The trick with the applicator thing for the acrylic cement is to have it about half full, hold it upright and squeeze the air out and flip it over, then the vacuum keeps the stuff in and you can very precisely control how much you want to squeeze out
I like this idea. Could also just cut out part of the back-having the entire back be metal could be a bit overkill for the Zero 2 W. It can only soak up a few watts maximum.
@@JeffGeerling True, anyways I'd love to see you do this and if you are up for it mention I gave the idea. I have LOTS of ideas but no time to do all of them.
So I ended up making a similar project with a Pi 3A+ instead (as Pi Zero is impossible to find nowadays) , and it actually ended up costing me around 50$ total. I did not have a 3d printer, so I ended up using a 2$ pencil box as the case, and all the buttons were mounted manually and connected to a Pi pico, which was in turn connected to the Pi 3a's USB Port. It ended up working pretty great (though not so great look wise). Also I can use the Pi 3's headphone jack without external dac, and having access to power & hdmi ports means I can dock the device with my TV. I actually am frequently carrying it to my college to play games during free time. This Gameboy Null project gave me the inspiration to attempt to try doing it, and I'm grateful for it.
I still have a fully transparent original Xbox Controller and it was always amazing to look at. Choosing the clear version is definitely the right choice and I would go for it too if I would buy this product
Seeing that THPS footage was what I wanted from this video. I've got a Retroflag GPi case and can't wait to stuff a Zero2W into it. The crashes during GT2 are likely an emulator bug, it's rock solid on a regular Pi 3 and 4.
Yeah the weird thing is I tried four times before working on recording the script. Then when I went back to record the video clip of it crashing... it worked every time! No clue why.
I am really looking forward to your cutiepi review! I would prefer a more conventional tablet with kickstand instead of the handle, but it is easily the most compelling pi tablet I have seen so far. I hope it is good!
I have the Raspiboy which is larger (it's like 4 years old at this point), but it doesn't require any soldering at all. The main interface board has spring-loaded pins that connect to the test pads on the back of the zero. It also exposes usb so you can use external controllers.
Can't wait until we're using Wine version 21387847 on the Blueberry Pi built on RISC-V and we're able to play Crysis 3 at 60 FPS on a pocket sized computer
@@ThylineTheGay Emulating would most definitely be needed lmao. Games are always built to the particular standards of time-specific hardware and software. Modern hardware and software (E.g. Windows 10 or Linux+Proton) can barely run Windows XP-era games without a lot of issues.
Very interesting little build, I'm personally working on building a PiGRRL Zero Advance around my own Zero 2, I'm really hoping I can leverage the touch screen to squeeze some Nintendo DS emulation out of it. The Pi Zero 2 and Compute Module 4 are both fantastic leaps forward in making portable RasPi devices practical, I just really hope they can step up production because thanks to the chip shortage they're clearly struggling to keep up with current demand.
Pretty sweet, at this point there are sub $50 handhelds that will play up to ps1 though so if you aren't getting enjoyment from the build, it's probably not worth it. 2 years ago (when this video was made) things were likely different.
I'd be paranoid about those solder joints breaking. If the board had thru holes where the pi goes, short piece of copper thru both would do it. Like the idea of a portable console like that, as long as it can be used for something useful instead of gaming
Gaming is a useful for entertainment. But I get what you mean. I also really want a small portable computer. The main issue is going to be interfacing with it.
@@QuippersUnited how about this design but with functional analog joysticks, l1/r1 anf l2/r2 buttons so you can run steamlink and play any game in your library ?
I had fun building it. I don't really think you'd see this, But I also had an issue where it was just sitting on a white screen. It ended up being raspberry pi imager was doing something, so I had to use win32 disk imager, and add my Wi-Fi credentials with a Bluetooth keyboard
pretty cool but a version for a full size pi 4 that includes everything (also a touchscreen) should be made... doesnt matter if it ends up a tad bigger... the pi 4 is much faster afterall
first off this is awsome. but for 150 its like you said more about the journey and fun you have in assembly. if you really wanna use one i would advice 150 bucks retroid pocket 3+ and as best in category i would say ayn odin from 200$ pro a lil more but the base model has no problem emulating ps2 and gamecube
Just subscribed, love the content. After a realisation a few weeks ago I just had to finally say it - the US pronunciation of "soldering" reminds me of the ancient cities of Soldom and Golmorrah.
You should look up the Zega Mame Gear. It's a similar drop in modders board that you can add a PI4, Pi3 or PiZero1/2 boards to, but you them mount them into a Game Gear shell.
Love what you've done here. I found a much cheaper way with my Odroid go advance kit. Runs upto ps1 perfect and coat me only £40 plus the SD card. Batocera or emuelec both great options on it.
Was all excited there for a moment -- mistook the speakers for analogue sticks. My dream pocket device is a Pi Zero 2 with AAAAALLLLL the buttons so I can use it to play MAME ROMs on the train then use it for serious work as well. All the cheap Far Eastern handhelds can do the games, but without wifi, I can't use it as a local wifi hotspot and webserver for interactive classroom activities.
Not many of these builds have the analog sticks, not sure why. Probably has to do with Zero not being quite powerful enough for some of the games that really require them. But that's changing!
@@JeffGeerling Console-centric thinking, isn't it? Quite a few 80s arcade machines had analogue controls -- particularly driving games. Then of course there's native games to think about, even if there isn't all that many of them. RU-vid and convenience probably has a part to play in this -- showing how it runs games on a particular console gives a readily-understood benchmark on power, whereas saying how well it runs certain MAME ROMs doesn't really give much generalisable information. So they build to what gets seen.
