So my 45 a day is slightly different at the moment, it’s still around game development but with the inclusion of a games console!
With my new Pi I’ve been struggling to think what to do with it, not that I’ve no idea, more that I have too many ideas. However last night I decided, I’m going to make myself a console to play my games on, oh and some emulated games, oh and a multimedia center! Because it’s my console I can decide what I want it to do, so here is my wish list:
- Must play my flash/html 5 games
- Must allow wired and non wired controllers
- Must be portable
- Must have a screen
- Must run any emulators through the RCA jack (for best old school results)
- Must play sound through speakers
- Must output through HDMI (if required)
- Must be able to change the SD card with ease
- Must handle multimedia
Sounds like a lot and maybe it is, I’ve never done anything like this before but I figured fuck it, i’ll give it a go.
So last night I searched the house for some kind of housing unit, which is when I stumbled across my little girls portable DVD player. Luckily it’s a two part DVD player, it came with two screens for the car.
I figured I would have a look in the second screen to see what’s inside, turns out not alot! So I instantly dropped my PI in there and checked I could close it all up and surprise surprise it was fine!
Oh and it it has an RCA jack, so all I need to do is cut open a VGA cable split it and solder it onto the jack right? Yup, before soldering I tested it and to my surprise it worked! I know there’s no reason why it shouldn’t but this is all new to me so little things that work first time make me smile!
BTW I haven’t soldered anything for years, the last time was when I was at uni and I soldered a little digital clock set from Maplins, I blew it when I switched it on because my solder was all over the show. So needless to say I was surprised to see my soldering skills had slightly improved, maybe it was the beer in the other hand that help 
Anyway, I plugged everything in and checked it was running and happy days, it was.
I then went ahead with no real thought or planning about putting some entry holes into the case so that I could plug and remove both the SD and power port. There was no planning and I soon realised after “drilling” my holes I didn’t actually need the power hole, I’ll explain why later.
Why drilling in quotations? Well I actually used a Dremel with a wet stone sanding head and used the edge of the wet stone to pierce the plastic before “smoothing” off the edges, I should have been wearing a mask because now all the plastic particles are in my nose and throat, but you live and learn.
I mounted the PI inside and gave it all another quick proud test before heading off to bed. I’m actually generally surprised how well it’s looking, to be fair I’ve seen worse.
So now the plan is to get the following battery housing case and batteries. Im going to take the housing case apart and stretch the switch to the top of my housing then use a USB to power a hub, the hub will power the PI and any other peripherals attached, I’m also hoping to wire the screen into this somehow. I’ve no idea if this will work but there’s only one way to find out, worse I’ll do is blow the screen but we will see.