Reply To: Portable Handheld Raspberry pi

[mat jessop]

Hi Zander,

I would be more than happy to send the files along, just PM me with your email address and I will send the CAD files. As for your interest in adding buttons to the back, this guy https://www.petrockblock.com/forums/topic/portable-retro-gaming-unit/ took my basic design and did just that. Adding 4 buttons instead of just 2 may require a bit of extra work since my design just uses a RetroLink SNES controller hooked up to the USB port for simplicity, and this only has 2 shoulder buttons. Of course, if you are also wanting an analogue stick instead of D-pad then you wouldn’t be able to use the RetroLink anyway. If you are then wanting to make your own controller set-up then it can be a bit more tricky. The best thing to do would be to chop up an old games controller (I have done it with a PS1 controller before) and then hook up the button inputs to the GPIO ports. Adafruit have a couple of guides on how to hook up buttons to GPIO for gaming https://learn.adafruit.com/retro-gaming-with-raspberry-pi , and also on how to use old controllers for game input https://learn.adafruit.com/pigrrl-raspberry-pi-gameboy . I have also tried using analgogue sticks, with varying success. The PSP style stick is really small and so would be ideal but wiring it up can be a little complicated. A normal playstation controller stick is easier to setup but fairly bulky. If you are new to this sort of stuff and have a timelimit then I would make life easy for myself and stick to a dpad, but you can always experiment with more than one thing at a time. It is always crucial that you have the entire system up and running before you get the case printed anyway, so you can play around with different strategies before you settle on the one that you want/works and then alter/design the case around it. Sorry for the verbose response!

Mat