why don't we have people send in short
audition videos and put them on the Element
14 community saying hey here's Who I am
here's what I do and here's how I would
approach a raspberry pi affordable okay
and the ten best videos that we oh yeah
what are you doing here we were battling
the shredder and old metal face
destroyed my favorite video game ever I
need your help to fix it well why don't
you get it Donatello to do it nah he's
busy working on some project for some
Ben Heck guy whoever that is you think
you can look at it oh yeah this is a
crush a I'll see what I can do so
apparently Raphael is entrusted me with
this vintage 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles handheld game and well it's kind
of a one-trick pony though it's a
rudimentary graphics rudimentary sound
rudimentary gameplay but what if we can
take these design cues and upgrade the
internals we'll say a Raspberry Pi new
screen etc and we can build something
that celebrates not only a beloved
franchise but retro gaming in general
much the way that the SNES classic or
the NES classic does so here's my idea
we take said TMNT game which is very
poor part and should be able to fit a
new TFT screen right here we'll use the
original buttons if I can get some
replacements we use the original buttons
here we use these function buttons we
put a power switch here for the on/off
button and then we'll just use some tax
switches up underneath we'll build a new
control set so the screen and a
Raspberry Pi should just fit right here
may have to take much of this out just
to fit everything in but we should be
able to have plenty of room here since
we're not
gonna use double A's I should be able to
get a lipo big lipo battery stick it
right in here and use this room for some
extra eternals so this looks like it's a
very viable project so let me order some
parts and we will start fitting
everything together and see where it
goes so I think my biggest concern here
is the way that the pie and the screen
are gonna fit together inside the case
now of course it looks like they're
gonna fit so it should be okay but we'll
know for certain once we get rid of all
this extra plastic here so I'm gonna
mark off all these areas that we're
gonna cut and then once I have all that
now it's time to dremel yes I actually I
was afraid of this so the buttons don't
fit right the screen and they don't even
line up right so we're gonna have to
take those
so here are the buttons that we removed
and of course you got a uh can actually
see in here that they just they just
don't line up right so we're gonna
actually create a new pad a new
controller to go in here now before we
get building this thing we should
probably at least set up the operating
system on the Raspberry Pi and since
this is a PI based gaming system we're
gonna use the tried-and-true retro PI so
we're just gonna jump over to the retro
pie website and grab the image once
that's finished downloading use an app
like etcher to flash it onto a bootable
SD drive disco now I've got to
reconfigure this workstation with the
HDMI monitor the OTG cable and the power
supply in order to set up the Raspberry
Pi for the first boot okay we've got a
splash screen this is a good sign so
from here let's go into the
configuration menu and set up the Wi-Fi
now we need to enable SSH so we're gonna
go into raspy config then to interface
options SSH and 1/8 now back in the main
retro PI interface I'll go ahead and
shut down the pi so that I can clear all
the stuff off my workstation now back on
the Mac I'll just fire around terminal
and ssh into hi now I haven't changed
the knee of the credentials yet but you
absolutely should do that as soon as
possible now I'm gonna be using a two
fruits 2.2 inch pie TFT hat as the
primary display so I need to enable
support using the script that they were
so good to provide I'll use option 6 for
the manual configuration and give it a
few minutes for everything to install I
also need to set up a two fruits from
retro game scripts so I can quickly
assign the GPIO breakout pins from the
screen module
we'll use the hi girls zero settings for
simplicity okay the initial setup is
complete and it's time to do
okay so I've picked up some bakelite
perfboard so I could build a custom
controller without having to roll my own
PCB besides it's quicker and easier if I
just hand wire everything and I'm gonna
be better able to make adjustments and
changes as necessary if so to start I
just need to lay out my buttons and make
sure I have the correct spacing by using
the front panel of the game then I'll
press fit my pack switches in the board
and double check the spacing as I go
once everything is lined up right it's
time to solder
now that all the buttons are soldered
place I'll go ahead and trim off the
excess bakelite so that the whole board
fits in the case nicely of course this
is why I'm using bakelite instead of
fiberglass because well it's I can cut
it with scissors I don't have to get out
