Build you OWN retro game console with a Raspberry Pi!

this is my new retro game console it's a kit i bought and put together and it's like a trimmed down nintendo switch but i can do whatever i want on it since it runs on a raspberry pi i put a brand new raspberry pi zero 2 in it and if you missed my review of the zero 2 go check out that video retropie lets me play all the games i played when i was younger and the system it uses under the hood retro arch adds on tricks like screenshots recording and even saving games so i can finally finish the games i only had a few days from blockbuster alright before i date myself too much here are the specs this is the null 2 and mine is powered by a 4 core arm cpu with built-in wi-fi and bluetooth it has a usbc port to charge this 1000 milliamp hour battery it has a 3.2 inch screen stereo speakers and wow look at that it even has a headphone jack it's about the same size as my iphone and apparently there's still room for a headphone jack and heck i can ssh into this thing and get full control of the software no iphone or switch does that i tested all the games i owned and found that any of the old nes super nintendo sega genesis and playstation 1 games would play at 60 frames per second nintendo 64 games were sometimes playable but could act a bit weird at times and sound was a bit choppy but you know how they say it's not the destination it's the journey well let me show you my journey i ordered the kit on tindy when it was in stock and ordered a battery and pre-cut acrylic case parts separately i already had a micro sd card and a pi zero two but if you didn't have those you'd be looking at a total cost of around 150 bucks maybe a little more if you need to buy a soldering iron capped on tape or acrylic bonding cement if you can get access to a laser cutter or can print a 3d printed case you can save a few bucks on the case too anyways i got all this stuff in and when i laid it all out it's a lot all these parts are going to end up in the final build so from this point on it's just a matter of soldering and fitting everything together the first step and this is also the one that gave me the most grief was installing the pi zero on the main null 2 pcb you have to put some of this fancy yellow tape called kapton on the back of the pie this tape is really cool because it can withstand very high temperatures and it's non-conductive there are a few parts of the build where you use captain to protect things from short circuiting anyways i put the pie in precisely the right location over a bunch of little solder pads then i did something i've never done before i'm calling this cup hole soldering basically i had to fill in the gpio pin cups with solder cross my fingers and hope the solder made contact with the pad below on the board this technique saves a couple millimeters of precious vertical height since standard gpio headers have a little plastic spacer in them so i get why it's used but it's not as easy as soldering cassellated pins like these little ones you see around the edge of the pico they're a lot easier for this kind of surface mounting where you solder a flat pcb on top of another one anyways i'm getting off track i started out using the techniques suggested in the build guide using a thin pencil tip on my soldering iron to get down into the hole and heat it up before applying solder but i found that technique to be a bit scary on the first pin i soldered i'm pretty sure i overheated the joint and risked lifting the pad on the pie if i did that there's a good chance i'd have a broken pie so after soldering a few pins that way i switched to my medium chisel tip which holds a little more thermal mass that makes it easier to quickly heat everything up and fill in the cup with solder i pulled out my trusty old multimeter to test the pi's connections and fun story i made this old 10mm from a kit back when i was a kid don't you love that fancy buzzer sound i tested all the test pads to make sure there was continuity and wouldn't you know the ground pad that first connection i soldered wasn't connected even reflowing the joint didn't help i was a bit flustered but i ultimately bodged a ground connection to another pin on the pi you might have seen little wires like this one on other projects i've shown on the channel basically if you make an oopsy in hardware design or if you completely burn a solder joint to a crisp like i did you can bodge a connection using enameled copper wire and sometimes you get lucky and it fixes your problem and i counted my lucky stars because it did end up working at this point it was a matter of soldering on all the other components for this tiny surface mount resistor just put a little flux on the board use tweezers to place the thing and then put a little solder on it done the usbc power port was also a cup hole solder job but i was a lot more confident after soldering all the pins on the pie the headphone jack board was a little weird since you had to control the height by manually prying some of the header pins up then snipping them off but it worked out okay in the end just be careful when you snip off the header pins they go flying in any direction so be sure to wear your safety squints there's a variety of buttons and besides the select and start button which are surface mount they're pretty easy to solder for some reason those two surface mount buttons though were so annoying to solder by hand but i got them working in the end and at many points during the soldering process i'd grab a cotton swab or paper towel and rub on some isopropyl alcohol to clean up the board this is especially important to clean up excess flux since it could be both conductive and corrosive i covered the back of the screen in captain and surprisingly soldering the tiny surface mount ribbon cable directly to the pcb was pretty easy i put down some flux then put on a little extra solder as i passed the iron over the pins i used solder wick to clean up a couple bridge connections by pulling a little solder off where pins were accidentally joined together when i put on the battery i was extra careful to keep the red and black wires from shorting i've dealt with some pretty gnarly battery issues in the past and i don't like the idea of accidentally starting a battery fire in my workshop i soldered in the battery testing i was getting about 3.7 volts through to the pi and went to my computer to flash the null 2 image to a micro sd card i did that plugged the card into the pi and switched on power the display lit up so that was nice but nothing else happened the pi didn't even light up its little green led at all so something was wrong and for the first few hours i suspected it was something i did with my soldering i tested and retested every connection i even checked resistance everywhere making sure there wasn't some weak but barely connected joint and there wasn't i was about to give up but luckily i decided to try flashing normal pios i did that and switched the null to on and bingo i got a flashing green led meaning the pi was booting but pios is missing a few things the null 2 image had special settings and software so it could work things like the display and buttons all require customizations that aren't there on basic ios but at least i could log into the pi over ssh since wi-fi was working i spent some time figuring out how to get an open source driver for the display working and after spending some time compiling it with the right options it started displaying the pi's desktop on a roll i also got audio working since the hifiberry dac software is built into pios all i had to do was enable it and i got sound there's actually another step to make it so i can control the volume and i have that documented in my build blog post that's linked in the description but the last thing was mapping all the buttons so they'd work in retropie and using a script from adafruit i got that working too but long story short i kept getting errors compiling retropie on the xero 2 and that process takes hours so i gave up on trying to build from a fresh pi os image but since retropie publishes their own image i tested that next it still wouldn't have the drivers for the null 2's lcd or sound card but if it works i wouldn't have to compile all the software by hand so i grabbed the latest stable image from retropie's website and loaded it onto the card the pi booted but i noticed a major problem it never showed up on my network so i couldn't log into it over ssh and get the screen sound and buttons working it would be a pretty useless paperweight without any of that so i started looking into it and after a lot of research i found that the wi-fi chip on the pi zero 2 is actually slightly different than the one used in the pi 3 and original zero w and because of that the driver for it wasn't being loaded luckily