RPi2 NES Frankenstein. (Pi-tendo)

[DaOld Man]

I have an RPi 2 now what should I do with it? I liked SlippyBlades RP1 SNES project so I thought I would do one with an old NES case.
I plan to keep track of what Im doing to help not only others, but myself, for when I forget when I am on this project.
First, I bought an old nes from a good friend.
I turned the case upside down to expose the bottom, grey part of the case.
I removed the bottom by taking out 6 Phillips screws.
The screws are marked in red circles, except lower left corner for some reason it is blue?
I also marked two screws blue that release the controller connectors. You don't have to take those out just yet but I went ahead and done it.



I then removed the shield by removing 7 Phillips screws.



I then removed 8 screws from the works. A couple of these are hidden just in this picture angle, you can see them in the real world.



I then flipped the works over and removed the plugs going to the controller connectors and the power/reset buttons.
(Not pictured is a bottom shield that you need to remove.)



Next I removed the controller connectors by simply pulling them out the front. There are two screws in the power/reset assembly that now need to be removed. (red circles)



And here is the empty bottom half of the case, after washing out a small amount of dust and letting dry:



And here are the dissembled parts. and the pill box I used to keep the screws sorted. Not pictured is the shields and the circuit board (the works).



I started thinking about how to access the SD card on the Rpi, in case it ever gets corrupted and needs to be replaced.
The NES has an expansion port of some kind on the bottom. There is an easily removable access cover, but then there is a blank plate that has to be removed. Nothing s sharp knife couldn't handle.
Here is a pic of the bottom of the case, with the access door removed (red dot) and the blank plate removed (blue dot).



I placed the RPi in the bottom half to check for clearances. I placed the power switch assembly back in for clearance check.
I also have a USB plugged laid in the approximate place. This will be for the cheap NES USB controllers to plug into. Of course there will be two, this is still a work in progress.
I think this idea will work pretty good. If SD card needs to be changed, just flip case over, remove the cover and take the card out through the hole. It wont be easy, but that could be a blessing, since teh card should not have to be normally removed.

[Peabo]

I like the idea. 

Putting the RPI in that spot would make it really hard to change out the SD card, not that you will be changing the card much.  Maybe put the access in the cartridge slot?

[reptileink]

I have two gutted NES cases in my workshop, and I had thought about doing something like this with one of them. I will be watching this thread closely because anything to do with using old console bodies gets my instant attention. Are you going to put the CP on the top of the case? Will this be a "travel" arcade?

[Jedi Master]

Really looking forward to seeing this come together!  I've no experience with the RPI but I'm about to get one and start playing with it.

[Vidiot]

This should be a fun project. I made a little console from an Atari Flashback 2 and it turned out great. I upgraded it to the RPi2 when it came out. The Pi2 is much noticeably faster!
Looks to me like the memory card could be accessed easily from that expansion port cover the way you did it. Definitely watching this one.

[DaOld Man]

Yeah, Vidiot, I think it will be fairly good to get the SDcard out. Im thinking of cutting up a Tic-Tac box or something and gluing it to the inside to act as a pan to prevent the card from falling into the case if it is dropped while removing or inserting.

Thanks Jedi Master, Im still pretty new on the RPi also, so I will be relying on the others on here that are experienced when I set the Pi up (which I should be doing pretty soon.)

Hi reptilelink. I will not be putting a CP on this, but I do plan to use the USB Nintendo controllers that you can find on ebay pretty cheap. I suppose you could put together a CP with a usb keyboard encoder, but Im not sure how that would work with the Pi.

Hi Peabo, I thought about putting the butt end of the Pi in the game cartridge door, but Im wanting to put a couple of USB plugs there, and maybe a Ethernet connector.
I was thinking that accessing the card through the bottom might discourage exploring hands from pulling the card out.

I am trying to rig up a couple of USB ports to mount in the NES controller port holes. This is harder than I thought it would be. I guess I really need to hook the Pi up and test the controllers before I put a lot of work into it. But whats the fun in that? LOL

[Peabo]

Sound thinking... small hands get everywhere

[DaOld Man]

Been thinking about how to do the controller USB plugs. I had a panel mount USB female plug with a short cord and a male plug on other end.
I thought I would try this:
First I trimmed down the rubber part of the plug to form a flange about the same thickness as the flange on the original nes connectors.
I then ground top and bottom of the metal front plate of the usb plug to about the same length as the nes controller flange.
Here is a pic after my modifications, sorry didn't get a before pic. Edit: I do have a picture of this usb plug before chopping it, look at last pic in the first post.



