Downing's OUYA Portable

[Downing]

Yup, decided to bite the bullet and make myself an OUYA portable (and doesn't look like I'm the first over here on MR anyway). Why? Isn't it kinda pointless? Why not get a smart phone? Yes I understand it's pretty pointless as there are other options out there, but honestly, I like my OUYA. I like what it stands for and I like a lot of the games on it. On top of this, I also had a lot of left over parts, including an HD 7" Screen and batteries from my original Cross Plane prototype, as well as a couple Cross Plane cases which I wanted to use up.

So I figured why not, it's not gonna cost much and I think I'd actually play this portable as I'm in love with Final Fantasy III and Pin Ball Arcade.

With that said, on to the progress!

So this is what a Cross Plane case front looks like when it comes off the 3D printer. Because 3D printing isn't nearly on par in terms of quality with circles and clean openings, I make a file from the original and leave .0625 holes in place of the button, screen and speaker cuts. This allows me to have accurate starting points when it goes onto the CNC machine which does an amazing job making perfect cuts.

This is what the case looks like after the entire case has been filled and sanded. This has to be done because the gaps in between the strands of the 3D printed casing will show up if it's not done this way. Pain in the ass, and if it weren't for the fact that all the screw posts and mounting layout in terms of a structural integrity didn't make assembly so much more secure, I probably would just still stick to vacuum forming. But that is enough to justify the cosmetic work that needs to be done. After it's filled and sanded, I then spray on a few coats of the Rustolum Filler/Primer which takes care of all the small imperfections.

And here it is after the machining process. You will notice though, I screwed up pretty badly with the Dpad because when I calibrated my machine, I made the stupidest mistake I've made in awhile. When you calibrate this machine, essentially you take a ruler, and set the center of the end mill on a starting line, tell the machine how far you want to move it and then tell it how far it actually moved. This way it can calculate the step of the motors and everything is good to go. Well, the machine works in millimeter units. I grabbed the wrong ruler which was in standard 1/32nds of an inch. Well, as you can imagine, that didn't go over so well and the D-Pad was cut 2mm too small and 2mm too high on the face. So, I had to cut out a replacement face plate and frankencased the plate into the face of the case. I also engraved the OUYA logo into the face as you can see, but I had to make the logo manually in SolidWorks. I think it came out alright for that.

After that was complete, I sanded the whole thing down, found the imperfections that weren't cut out by the mill and filled them in place. Tonight when I get home from work I'm going to sand down the face again, hit it with another coat of primer and it should be ready for painting.

Now, some of you may notice that Ben Heck did an OUYA portable a few weeks ago (I know Gman did as his printing style on his latest project is very reflective of it) that looks very similar in size and shape. However, I hold a strong belief that Ben may have borrowed the idea from The Cross Plane and our OUYA semi-portable we made from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF3pegaKpuY

So with that, I stand by the notion that I'm not copying him as I in fact had this in place well before he did.

Now as far as the guts go, most I already have, but my good friend RDC is working on a break down and schematic of the OUYA controller and working on a way to make the controller run off the Bluetooth module and not have to shove the whole controller board in there. We're working on a making a breakout board for the module so soldering right to the module won't be necessary and all the components that are needed to run it can be centrally located. So far he has everything traced and now just needs some testing but it's coming along nicely.

Lastly, the back of the case from the original Cross Plane had cutouts for the control paks that wasn't needed here. As such, I'm having Hail print me a re-worked back half which I should hopefully have in the next week or so, depending on how much he's dragging his feet. :XD So that will be the next step in terms of case work when that arrives.

More updates will be coming soon, so keep an eye out!

 

[Downing]

Progress!

Sanded the filler down and got everything nice and even. I'm really pissed I screwed up that d-pad, but for what it is, it's turning out ok.

I hit it with another round of primer which is looking decent but I think it's going to take one more round of drying and sanding with another coat of primer before I hit it with the paint, especially around the d-pad as that's standing out a bit more than I'd like it to.