there's also a weekly build of retropie that i flashed to the zero two and it worked perfectly after 30 minutes compiling everything again i had a working screen sound and buttons on the weekly retropie image and if you want to see exactly what i did check out the blog post linked in the description at this point i found out the start button wasn't working apparently i messed up the solder job on the tiny surface mount button so i re-soldered it with a little solder wick and flux and then it started working fine now that i had a working board i moved on to the case i chose to go with the clear acrylic case but there are also files for wood or 3d printed cases there were a couple interesting things putting together the case i'm pretty new to working with acrylic and didn't realize it was so easy to weld it together there's this fancy and slightly toxic weld on cement i bought this little bottle that comes with an applicator and the first problem i ran into was how to transfer the weld on from the canister into the applicator i didn't want to try just pouring it so i found one of my kids science sets and grabbed the plastic syringe out of it i used that to fill up the applicator then realized just how liquid the stuff is if you just tip the applicator bottle the cement starts coming out no squeezing required and at that point i also realized that cement acts very well as a paint remover it dissolves any of the printed pattern that it touched on my cutting mat anyways you live and you learn and i spent the next few minutes squirting a little weld on between the different button parts after the buttons were done and left to dry i cemented the various parts of the back case in place it was critical to get the alignment as close to perfect as possible otherwise the pcb won't fit in or some of the buttons will get misaligned in fact my alignment on the bottom piece was a tiny bit off so later i had to sand down the inside of the system button which was a bit annoying but after that it was a matter of dropping the various switches and bumpers in place then dropping the pcb into the rear case luckily besides that system button everything else fit together perfectly i worked on fitting the top cover on but before final assembly i had to sand down the bottoms of the a b and x y buttons and the d-pad it comes with thicker acrylic in case you want to use physical buttons but since i was using the supplied rubber pads which are a little taller i had to sand down the buttons i got everything assembled then put in the final four screws that keep it all together make sure you don't over tighten these they're made of plastic so they'll strip pretty easily after snipping off the excess the hardware build was complete and i love the look of the thing i remember in the 90s and early 2000s a lot of devices had clear or translucent plastic and this build really harkens back to that era everything nowadays is solid metal or boring plastic what happened to the bondi blue imac vibes well never mind that it looks great but now it was time to start putting it through its paces i plugged in a usbc charge cable and waited for the battery to hit 100 then i started customizing retropie first the default theme is designed for large hd displays some interface elements are practically invisible on this tiny display so i found a theme called tft that i can install in retropie's es themes settings next i wanted to see cover art for the games i loaded up over ssh so i went into retroprize scraper and let it grab the cover art the main menu was looking really nice now and i wanted to see if my muscle memory was any good from playing paperboy decades ago i'm not sure why but of all the games i remember paperboy objectively one of the most mundane titles on the nintendo was the one i tried out first it was just as hard to deliver papers to subscribers houses as i remembered but also just as fun to throw papers at everything else i also tested a few of my other favorite retro games classics like nba jam super mario brothers sonic and excitebike and to get a better idea of overall performance i also tested some nintendo 64 and playstation games like super mario 64 waverace 64 and one game i've spent way too many hours playing over there's tony hawk's pro skater 2. overall almost every game from the 16-bit era and earlier works perfectly most of these games also ran well on the pi zero but they're all running at 60 frames per second consistently without a problem on the zero two from the 32-bit era playstation 1 games are hit or miss but mostly run well gran turismo 2 would load up until the point of starting a race then it would crash tony hawk's pro skater 2 on the other hand played great and it actually works well with a simple d-pad built into the null 2. i had to kind of pull myself away from it that late 90s punk rock soundtrack is addictive anyways the only games that weren't as fun to play were on nintendo 64. and spotty n64 performance isn't limited to the zero two even the fastest pi 4 has trouble sometimes but some games like super mario 64 are playable especially if you set up an external bluetooth controller and if you're wondering why the zero 2 still struggles emulation is more often a gpu heavy task than cpu heavy look at h-top while i was playing some of the ps1 and n64 games the cpus are pretty lightly loaded meanwhile the gpu is going full tilt and while the zero-two cpu is two to five times faster than the original zero the gpu is still a video core 4 series and is only maybe 25 percent faster than the one in the original zero w it does make a difference using the zero two instead of the older zero but don't expect miracles in terms of performance but enough about emulation after using the null 2 for a few weeks i have some thoughts the thing i liked most was how compact it is there's not much wasted space and yet the null 2 is still just large enough that playing games for more than a few minutes doesn't get uncomfortable i also like the fact that all the components besides the pcb are standard and off the shelf and if i need a replacement i could get it pretty fast the build guide was also very thorough though there are a few parts like the cup hole soldering and acrylic cement that were new to me and it would have been nice to have a video or animated clip of how to do it i also like that the null 2 has stereo speakers at least with games like sonic the hedgehog it actually makes a big difference hearing everything in true stereo and not just mono [Music] plus that headphone jack let me experience a lot of old games in a way i'd never played them i'm actually amazed how good the sound was on early genesis and super nintendo games i've only ever heard them on the tiny speaker in our family's cheap 13 inch tv the thing i liked most about the null 2 and pi based gaming in general is everything's open source i can log into my game console and manage it i can copy files to and from it i can accidentally break it if i want and fix it too that's something you'll never get out of the box on a switch or a popular smartphone battery life is decent but not stellar i get about two hours of play time on a full charge with wi-fi and bluetooth on charging it from empty takes about an hour and a half but all isn't roses there were a few things that i didn't like one of the most annoying things early on was how the pi's hdmi and usb ports are completely inaccessible it would help a lot for debugging or if i wanted to use a usb controller or dock the null 2 to a tv over hdmi the way the pi mounts to the board also means it's extremely difficult to replace the pie for a device that's otherwise repairable that's one glaring flaw i'd trade off a little thickness to have a device that's easier to repair there are a few other annoying things like no backlight brightness control a hard to access microsd card slot and no battery life indication but in the end this is a device made for fun and i'm happy to overlook those little flaws because i've had a lot of fun fun building it fun playing on it and i'm going to have fun seeing my kids experience the first few games i ever played on it terry pratchett once said my programming language was solder after putting the null 2 together i can confidently declare my programming language isn't solder but hey it works and since i learned a few things and had fun that's what counts the journey was every bit as rewarding as the destination the null 2 is available on tindy at least sometimes batches sell out pretty quick so sign up to be notified if you want to build your own it works with either the pi zero w or pi zero two until next time i'm jeff gearling i kept getting errors holy cow okay stop that hello hello hi start putting it through its places place our standard and off the shelf and if i need a it's a shelf but in the end this is the dang it

