364 Worklog

[Mario]

...I just can't seem to help myself.

Name? Dunno.
This one will have a memory card built in, the RAM swap, RCP wiring, and hopefully somewhere around 4 hours of battery life. The back is a sheet of metal, and that will act as the heatsink. Dimensions are about 3.75x5.5x1.25", with the cart on the back adding another .75 inches. Is it the smallest? Don't know, don't care. I just want to make something functional and attractive. I will be selling this one.

Model before I decided to have the cart on the back, not the top, with DMG for comparison:

This picture is not upside-down, but the cart is. It will slide in from the bottom.

The sweet screen I got, with brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation controls:

Acrylic pieces I cut for the cart cover. I still need to file the last piece to size.

Questions, comments, or ideas?

 

[brunoip]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

this gonna be epic
good luck

 

[Thecawesomeone]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Is that an analog slider for the c controls?

 

[Bino Gas]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Looks great, Mario! What do you use to glue acrylic?

edit: I almost forgot to mention how much I appreciate your worklogs. Thanks for posting this one.

 

[Mario]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Cawesome - I'm probably going to use a multi-directional tact. It'll have the four directions for the C-buttons, then pressing it down will be start. Maybe, it depends on how easy it is to press. (Pressing start by accident all the time would get annoying.)

Bino - I just use acrylic glue I found at my local hardware store. For me, it came in a metal tube (like JB weld) and was red. You can just look for any kind of acrylic glue. Fun fact - it's the same tube I used for my NESp, my first portable.
And thanks! I hope you'll enjoy the worklog.

I am going to be using a PSP joystick for this. Even for such a small range of motion, they're pretty sensitive, and I have no problem using it like a regular joystick. I took one apart to figure out the pins, and I decided to share:

This should work with all 3rd party controllers that use 4 pins for the joystick. I think a lot do this, so yeah. Even though the variable resistors are 5k, and most joysticks are 10k, they're acting as voltage dividers here and should work fine.

I tested it with my 3rd party controller and it was great.

 

[βeta]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Multi directional tacts are bigger than you think. Keep that in mind.

 

[ToastBucket]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

They're not that. Much bigger than a standard tact switch. I found some pretty good ones on mouser that are about a dollar each. When I find the link I'll post it.

Also, I would suggest having a little tab of plastic that slides out on the bottom to hold the cart in, kinda like that little tab on the DMG. It may seem unnecessary but if you're in the car and go over a pothole or something, the jerk might pull the cart right out.

 

[n644evermoder]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

looks awesome

 

[Twilight Wolf]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

This is epic-looking so far.

I'm mixed on the cart slot being upside-down, though. It looks cool, but it seems like it'd be really easy to jar the cart out of position or even have it fall out in that orientation.

If you could add a little latch with a spring that automatically clicks into place to hold the cart in place then I think it'd be great.

 

[Mario]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Beta, I don't know what kind of multidirectional tacts you're seeing, but the one I have is about 5x5mm and 3mm thick.

 

[bud]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Are those the shoulder buttons on the cart slot cover?

 

[Basement_Modder]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Nice.

This reminds me to PM you.

Gonna go scan my mobo.

 

[mymixed]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Looks great! What program did you use for the 3D model? It doesn't look like Google Sketch-Up.

- mymixed

 

[Mario]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Bud - Yes, they are. There's no room for them anywhere else on the back. There's only about 3/8" between the cartridge and the edge. This makes it very awkward to press the buttons if they are situated there, so I made the cartridge upside-down and put the buttons on the cover.

Mixed - It's Autodesk Inventor 2009. I took an engineering class in school, and we all got student accounts to download a free copy of the program. (The DMG model is mine, too, by the way. )

A little progress-
I got the cart slot cover done.

And this thing you're looking at is the c-buttons. The six wires in the middle are for the tact (1 ground, 4 directional buttons, and 1 middle button). The other wires are for four LEDs that are glued inside the yellow cap. I might just have them lit all the time to indicate where the button should be pressed, or maybe I'll use them for battery indication. We'll see.

I will try to put up a video soon of the PSP stick working.

 

[Hrduncan]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

thats fluxin awesome

 

[Mario]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Screen and speaker holes cut out of the front:

I bent some brackets out of shielding and soldered them to the back. I will be adding a triangle on the side for support, too:

 

[mymixed]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Looks great so far mario!

 

[Hrduncan]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

dang thats super awesome!

 

[βeta]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

Where'd you get the 4-way tact? How much was it?

 

[Mario]

Re: I told myself I wouldn't make a thread for this one, but

I took it off an old MP3 player. It used it for navigation.