SNES Micro : A raspberry pi Zero in a small clay and plastic case (+WORKLOG)

lyberty5

Well-Known Member
A small cosmetic mod, not in the rasp pi thread because there's not much modding going into it.

It's a small case made to look like the European Snes, the smalles possible, to accomodate a pi 0 and a usb Hub. It's sporting retropie and it looks capable to run a few snes games smoothly (at 480p).

Some glory shots :
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Nothing much going on, but if someone's interested, here's a quick rundown of the worklog :

Made a plastic box made to size to be the actual case. Then molded the clay poorly on top of that. Took it off when dry, and epoxyied it back on.
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Proceeded to try and make it look a bit less 'handmade' (or childlike) with some thourough sanding and knife usage.

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Also used a lot of bondo to fix various mistakes.

Superglued in some screw posts (gamecube case) + Epoxy again.

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Few coats of paint to rigidify the very porous surface of the clay and continue smoothing it up. Sanded and painted a few times.

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Cut Usb holes also (a bit late to be honest) and the holes to fit in the SD card and HDMI port

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Some final pics of the insides : the pi zero is the lowest value for length and is what limits the size of the build.
The usb hub is a flaxty 5€ hub from amazon built for tablets. It does the job but if I had to remake this I'd use an anker one or something else more sturdy. It looks like it's going to break in a week...

Noting much as of soldering. The Hub's 5V intake and the pi's are solderded as one in derivation. And the DP and DM lines are soldered from the convenient pads on the bottom of the pi. Thank you pi dev team ^^

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I had trouble running the system with only 1 Amp, the Xbox controller would always disconnect. 2 Amps seems like it's enough.

The keen eye will have noticed the lack of heatsink and airholes. To be honest, it gets quite hot... Quite an overlook on this part. An easy fix would be to drill holes in the ridges on the back of the case with a 1 mm dremel bit.

Hope you enjoy this guys :)
 
I've never seen a case made like that and I really like the attention to detail. I was going to use the Pi Zero myself for a while. Do you know how well it emulates things more demanding than SNES?
 
Oh my god it's adorable. But now you have to do one for everything the Pi Zero can emulate. A whole adorable family, if you will. And then train kittens to play them.
 
Oh my god it's adorable. But now you have to do one for everything the Pi Zero can emulate. A whole adorable family, if you will. And then train kittens to play them.
Dang, I wasn't even thinking about it but you're right, a mini Nes or atari would be so cute. Genesis doesn't really have a nice design though :/

A mini N64 or PSone with a raspberry pi 3 could be Dang cute also :p

I've never seen a case made like that and I really like the attention to detail. I was going to use the Pi Zero myself for a while. Do you know how well it emulates things more demanding than SNES?
Well, for the purposes of this video I have only tryied the SNES capabilities... I assume everything less demanding is fine.. The Doom port for retropie works amazing also and looks great.

However, I haven't even thought of trying games above that since it's already struggling with kirby when there are too many enemies.. Depends on the game so maybe?
 
You make awesome projects so I will forgive you... this time.

I really like that Genny 1 USB hub though, it's such a timeless modern looking design even 25 years on. Ages almost as well as I do.
 
Oh, see when people are complaining about solo artists from Genesis doing something that they think is egotistical, it's hard to think about anyone but old Phil.

I can't hear lyrics well, and I can't remember the last time I heard a Gabriel song that wasn't Mercy Street or Solsbury Hill. But a quick glance makes me think that the song is about powerful thrusting/smashing, and I can't really interpret any of these lyrics to refer to a physical object (his ding-a-ling).
 
the song is about powerful thrusting/smashing,

Just like sex :p

I can't believe this flew under the radar in the 80s, I mean stuffy ass Britain got it's panties bunched up over Relax, and you really need to know that song is about sex because it could be about anything really.
 
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