I then inserted the usb plug through the front of the case, in the hole where the original controller plug fits.



I then installed the connector retainer plate and it worked pretty good. It is snug and wont push in or pull out.
The only thing I don't like is the space around the usb plug. I will have to cut a piece of black poster board or thin plastic to cover the space.



Now I got to find another USB plug like this one for the player two slot.
So far I haven't cut up the case, so I could change my mind and try something else, but so far this is looking pretty good to me.

EDIT: as you can see in pic two, I did cut one of the mounting posts that was blocking player two usb plug (or will be when I do that one). This post was part of the original circuit board mount, so i shouldn't need it.
I used a pair of diagonal cutters to get it out of the way, plan to clean it up with a dremel later.

[DaOld Man]

Just a quick note. This is one of the controllers I plan to use for this project.
It is a USB SNES controller (on ebay).
I plan to use this because it has the D-Pad (joystick), a pause button, a start button, and 6 action buttons.
This should work with NES, SNES, and Mame. (using the pause button as credit button for mame.)
And probably most other emulators.
Can i pull this off with RPi? I dunno, but going to find out.

[Slippyblade]

That works just fine on a Pi, I'm using an actual SNES controller with a USB adapter and it works great.

[DaOld Man]

That works just fine on a Pi, I'm using an actual SNES controller with a USB adapter and it works great.

Thanks Slippyblade, you know Im going to be using you as a RPi resource. Hope you don't mind.

[Slippyblade]

Ugh - I don't know about that.  I don't know what the deal was but I was tripping on virtual stumbling blocks left and right.  I'd fix problem A, and problem B would crop up.  I'd fix B and C would happen.  Then when I fixed C, A would inexplicably not work.

A good part of this is that I am a total Linux newbie.

Mind you, the RetroPie image works great, I just didn't have the patience to go through the scraping process - I just REALLY wanted AttractMode to work for me and just couldn't get it right.  On Windows and normal Linux, it's great.

[Locke141]

I hope that was a non working NES.

You may want to take a look at Diet Pi buildof retro pi. It's a lighter (faster) version of the standard Pi OS.

nitrogen_widget has a cool image he made that also uses Diet Pi but with attract mode.

If It was me I would use the diet pi retro pi image if this is coming to focus on consoles emulation.   

You may want to consider a Sega Saturn USB controller. It can do the Geneses/CD/32X games, has a better 6 button Mame lay out, and is better at SNES games the SNES controllers are at Geneses games.   

[dmckean]

Just a quick note. This is one of the controllers I plan to use for this project.
It is a USB SNES controller (on ebay).
I plan to use this because it has the D-Pad (joystick), a pause button, a start button, and 6 action buttons.
This should work with NES, SNES, and Mame. (using the pause button as credit button for mame.)
And probably most other emulators.
Can i pull this off with RPi? I dunno, but going to find out.

The Buffalo Classic holds up about 1000x better than those no name controllers on ebay.

[jdbailey1206]

Nice work.  I have to start mine that consists of an Atari and a NUC.  This definitely inspires me.

[DaOld Man]

I like that buffalo controller, may have to get me two, but for now Im going with the already purchased ebay cheapies.
But it may not be long until Im forced to get better controllers. The cheapies don't look very rugged.

[DaOld Man]

I couldn't find another USB plug like I was going to use. (I used the mate to that one on "A Little Rage").
I was undecided how I was going to fill in the gap around the plug anyway.
Now I want you guys to know that I did not want to do what I am about to tell you.
Even though as far as I know, the NES didn't work (I had no way to test it for sure), the controller connectors looked to be in real good shape.
I searched the web over for some way to mount the USB plugs before I mutilated the original connectors.
I finally decided to take the knife to them. It was a very hard decision and I tossed it around for several days.
I do not have pictures of the actual mauling, but this is what I did.
I unplugged the wires from the pins.
I then used a soldering gun (the ones that get really hot), to heat the pins and push them out the front.
Then using a combination of a bench grinder, a dremel tool, and a file, I cut out the pin hole part and cut out a hole big enough to accommodate a female USB plug.
Here are pics after the crime:


This pic shows the finished NES plug and the mutilated USB plug.
The USB plug was a panel mount one. I trimmed away some of the hard rubber with a utility knife and had to cut some out to allow the metal to stick through farther.
I will have to either buy new plugs that hopefully wont require trimming as much, or solder male plugs onto these, since they are made to plug into a mother board.


