PI Cubed

[darthpaul]

Since completing my Nintendo PI project, I decided I wanted to make another one but unfortunately the price of an NES case has been getting very expensive. I decided to use a broken Game Cube that was for sale on Ebay for $8.00 shipped. While the smaller case may pose some challenges but the price was right.



The first challenge was just tried to get the case opened, it is screwed together with screws that have very strange heads on them, a special tool is needed to unscrew them. That special tool is one of those clear Bic Pens. Take out the ink part, with a lighter, heat the plastic part by the tip until it starts to burn, then jam it in the screw hole and hold it there until the plastic cools, then start unscrewing. You may need two or three pens to remove the four screws at the bottom of the case.



Once they were out, I pretty much gutted the case as well as cutting off a good deal of plastic to make room so everything would fit.



I realized that I couldn't use the same cables as I did in the Nintendo Pi, I needed them to be thinner and more flexible because of the limited space.
The one problem I had was finding a small thin HDMI cable that had a male end to plug into the PI and a female end to attach to the back of the case, here was my solution, a female to female adapter. I attached the adapter to the back of the case using some small pieces of wood a lots of hot glue.



I also planned to use the original power supply, the only problem with that was, it is rated at 12V the PI only needs 5V, so I needed one of these, a step down converter.


I also planned to use the Game Cube's fan but it didn't work to well using only 5V. So it took awhile to find a solution and I came across this and surprise, surprise it really does work. It takes the 5v from the USB jack and converts it to 12V and the fan plugs right into it, the perfect solution.

[DaOld Man]

Very interesting.
I am currently working on a SNES conversion.
It has the weird security screws in the case too. The ink pens didnt work for me, I ordered a special socket to fit the screws off ebay.
It cost a couple bucks, and had two sockets, one 3.8 mm and the other 4.5 mm.
I needed the 4.5 mm for snes, I think the other may be for the gamecube, but cant remember now.
Do you plan on using original gamecube controllers or usb ones?

[darthpaul]

I'm surprised the pen trick didn't work, maybe it only works on the Gamecube screws. I'm going to be using USB Controllers again, I have a Gamecube controller and a PlayStation Controller I will be using. The one problem with the Gamecube controller is, it has no select button, so you need to map a different combo of buttons to allow you to exit a game. The thing I like about the GameCube layout is, you can mount four USB ports without making any additional holes, in fact, I only had to modify one hole slightly in the back to accommodate the Ethernet cable.

[darthpaul]

Another thing I like about the Gamecube is, it has compartments in the bottom. I mounted the 12V to 5V converter in one of these compartments, it allows me access to it without having to take the whole thing apart.





If you notice on the front there are slots for memory cards, the plan was to use these slots for the SD cards. I was going to use the same extention SD card cable I use in the Nintendo Pi.



When I was testing, I was getting a lot of freezing up when I tried to play games or the card just wouldn't work at all, I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I finally decided to try it without using the cable and everything worked perfect. I'm guessing it was a combination of a very tight fit and cheap materials. Because of this problem, I had to go back and redesign the layout, I still wanted to be able to use those slots for the SD Cards. The reason I needed to use a second SDcard was because I was planning on adding some Playstation games, the Roms are very large and needed their own separate card.
In my original design, I mounted the PI near the top above all the cables but now I needed to mount it near the bottom so the Micro SD card would be accessible through the left-hand slot. For the right-hand slot I was going to use an SD card memory reader to USB.







I don't know what I would do without hot glue 

I did a lot of cutting to the top cover in order to get my first design to fit but with the new design that would have probably not been necessary.
I used the original power button, with some slight modification to the circuit board it's mounted to and the original reset button, both of which are wired up to a Mausberry circuit. I also had to to add the, power on LED.

 



Next step was the top cover, I wanted it to light up so I had to cut a hole in it. If you notice in the4 picture this was how the Pi was originally going to be mounted.



I had a piece of acrylic 1/8" thick by 3 1/8 diameter cut for the hole and designed and printed my logo to mount underneath.

This is now the new look, notice the LED in the middle, this is to light up the cover..









The Front



Completed.



Here is a great video on using a separated memory card to load your ROMS onto.

[Dal1980]

Nice 1! Looks great!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[05SRT4]

Sweet build!

[DaOld Man]

Very nice! Love the logo top.

[reptileink]

Another really cool console mod, but I have to gripe that it seems rushed.

If you spent a little more time cleaning it up, or even a quick re-paint, it would have put this build to the moon. Not hating or anything, but it's all about the finish product. You didn't mention what it plays? Everything, or NES, or Gamecube?? All?

[BGoulette]

I've gotta agree with reptileink: the idea is nifty, and you did a great job shoving all that stuff into such a small space! But the edges where you had to cut into the visible plastic (the ring on the top, for example), looks rough. With some sanding and polishing to remove the burrs and cut marks, it would have been even better.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, just noting that a touch more time and attention to detail could have really made the end product shine!

[darthpaul]

You guys are tough but I can't disagree, that final finish has never been my strong point. This build took so much longer than I anticipated and I guess I rushed a little to finally finish it. I thought about painting it but I wanted to keep the original finish but painting is not out of the question.
The games I have on it are a ton of NES, SNES, Sega Genesis and about 30 Playstation1. I only have 30 Playstation games because that is all that will fit on the additional SDcard. 

[darthpaul]

Well I decided to see what I could do to improve the appearance short of painting and there was some scuffing I removed and a more thorough cleaning. I also painted in Power, Reset and Open with white paint on the cover. Finally, I drilled out the small indentations above each USB port and added blue lighting.

[DaOld Man]

Those blue leds are a very nice touch.

[Dance Commander]

Very nice. It looks good all cleaned up.

How is the performance of games on the Pi? Does it actually run Playstation games well?

[darthpaul]

I haven't had much time to play many of the Playstation games but the few I have tried run pretty good, much better than any of the N64 games. I'm using this as a guide for the Playstation games https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-n_-Ai56h3PmzxP-77ZK1sdjOLKRe1d4faJHFhIV5QI/edit?hl=en&pref=2&pli=1#gid=0