While that was drying, I cut the buttons from the controller and got the PCBs ready for when the case is. You'll notice an extra button on the right side, or I should say an extra tact. That's not going to be used as there simply aren't that many buttons on the OUYA controller. The big button on the left is going to be the controller on/sync button and the plain grey one is going to be the OUYA power on/off. I'm going to need to use a mini rocker switch for the main power because the screen and controller need to have a kill switch, but the OUYA runs off a momentary on/off so if you hold the switch, it turns off. This is why two switches are necessary for this portable when a screen that's running off the same power source is being used.

Anyway, excited about the progress so far and will have more updates after this is done drying.

 

[Downing]

Ok, Small update.

Got the front half painted this morning. The shots show it shortly after it was painted so once it dries and I get the clear coats on it, I'll take another picture. The D-pad ring stands out more than a white guy in an Asian strip club...It sucks but not much I can do about it now. It's not bad really, but I just couldn't seem to get it to blend as nicely as I wanted, even after several coats of primer and sanding. Oh well...it's for me anyway so screw it.

Normally though a few clear coats will help but the imperfection will still be there. I'm thinking before I clear coat this though, I'll try and fill the OUYA logo with some white paint to make it pop a little more than blend. Not something I've tried before (syringe painting) but I'll give it a go!

Lastly today, I got the HDMI cable wired up. Taking my lesson from my first attempt, I used SATA cable for the data lines that needed shielding, 30 AWG wrapping wire for the additional shields and controller wire for the power, hot line and clock lines.

I'm going to try and hit the case with a few clear coats tonight which means I can start assembling the front half tomorrow. It's coming along nicely I'd say.

 

[eucrow]

Great job so far! Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

 

[Downing]

Been a very productive morning, aside from the fact my basement flooded this morning... Nothing too bad as it was expected so I got everything of importance moved, but I've been working with wet feet all morning...yay for electronics and water!

Anyway, on to what you really care about.

This is the case top after three clear coats. I just read that Bungle likes the Krylon clear coat. While I agree I like that, I must say that Rustoleum Clear Coat Enamel is the best clear coat I've ever used. It dries quick, is very finger print and scratch resistant and applies very nicely. The only downside is while it's scratch resistant, it's not "dent" resistant, meaning because it dries but remain flexible, it will leave impressions if say a piece of plastic from a dremel or something applies pressure. That sucks and it happened to me this morning as well...blah. Also again, I'm not happy with the D-pad and how that turned out, but oh well at this point.

So I got to start mounting parts into the case today. Everything fit together nicely. Looks like a jumbled mess in there, but really it's not that complicated.

And here is the front face completed! I did mention that I was going to try and paint the OUYA logo to make it pop with some white paint. Well, what I actually did was scrape the paint out of the logo cuts and because the plastic is so thin where the cuts were made, I LED back-lit the logo with 4-5mm white LEDs that will turn on when the system does. I think that's going to look awesome!

So I'm about as far as I can go now until I get the back case half from Hail and the breakout board from RDC. I'll of course work on wiring what can be wired up on this half, but for the most part I should be just about done with the front face. More to come soon!

 

[Downing]

Just a pic that shows my home-made HDMI cable working as it should! Done right on the first try at that!

Sweet! I'm liking how this LED back-lighting is working out! Not my best soldering on the inside but it's secure and holding steady so I'm gonna go with it!

Still debating if I want to add a couple more to kind of fill in the dark spots but I'm not sure it would be worth the battery time, though really I have no intention of sitting on the thing for over 4 hours.

 

[arena slicer]

Okay stop it that backlit logo is way to cool to be legal.

 

[DuHasst0]

I think the dark spots make the logo pop. No need for the extra LEDs imo.

 

[Downing]

Alright! I've got some updates on the status of the controller end of things.