Here is the USB placed into the NES plug.
Notice I trimmed off one corner of the USB plug so it will fit into the case hole. The USB plug will have to be glued to the NES plug.
I wont do that until I either buy new plugs, or solder male USB plugs to these, and of course test.

I really hated doing this, but I did do a lot of searching, and found one site where someone did basically the same thing, that's what pushed me over the edge I guess.
If anyone has a need for the removed wires, I will give them to you, if you pay shipping.
It would be nice if someone made some USB plugs in the shape of NES plugs ready to mount, but that may infringe on Nintendo's copyright or something.

[DaOld Man]

Ok, put the USB connectors on the back burner for awhile and been playing around with the mausberry switch circuit.
This switch came with no wiring diagrams and I cant find hookup diagrams on the net, except for the simple power switch and reset switch connections to the circuit.
I have not found how to hook up the LED on the NES.
All I have found is people tying it back into the I/O on the Pi.
The circuit has a pad for LED, but only one.
I turned it on and measured voltage and got about 2.5 volts between the led pad and the - pad for the reset button.
I hooked up the on the NES: orange to the led pad and white to the - reset pad. I also placed a 50 ohm resistor in the orange wire.
The led lit up pretty good. So I though it would be simple. Red and Brown wires connect to the SW pads, Yellow to reset pad, white to LED pad, and orange to the other Reset pad.
There is only one problem. The LED is reversed biased and will not light like this. (See the inset box for the NES wiring in pic below.)
I cant reverse the orange and white wires because I'm pretty sure this will mess up the reset function.
So my plan is to unsolder the LED, flip it around and solder it back. This should reverse the polarity of the LED, making the orange common for reset and - led, and the white + led.
I will also have to place the 50 ohm resistor in the white wire.



Edit, just reversed the LED on the NES power switch board. It wasn't a real big deal, just pulled LED out of the plastic holder thingy, unsoldered it, flipped it around, then resoldered it. I had to bend the LED leads back 180 degrees and re-insert the LED into the plastic thingy. That was a little hairy but not a real big deal, you just have to be careful not to break the LED leads.
Now I can solder the 5 wires into the mausberry circuit and everything should work.
From NES switch circuit to mausberry circuit:
Red: SW+
Brown: SW -
White: to 50 ohm resistor then to LED pad
Orange: Reset -
Yellow: Reset +

[DaOld Man]

Just a quick bump to say that I have the NES switch module, board, circuit, whatever, soldered into the mausberry switch circuit.

Here is the required eye candy:


I wound up using a 51 ohm resistor in the white wire, it was the closest I had to a 50 ohm. I also covered the resistor with clear heat shrink.
It comes on when I press the ON switch, and the LED lights up.
I have got to download the correct code to allow the mausberry to shutdown correctly.
I currently have PiPlay on the sd card and the commands that mausberry website says to use to download and install the script is not working. I think I need to go with a different Pi setup. This is all new to me, whats that old saying about old dogs and new tricks?
I would appreciate any suggestions.

[Peabo]

I've got nothing to add, other than to say nice work so far.  Watching and learning on this one

[jdbailey1206]

My suggestion to you would be to teach me your solder fu.  It is strong and mine is weak.

[DaOld Man]

My suggestion to you would be to teach me your solder fu.  It is strong and mine is weak.

Surely you jest!

[jdbailey1206]

If I was kidding I would say A horse walks into the bar and the bartender asks him, "Hey buddy.  Why the long face?"  HA!

But in all seriousness I need to take a class or something.  My soldering skills suck ass.

[Slippyblade]

It's all about practice.  Grab a piece of copper clad and drill about a billion holes in it, shove a wire/resistor/whatever into every hole and start soldering.  You will get better.

[ChanceKJ]

Agreed.

