What we have here is making the best of an unfortunate mistake. Like many of you know, I had a project going called the Nintendo 4G which was a mini-arcade system which housed 4 generation of Nintendo in one machine. Used all original carts and a Yobo FC Twin for the NES/SNES system.
Well I screwed up on that, making the cart slots next to useless among other issues. So I was left with a maybe functional FC Twin board with no cart slots! So what to do...hardwire a couple of games to the system, throw some batteries and a screen in there and now we have (or will soon) a Mario & Legend of Zelda tribute portable! I'll give you the story in pictures.
We start off with the vacuum mold. I had an idea that though I couldn't fit this project into a DMG case, I did greatly wish for this to have the feel and the vibe of a late 80's early 90's system as this tribute is to all the original Mario games up to and including Super Mario World.
Because I had the space, I wired two 3.7V Li-Po batteries to give me 7.4V. Just have the standard protection circuit in place. I liked doing it this way because it made the whole battery pack clean and easy to move as a unit.
Here are the doner carts. A copy of The Legend of Zelda for the NES and a copy of Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario world. I figured since I was making a system with no cart slot, I was going to have to have some sort of varity to play with. SMB All-Stars seemed like a great choice because it was technically 4 games in one including the lost levels game that never hit US shores. But, I also noticed that there was this game plus Super Mario World and I was just like hell yeah! $15 bucks on eBay is worth while to me. And for the Nintendo side of the FC Twin, I had to put in the original Zelda because why not? Few Nintendo games of any value had more than one game on it much less those add-ons needing the lazer gun. So Zelda it is!
Because I made the tolerances so tight, I had to rewire the board closer together. That worked out fine though because the unit is now more ridged and stable. Those wires you see though going across the board are repairing traces that I had cut through by mistake.
A rough outline of the front with the button holders from the FC Twin Controller in place.
Now fast forward about a month. Most of the components are cut and in place now and ready for epoxy. I'm cramming more into this than any other project I've done. This includes an A/V out port which is wired to work with the standard PlayStation A/V out puts for composite and L&R audio. There is a switch to change video signal from the screen to that output so it can be played on a bigger screen. I also have a wall power and battery power switch so that you can switch between the two as well. Last for the switches, I also have the main power switch for the system on a SPDT rocker. Left it turns on the NES, Right it turns on the SNES. You'll also see an audio amp I robbed from one of those pop-up speakers you get from staples. I managed to get the pin-outs for the mini-usb and have by wired them up to the main batteries via a PTH8000 because it runs off of 3.7V. So now I don't need an additional port to charge the amp. Also includes headphone out port and a rotary dial for the volume. This has a 4.3 inch screen so there will be some stretching of the image, but I've rewired the screens menu buttons to the side and I have full control over the options settings.
Believe it or not, this is the Yobo controller PCB hacked down to it's bare minimum. I have a guide I made that has all the traces routs so I can simply pretty much wire directly to the chip. A major space saver let me tell you!
A closer shot of the buttons and the switches. I'm only using one speaker in this, but it still will have stereo headed to it.
Closer views of the audio amp and screen.
Closer view of the top of the unit.
First view of the top and the file work around the screen. First time I've not used the actual bezel of a screen, so that was kinda tricky to get right.
And another rough top view. I think it's starting to look good though!
So anyway, this is my progress and I should be getting back to this shortly. I've actually just completed another project (not a portable though) that I will be releasing shortly. But until then, let me know what you think and I'll try and answer any questions if you have them. Thanks guys!