the dremel and all the safety equipment
so you know just to make a simple trail
I'm also gonna need to cut out a notch
here to fit this big beefy power button
that I'm gonna install separately now
let's start working on this screen
assembly
so the PI TFT hat actually comes with a
separate GPIO breakout right here below
the 40 thin connector so that you can
easily attach control wires the cell I'm
going to connect the buttons and I'm
just gonna use a two fruits default
layout for their retro game script to
wire everything for now okay just a
quick orientation check let's get these
wires soldered to their Horace ponding
buttons
okay now moment of truth it's time to
solder the pie to the screen module with
all the wires sandwiched in between
now the screen module and the PI are
married I need to ground all these
buttons to a common line so I'll just
run some ground lines create a couple of
buses and connect all of that to one of
the ground pants on the GPIO now I need
a couple of shoulder buttons and so I'm
going to use these little candy colored
text witches because they're going to
fit right into the top of these little
shoulders here on the bottom of the case
appropriately enough so I'm going to
need to measure the button cap okay
looks be about 11 millimeters give or
take so now my stepper bit and you get
to chewing through this plastic
looking good so now we need some onboard
audio okay let's take our USB audio
adapter and and tear off these three and
a half millimeter Jaxx's we're not going
to need them instead we'll just solder
the leads to our speaker directly to the
pads where the headphone jack was it
doesn't really matter which channel we
use because we're only going to output
mono sound all these old games did just
fine with mono sound anyway I mean it's
not like a lot of TVs back in the day
had stereo capabilities anyway
kind of reminds me of the Etta reminds
me of the old game boys you know
dot-matrix with stereo sound but only
one speaker whatever now we should at
least make sure it works now comes the
fun
I need to desolder these wires leading
to the USB plug because well this just
isn't gonna work
oh yeah and you might want to take note
of where each wire is connected to
logistics anyway with the USB
disconnected I'll just cut a micro USB
cable that I have lying around and leave
a micro plug and just a few inches worth
of cable strip it down and solder the
individual wires onto the appropriate
pads add a little dab of hot glue to
reinforce the connections and then we've
got as a micro USB audio adapter that
should fit just like so now the last
component I have to build before we put
this whole thing together is the power
supply now I'm going to use a two
thousand milliamp power lipo battery to
power the thing with but I'm gonna need
a way to charge it and to distribute
that power so for that I'm gonna use
this a power boost 1000 from Adafruit
it's actually pretty simple to wire the
battery plugs into this little jack
right here and we just have to run a
couple of wires from these terminals one
goes to a 5 volt pin and the other goes
to the ground pin on the PI I'm also
gonna wire this little clicky button
switch that I have that I'll use to talk
with power now let's get these things
soldered up and that'll be time to put
this bad boy together
so I've run into a little bit of a snag
on assembling the speaker that I'm using
is just too big to fit inside the shell
so I'm gonna have to find a smaller
speaker driver to use now fortunately
the fine folks over at Ben Heck show
happened to send me another speaker as
part of the build materials for Ben's
original bill okay let's get this bad
boy put together we're gonna start with
the power boost unit wire that up to the
five volt in and the ground pin on the
Raspberry Pi then we want a route ours
power switch into its appropriate
position all right looking good now we
need to connect the shoulder buttons to
the main controls we're gonna start by
running ground lines from the ground bus
on the controller out to the shoulder
buttons which I've attached to these
small little pieces of perfboard that
I've glued into place then we're going
to connect our signal wires that we
soldered on to the screen module earlier
all right everything's fitting great now
we just need to add a little hot glue to
hold everything in place and to insulate
our wires okay the last thing we have to
do is Mount our USB audio so we got to
run the cable right around through here
plug it in and cut a little piece of
mounting square we're gonna tack the
speaker right down on to the battery and
I think we're actually finished let's
give it a shot
it works I've works it works okay one
more thing I've got to do and always got
to sign our work perfect now I just got
to get this back over to Raphael and
we're good to go okay so the games
intact but I've made a few modifications
that I think you're gonna enjoy let's
check it out wow this is radical this is
way better than the game I used to play