Mines absolute crap, but like many of my projects I want the finished product to come out better then my high standards so I forced myself to take my time and not suck. Mind you I do research theory and best practices before diving in head first. Soldering was just one of those things. I didn't want to screw up the chassis on my Sanyo 20EZ, or JAMMA harness, so I made every attempt at making it the best job I could.

[jdbailey1206]

It's all about practice.  Grab a piece of copper clad and drill about a billion holes in it, shove a wire/resistor/whatever into every hole and start soldering.  You will get better.

I would but I am out of state for work and I have no time on my hands when I am sitting at my apartment waiting for bed time.  Oh wait...

  Thanks for the idea Slippy.  When Im home next month Ill grab my soldering stuff and try that out.  Being in demo we go through about a million circuit boards and Ill just pull some out of our demo piles and practice on those. 

[DaOld Man]

I agree with the other suggestions about practice, with a side order of patience.
There are also several "how to" videos on youtube that you might find helpful. (Watch more than one or two, not everyone does it right.)
I got some practice by unsoldering components on old (bad) circuit boards, then resoldering them.
The unsoldering wick (flat wire braid), is very good for unsoldering stuff.
Also use alligator test clips between the component and the heat, clipped to the components lead, to prevent the part from being damaged from the heat.
The clip will act as a heat sink.
After a few practice runs you will be surprised how easy it can be.

[brihyn]

A huge thanks for the detailed updates. I don't know crap about the Pi other than how to load XBMC, but want to do this with a junk SNES I was given, so you're answering a lot of questions that I had in my head.

And as for soldering, yes, practice is the key. Just find a circuit board (any circuit board) that you can practice with and throw away at the end.  My first day of "Adult Work" after graduating from college (electronics repair degree) the new boss handed me a circuit board to see how well I could solder....and the answer was horribly (nervousness definitely didn't help!). He just told me to practice a bit and I spent the first hour of my adult career soldering and de-soldering resistors on a scrap board.  After a week there my solder skills were (mostly) pretty strong. Practice is definitely the key!

[DaOld Man]

Thanks brihyn!!

Ok, I got my USB plugs glued to the NES controller plugs.



Oh oh, I click on image icon and it doesn't insert the image thingy. May be something with Win10?
None of the emoticons appear to be posting either.
I will continue this post after I do some testing.


Groan.
Ok, I am posting pics by manually putting in the image tags

Here is front view of the usb plugs. I need to clean up inside a bit.


I had an old plastic project box that I decided to use.
Here is a pic of the cover, which I cut up and am going to use for Ethernet and USB ports:


I drilled holes to mount the Ethernet connector, and bored a 5/8" round hole for the plug. I was going to make the round hole square with a file, but decided to leave it as is. I think it will be ok and will probably
look better than my trying to hack out a square hole.


I then used a USB expansion bracket to cut the holes for the USB plugs.
This worked out pretty good. Havent got the USB plugs yet, I'm hoping they are the same dimensions as this bracket.


And the finished product. I plan to mount this in the NES game door.

[DaOld Man]

I glued the plate I made into the cart slot on the top of the NES case.
Here is a shot of the back side.
I first used model cement. I glued the part I had cut out so that the plugs will be facing outward. I then cut a smaller strip and glued it in the space at the bottom.
The top half of the cover is turned upside down in this pic.
I also glued 3 cut off qtips (cotton swab sticks), to the sides and top to help brace it.
I didnt trust the cement all that much (they dont make it like they used to), so I went around the whole thing with hot glue.



And here is a view from the front. I mounted the NET connector, still waiting on the USB connectors to get here.



Now I am concentrating on mounting HDMI & PWR on the bottom case back, and AV RCA connectors on the bottom side.

[DaOld Man]

I was going to mount the HDMI and the power entry block in the spot where the original power and AV converter plugged in, but there is simply not enough room.
So I decided to move the power entry to the right of the case.
Due to the mausberry switch, power cord connector, and HDMI cable taking up so much room on the Pi, I had to move the Pi towards the back of the case.
This meant I had to cut out part of the expansion slot opening to allow access to the SD card.
I also glued a tab to allow me to use a mounting screw in that corner of the Pi.
I used the tab off a Tic Tac box (you guys thought I was kidding about using a tic tac box, didnt you?)
I also found that the wall wart power supply fits rather nicely in the NES case, utilizing the mounting posts.
Here is a pic that pretty much explains what i have in the works, although nothing (except the glued tic tac tab) is permanent yet.

