
So inside the Pi, the USB hub and TFT display are powered by the LiPo. The TFT has got it's own power switch (where the contrast wheel was) to save battery. Left next to it is the head phone jack.
I use the original power switch to turn the Pi and display power on/off.
The SD card and the battery will be accessable through the original battery deck ot the GameBoy. I need to find a good way to keep the battery cover in place.
Latest UPDATE 25.08.12:
My GamePi is finished now. Here are some last pictures from the inside and the running GamePi.
Build in +5V 2A voltage regulator (78S05) to run the Pi and the USB hub.
I have build a small heat sink out of two postage clamps. That regulator is getting hot.
I have made a showoff and demonstration video for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y56N98Bd87I
My display config.txt
sdtv_mode=2
sdtv_aspect=1 4:3
overscan_left=-7
overscan_right=-33
overscan_top=-30
overscan_bottom=-30
framebuffer_height=480
framebuffer_width=640
hdmi_drive=2
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=16