Channel: Jeff Geerling

Views: 131,480

Keywords: raspberry pi, retropie, null 2, null2, retroarch, emulation station, gaming, retro, nes, snes, nintendo, super nintendo, atari, commodore 64, sega, genesis, megadrive, n64, nintendo 64, playstation, psx, sonic, mario, wave runner, gran turismo, pi zero, zero 2, zero 2 w, wifi, bluetooth, console, handheld, battery, tindie, kit, diy, build, do it yourself, tutorial, soldering, electronics, buttons, pcb, circuit, desolder, terry pratchett, tony hawk, pro skater 2, excitebike, old, fun, switch, iphone, mobile

Id: 9zu3pjvdSHI

Length: 17min 12sec (1032 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/vaughannt]

Jeff, you are my hero!

[u/joelhuebner]

I saw your video yesterday. KUDOS. This thing sounds quite complex for even an intermediate geek. Which is too bad. Having STLs for 3D printing would be cool. The daughter bord guy needs to simplify (yes the cost will increase) his part of the build. Your ideas with the Piz.2 are very nice. I always enjoy your topics. Some are a bit beyond many Pi users, in complexity and cost. You are a great resource!!!

[u/Dr-Vader]

He looks like Rami Malek's cousin from Utah

[u/JankyJk]

Awesome job! Thank you for the tutorial! Thank you for all the time you spent sorting retropie on the pi zero 2.

[u/_kdavis]

I love this guy! Cried over his made grandpa into a ketchup topper episode.

[u/seahawks83]

this is pretty rad, it was alot more work than I thought it would be. congrats for getting it working

[u/ALZimmz]

Thanks for sharing your tutorial

[u/[deleted]]

Waiting someday people will create a board that you can plug *any* iphone screen and built a retro gaming console -- hope that board could be cheap as RPi or Arduino

Then we can reduce eletronic polution on seas

[u/voja-kostunica]

could you use zero pie to make gps tracker and anti theft that sends images from camera to google drive and thin enough so it can fit inside bicycle frame tube?