[firedance]

Very good so far 

[reptileink]

Wow, lots of work and inginuity here! 

[DaOld Man]

Thanks guys.
Got quite a bit done today.

Mounted the power entry connector. Not as pretty as I would have liked, but I need more practice cutting out plastic.


Also mounted the HDMI output connector. It's a little crooked, may straighten it up later, but may leave well enough alone.
I used another piece of the black plastic project box.


Mounted the modified tic tac box as a drop pan.
I also lost the tab I glued earlier. When I tried to drill a hole in it, it popped off. I think three bolts will hold the board anyway.
That cement glue is not like the glue I recall using on model cars when I was a kid. I guess drug users and glue sniffers are messing it up for everyone.
I glued the tic tac box, and a piece of cardboard on the side of it.
I also glued a piece of wooden popsickle stick across the top to keep the SD card from falling inside the case when inserting or removing it.
Not trusting the model cement, I went over it all with hot glue.


Here is how it looks from the bottom. The card will be easy to swap out.


And here is the expansion slot cover snapped in place.


I hooked it up to keyboard, mouse, and TV.
Pressed the ON button and it fired right up.


I got more work to do with this setup, turning the power button off does not shut the Pi down.

Here is how I wired the power connector to the power supply.
I soldered lamp cord to the power connector terminals, then used ring crimp terminals on the power cord ends.
Then using 4-40 bolts and nuts, I fastened the crimp terminals to the power supply plug prongs, which had holes in the ends.
I then put heat shrink over both prongs for insulation.
I fastened the power supply down with wire cable ties. the power supply is located over a vent so it should stay cool.



Now I got to work on the software while Im waiting for the front USB plugs to get here.
I also need to find a 3 rca jack AV panel for the side of the case.
This will allow me to hook it to a tv with RCA jacks.

With the Pi hooked to HDMI, I get good video but no audio, got to explore that.

[mvolke1]

I wonder why you're not getting audio with your HDMI? That's strange. You should be.

With my console, all I used was the HDMI. With my arcade, I used the 1/8'' jack to go PC speakers. Both worked fine.

[DaOld Man]

I wonder why you're not getting audio with your HDMI? That's strange. You should be.

With my console, all I used was the HDMI. With my arcade, I used the 1/8'' jack to go PC speakers. Both worked fine.

I dont know. I reformatted my card, which had PiPlay on it, and put Retro Pi on it.
I think I like retro pi better.
Right now I have it plugged into a lcd monitor through a HDMI to DVI cable, the monitor has no speakers, so I need to hook it back to my TV and see how it looks.
Will let you know when I do that.

[Locke141]

How to change the sound out put from head phone jack to HDMI can be found here:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/audio-config.md

This is coming along great.

[DaOld Man]

Just tried it on my TV and sound works just fine. (HDMI).
Ive been wasting a lot of time playing "Quake Arena". But I have to unplug my SNES USB controller and plug in a mouse to play correctly.
Guess I need to drag out my USB Controller with Dpad, analog thumb stick and the works.
Right now I have Retro Pie controlled by the SNES controller, I need to set it up to work with keyboard too, this swapping between controller and mouse is for the birds.
Of course if my panel mount USB cables ever get here I will have two more USB ports.
Here is a quick pic of Quake Arena on 50" rear projection TV, HDMI. (Yeah I know I need to upgrade, but this TV still works fine.)

[DaOld Man]

BTW, If any of you guys decide to build one with SD card access through the expansion slot cover, I highly recommend you incorporate a catch pan (AKA hacked up Tic-Tac box).
I have dropped the micro SD card twice and the pan worked just fine. It caught the card and made it very easy to retrieve.
Not patting myself on the back (well maybe I am), but I have to say it was one of my better ideas.
Also, side note, the mausberry switch circuit works great!
I will officially call this project done when I get my front USB connectors installed and come up with some sort of A/V RCA jack panel. (More pics then.)
Of course I am still in the "hammering out the software" phase.

[pbj]

Keep us updated on the software.  I've got a dusty Pi laying around.