PiCubed 1.2.0

[darthpaul]

I had such a good time building the first PiCubed, I thought I would build another. While I was pretty happy with the first one, I felt there was much that could be improved upon.
I am using a Gamecube that I own but no longer works so what better way to give it a new life. I also am using a Raspberry Pi 3 in the hopes I will be able to play some  Playstation 1, Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 games.
Like in the first Picubed build, I will be using the original Gamecube power supply which is 12v and stepping it down to 5v to power the Raspberry Pi.
I will also be using a Mausberry circuit to power on and off the Pi.
One of the things I wanted to change from the first Picubed was easy access to the SDCards but having the cards not be visible. Another thing I wanted to take advantage of was the fact that the Gamcube's lid popped open(to insert game disks) and I wanted it to serve some type of purpose in this build.

[darthpaul]

The first thing that needed to be done was to gut the entire thing as well as cutting away some of the plastic to make room for the
Pi.




I needed to modify the start button so it would work with the Mausberry Circuit





I soldered wires to run from the pos and neg to the 12v to 5v step down converter.



Next step was working on the back panel.





Even though the Pi3 is set-up for WiFi, I still wanted an Ethernet connection, of course an HDMI out and the original power input. There was one other thing I needed to add. Remember I mentioned about putting the pop-up lid to use, I needed to attach a mcro snap switch to the back to turn on and off an LED that was going to turn on when the lid was open.





Hot glue has become one of my best friends in these builds.

Next step was fitting the PI in it's location.





In the picture you can see the mausberry circuit glued to the fan housing. Because there isn't room for the Mausberry to be directly attached to the Pi, I had to locate it somewhere else and run a cable from it, to the Pi.
This is the cable I used.



This cable proved to be a problem and had to be replaced with something else.
There is also a small circuit board plugged into one the the Pi's USB ports. The circuit is a 5v to 12v step-up converter that was going to be used to operate the Gamecube's fan. A big plus to using a Gamecube case is because it has a built-in fan, because the Pi3s run hot, this is a big bonus. Another thing about the Pi3s are, they are power hungry and the fan was just drawing too much power from the Pi, so this solution wasn't going to work.

Next step was the front panel, I didn't want to use the Gamecube's game controller input holes for controller inputs on this one, I wanted to add some lighting to the holes and use the memory card input holes for the game controller inputs. I also wanted to keep the original circuit board to help attach the lighting and to use the original power on light and reset button switch.



I carved out as much of the plastic as I could from the holes. The Atari, Nintendo, Sega and Playstation logos are going to be displayed in each hole, which accounts for 99.999% of the games. Them only games not made by one of these manufactures will be Dragon's Lair and Space Ace.
 

[jabsder]

You need a 3D Printer. Then it looks like this





No tutorial but pictures are on www.jabsder.com

[darthpaul]

Next up is the lid, I cut out a piece of sheet metal to close off the hole where the game discs were placed. I then cut holes in the metal for two USB ports and an SDcard reader.







And here is how everything looks from underneath with all the cables attached and a 4 port USB hub.





I wanted to use the memory slots in the front for the inputs for the game controllers so that meant more cutting, grinding and gluing to get the USB cables attached to the inside.

 



Now to see how everything fits.





Because of low voltage problems I was having when I played certain games, I found out part of the problem was the cheap USB cable that I was running from the Mausberry Circuit to the Pi, it had very thin wires. The only other solution I could think of was making my own cable.
I used these and ran the neg and pos wires to each, they are circled in the picture above.





I also needed to replace my original step down power converter with an adjustable one because the Pi3 likes 5.25v and my original converter was only supplying 5v. That .25v makes a big difference for the Pi3.



Before closing everything up there still were some electrical issues I had to work out, this is where DaOldMan came to the rescue. I had connected the fan which needs 12v to the power coming in but that meant the fan would turn on the minute I plugged the power cord in it not when I turned the Pi on. DaOldMan suggested I use a transistor and attach the base to one of the GPIO pins, he then proceeded to write me a python script that would turn the fan on and off when the Pi reached a certain temperature. Since that worked so well, I did the same with the leds that I mounted in the 4 game controller holes and wrote a python script that would make them flash on start-up. Like I mentioned before, each hole would now display the atari, nintendo, sega and playstation logo. I wrote a python script that would light up one of these logos depending on what game you choose.

The finished product.













The logos are visible when the LEDS are on, the camera is just not showing it well







Here is how you can get to the SDcard on the PI



And here is the step down power converter



Had to change that Gamecube label

[DaOld Man]

Great work my friend!
Thanks for the shoutout but you did the work, I just threw out a couple of ideas about the fan.
Love the lights indicating which emulator you are currently playing.
I got to remember that on my next build and I will probably be needing your help!
Whats next for the Darthman?

[darthpaul]

I need to update PiCubed 1.0 with your fantemp script and if I'm feeling really ambitious, reconfigure it to a similar set-up to this one.

[n3wt0n]

Nice job! This looks pretty slick.   

[Automark]

why the insane amounts of hotglue?

[darthpaul]

I did get a little carried away, I just didn't want anything coming loose.