No analog sticks because this was designed for the original Pi Zero, which couldn’t play much at all that needed them. Nothing to do with RU-vid, I made something I wanted to use and was lucky that others want to make and use one too.
If you go into ui settings you can probably change the ui color to black backround and white letters. Should make it even a little bit easier to see. Altho its theme dependant in es. And i recommend batocera since that is the best one imo Edit: forgot to mention batocera im pretty sure also supports small screens. Atleast on my 3.5 inch display i saw everything and could read everything quite well
You need a good amount of flux and then it solders easier, also throwing it in the oven at 150C for a couple of hours will help get the solder between the boards.
This might be a lot to ask but could put a raspberry pi zero 2 into a gba shell? There is a surprising amount of things to work around and I think it would be a great video idea!
Very useful video. I just ordered my Null 2 kit. Missed the bit about the battery and acrylic. Made it very expensive overall. Seeing the trouble you’ve had, I’m not sure I’m looking forward to building it. One thing: is it ‘solder’ or ‘sodder’ 🤪😂
1:07 a jailbroken iphone does exactly that (ssh access, full internal storage access, root account, installation of debian based packages via open and close source 3rd party repos, full gui customization, ,etc)
Another great video, Jeff! Out of curious, did you get a chance to also try running DosBox on this? Just curious if the Pi Zero 2 is powerful enough for emulating Dos games =D
I think a low profile connector like the one on the compute module would have been a good idea, although getting one with the 0.1" spacing for connectors might have been an issue. Having said that, perhaps since USB and HDMI aren't being used, maybe a version based on the compute module?
I think many of the custom builds are gravitating towards the CM4. There are already a number of builds out there, some getting pretty small like those from Zarcade! pipci.jeffgeerling.com/boards_cm
Looks a great device but the supply is ridiculous compared to demand. I just received a notification email that these were back in stock 17:15... I saw the email and immediately logged in to see 6 in stock, added to cart and selected delivery postcode and the site says "Out of stock removed from cart" 17:18.
Financially, this build makes no sense since things such as Anbernic and PowKiddy handhelds exist for way cheaper with much better performance and they're prebuilt. On the flip side, this is great as a project for someone who wants to try out a few different things and get more involved in getting their retro-handheld from pieces to party.
As an electrical engineer I understand the whole process and it's probably a great project. But my question is, if there are products like Anbernic RG405M (150$) and retroid 3+ and it can literally play up to PS2, then whats the point of this project? I mean, if I'm doing all the hard work at least I need a bang for the buck. spending over 150 to get this performance is big NO NO from me.
This is way way beyond my soldering ability >_< that cup soldering looks like hell. Wouldn’t it be better to solder pins from a header (no spacer) then put the pi over the pins, solder some more then snip the excess pin
I really want to learn how to do this, but I feel like this might be a lot for me to handle (I’ve never soldered) do you recommend a project similar to this that might be a bit easier for a beginner?
Wouldn't it be better to just solder two independent wires then connect them to battery and cover the connections with heat shrink tubes? It would be safer than directly soldering the battery and worrying about blowing something.
Thats cool but i was wondering if there be a rasberry pie wit 4 trigger bunttons instead of 2 and a single analogh stick for n64 games. That be neat for rasberry pi zero 2
That fun fact had me side tracked for maybe 15 minutes as I learned what I always believed to be gold foil contains apparently no gold at all. How did I not know this, why is this a common misconception?
It would be cool if a raspberry pi could play more N64 games without as much slowdown and choppy audio. I've noticed the first party stuff for the most part works great but 2nd and 3rd party stuff either doesn't load at all or is so broken it's not worth your time.
i prefer there the odroid go products ... and you should btw look into the xu4 cu2 from them. the xu4's are still super powerfull, but only has 2 GB ram, performance wise its quicker in bootup than the pi4, but in general the pi4 is similar powerfull and has optionally more ram.
"Emulation is more often a GPU heavy task, than CPU heavy task" Wha- It's the other way around, at least with the majority of emulators (rpcs3, cemu, pcsx2, ppsspp, ryujinx, yuzu, citra etc), the only one I see being heavier on GPU is Xenia, great video nonetheless
Can't really comment if it will work with your machine(I really don't like handhelds or small screens, so I'd be complaining anyways) but found when making an emulation station using a regular Pi 4, that Batocera is much better software than Retro Pie for running retro games. No idea if you'd be able to get drivers for the controls etc. for it, though.
I need something like this but for khadas edge 2 but in this form factor, maybe a bit bigger but it must fit in the pocket.. is there a kit like this ?
AFAICT the main PCB is not open source (check out www.null2.co.uk)-but all the other parts are commodity parts you could buy from (usually) Amazon, (often) eBay, or (sometimes) Alibaba.
Hi Jeff! Great vid as always. I have a Pi Z2 and want to build a retro handheld gaming console. Would you recommend this or the GPi case? Ignoring the extra work involved in building it (it will be a Christmas present I'll give away so this isn't an issue) and based purely or the gaming experience.
Hey Jeff, can I make a project request? I've been wanting to install a dash board computer with GPS and music playback using a pi and a touchscreen. (As a stretch goal I might try a dash camera that records to an on board SSD). It would also have to start and stop with the ignition (so you don't kill your battery). Do you think something like that would be feasible / cost effective for a Raspberry Pi?