RDC has worked his magic once again, not only overcoming the seemingly "WTF were they thinking" architecture of the OUYA controller, but also shrinking it down to a single board size of .75" x 1.1", with digital triggers and easy solder test point pads. The first run has been sent to OSHPark and got sent to the Fab house yesterday, so they are expecting to have the boards back by the 14th which means I won't see them until probably the 21st, but it'll hopefully be sooner.

Here is a Render of the PCB. This houses everything critical to make the controller work with just the BlueTooth Module from the top controller board. Since I'm not implementing the use if the analog triggers, this board also uses 10K resistors to make the triggers a simple on/off function. For all the games I played on the OUYA (and any system for the matter), the need of incremental steps for a "pressure sensitive" function has just not been there. I'm also not using the OUYA touch pad either because...well why?

But anyway, you really begin to appreciate the work that went into this when see how small this really is going to be.

I probably should have mentioned though, that RDC did all of this without a working OUYA to use for testing. This I know caused him much frustration, especially not knowing how the controller worked to begin with, nor could he test any of his theories. The thing with a lot of modern controllers is that they also can't be fully functional until they are paired with the host system, which means he was sent down many wrong paths that started in the right direction but appeared to be dead ends when he got to a certain point. But he still got through it which is freaking amazing. :congrats: arty:

The trigger pot system on the OUYA is also screwed three ways from Sunday. It's a basic 10K pot style, but the orientation style is ass backwards. On pot is straight and the other is placed at a 90 degree angle. This changes the values in which the controller reads a press and can cause a great deal of confusion if messed with. This is why I opted out of analog triggers. Below, the pic shows the 10K pot test to see if the triggers would work as an digital on/off which they did.

So now unfortunately we play the waiting game. The prints for the back half of the case are not going well from what I hear, so I may have to come up with something different but there's a nice two week window plus installation time of the controller module that progress can still be made on the back half of the case. Hoping this isn't causing any anxiety for my buddy Hail.

More updates soon!

 

[Downing]

Sorry guys, been slacking on my updates over here. Here's one long post with all the updates I've made since the last one. Sorry if it's a bit jumbled.

Ok, well due to certain circumstances, I decided to forgo waiting for the back half of the casing to get finished. Hail's been having trouble with his printer and not having much time so I really don't wish to be any more of a burden on him. But I tell ya, I really wish I had a 3D printer of my own. Soon hopefully.

Anyway, with that said, I used the back half of the CP casing that I had stolen the front from, but in order to make it work I was going to have to roll up the sleeves and do some good old fashioned case modding! And I loved every second of it.

The biggest challenge was this back half was designed for a cart slot. A cart slot that was no longer going to be used. The cart cover also needed to be played with a bit because that too was designed for a cart.

To make a long story short, I just made an "L" shaped bend, melted it in place and had a nice little recessed area where the USB and maybe a switch for an HDMI switch which if OUYA is correct and their controller can also pair with a PC, than I may be able to control my PC from this as well! Maybe. Dunno yet, but that would be a pretty sweet add-on.

Just a quick update of the progress of the evening.

Though it may not look it, this is after the first sanding which took the filler that helps hold the back cover in place, was sanded down. Then the entire thing was filled with a flex filler epoxy to fill in the gaps left by the 3D printing process.

So tomorrow's project like today's will be sanding, sanding sanding. This takes quite a bit longer too because of all the tiny nooks and crannies that are on the back half of this casing. But I'm excited to see how this turns out with a few coats of primer tomorrow. More updates tomorrow night.

The first round of sanding is complete and though this pic doesn't show it, a coat of primer has been added. Still have quite a bit of work to do on it though as there are some pretty nasty imperfections on the edges and in the hard-to-reach areas on the top of the recessed panel. I think it's coming out pretty good though for being such a hack job from the start.

So tonight I'll be doing some of the spot filling and hitting it with another coat of primer after I get that sanded down. Hopefully I'll be able then get this on the mill and cut out the vents in the back. After that's done, then I can paint it and I'm looking forward to using the new paint I picked out for the back color and see how well that matches!

*EDIT*

Just got an email that my PCBs for the controller board have been shipped, a full 3 days sooner than expected. So I should have them mid next week!

Alright, the back half of the casing is complete and clear coated. This didn't come out quite the way I thought it was going to for a couple reasons, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. First off, I didn't know exactly how textured "texture spray paint" really was. It was pretty much like like throwing a bunch of sand onto the casing after the first layer of paint had been sprayed on. But after a few clear coats, the grit smoothed out and it's actually quite comfortable to hold.

Second, it didn't darken up to what the cap showed, so it's a bit lighter than anticipated and causes a bit of a mis-match with the blue front. But nothing I can do about that now. Next time I'm going to stick with the metallic paint instead of the textured, but honestly it isn't that bad and you want to talk about a paint that covers up imperfections, look no further. I've never seen a better paint when it comes to that part.

You will notice on the bottom right, a slight gouge. This happened when I dropped the case and it fell on top of my vice. I was not very thrilled at that, but since the clear coat is already on there, I couldn't sand it down and repaint it. It sucks, but it is what it is. Oh well.

Here's a pic of the USB in place which will allow for side loading or additional HD space if the internal 8 Gig proves to be too little.

Last, a pic of the internals as it stands so far. The OUYA BOB that RDC designed should be to me on Monday, so once that arrives I can start to wire up the controller as well as the rest of the system. I could possibly have this done as early as next weekend, but I do have other obligations that have to be attended to.

 

[Downing]

More "Batch" Updates

It appears my boards from OSH are in USPS limbo. They shipped from OR, had an arrival date of Monday and it still hasn't moved.
Grrrrr...more phone calls.

Well fear not. At least I got something cool in the mail today!

RDC sent me back the controller boards he was working on after he was done with them. Black masked controllers are a Sega to trace out, so what did he do? He took out the problem at the source! Pretty difficult to get a cleaner picture than that when trying to trace out a board.

Now this is only one of two boards that the OUYA controller uses. But the other is really just a daughter board that just serves as a surface to mount the control sticks and trigger pots on. All the brains and functionality are located on this one. I just think it's really cool to see what happens "under the mask".

My boards came in yesterday. This is just a pic of the front and back. I did solder up the components to it last night but didn't take a pic. I will before I start to wire up the controller to the system.

Made a bit of progress tonight. Fixed a couple issue with my soldering job on the main chip and was able to get a placement the BOB and the 5v Regulator. This whole unit needs 3 different voltages to run correctly. 7.4v for the screen, 5V for the OUYA and 3V for the controller and LEDs. Fortunately this all flows down hill and one source can easily tap into the other.

Kind of a mess right now but once I get all the wires run, it'll be a lot cleaner. I'm hoping that if I can put a full day into this tomorrow, I should have a system ready for testing, but I'm not going to promise anything. Looking forward to this though. I have to say this is the most exciting "portable" I've built so far and can't wait to play it!

 

[Downing]

Been a little while since my last update. Been a couple busy weeks at work and with home life.

Anyway! Progress!

I failed at my first attempt of soldering the Blue Tooth Module to the BOB. I think when I bridged a test point underneath the module and tried to remove it from the board I damaged the module. So I took my last remaining OUYA controller that I really didn't want to take apart and popped the module off. Also instead of using hot air to mount the pins, I just used my iron and soldered one at a time. Looks pretty clean, not as clean as it should be though. I'll be getting into using paste and stencils once I get my PNP machine going.

This was my first pairing test to see if I could connect. It didn't on the first try, so I checked all the pins again and found one that wasn't connected to the BOB. Hit it with the iron and it paired right up!

This is after the first pair and of course the system had to do an update that took forever! What you don't see here though is I was able to hook up the LED's behind the OUYA logo to the controller board so that when the controller is paired, the lights turn on. This was a cool way to see if the controller is paired or not since I don't have the original LED's that were on the controller.

All that's left now is to hook up the control sticks, mount a few more parts on the inside, do some insulation and enjoy! I'm excited for this on!