Han's NintendoPi Project

[tthurman]

Or for a  more permanent bond, this stuff!

I've used it to repair several victims of the move, and it works very well!

[hansolo77]

My plans are just to cut whatever hole out I need for the HDMI and then a couple of drilled out holes for the screws.  The same for the power plugs.  I could do something like you did stig, with a custom-made wall panel for the connectors, and then just use that to replace the existing holes.  Maybe for a future project.  I don't think my skill level is any where near yours.  That's just insane dude.  Hat's off.  Deep bows.  All that good stuff.  The only thing I'm concerned about, once I get this all hooked up and the cover put back on, is heat.  And I never brought it up because I thought maybe the open space would be good enough to keep it cool, but maybe not so much.  There are pre-existing vents, but I doubt that would be sufficient.  I tried to figure out if maybe I could use the GPIO and maybe mount some kind of fan over the SOC that comes on when it gets hot and turns off when it gets cooled down enough.  I've seen (was it Instructibles?) plans where somebody had done just that, using scripts and a relay.  I don't know anything about electronics, and the idea of building circuits just scares me to death.  So maybe I can come up with an alternative, like something that can run on AC?  But I still think a relay is going to be needed if I want it to run only when hot.  Unless I can get one of those Noctua fans, they're pretty much the quietest things available.  Maybe I can come up with a way to run one of those on AC.  It's a future endeavor.

Day 16 - 1st of Many Packages

I got my NES->USB circuit in the mail  Haven't opened it yet.  Looks like I got some work to do.  I knew this going in, but now that I'm holding it in my hands, it's scary.  There are these weird snaps on the sides of each of the plugs that I'll have to cut off, and the top right corners will have to be cut off as well to make them fit in the holes on the case.  I think what I'll try to do first is just use the existing wires on the plugs already installed, and just solder them to the circuit. 

[Kustom Kid]

9 hours ago, tthurman said:

Or for a  more permanent bond, this stuff!

I've used it to repair several victims of the move, and it works very well!

Gorilla anything is aces!

 

Han, if you get a computer case fan you should be able to hook them up to a 3.3v or 5v pin and a ground pin. No need to get super fancy. Something like the Scythe Slip Stream. Since they would normally run at 12 volts it'll be even quieter, and move less air, but hey you shouldn't need much.

 

 

[hansolo77]

Ok, so go ahead and laugh at my shoddy soldering.  I actually think this is probably the best soldering job I've ever done.  I still have the included controller ports from Raphnet should this end up not working.  I wired up the first port, and had switched the white and yellow wires by mistake.  Luckily I caught it before I hooked anything up.  It's hard to see at 11:30 at night with crappy "orangy" incandescent light.  Once I had the first port wired up, I grabbed an NES controller, plugged in the USB, and booted up the Pi.  Since it's USB, there's no drivers (a plus because I have no idea how to do that with Linux).  EmulationStation recognized right away there was a Raphnet 2-port adapter installed.  I mapped the controls, and luckily it picked up all the buttons.  I then tried to play test 1943.  Navigating in ES worked fine.  Once the game started, all the buttons seemed to work.  Fire, Special, Left, Right, Up, Down, and Start.  Didn't have any use for Select, so I quickly learned that worked as well.  You press START+SELECT to exit a game.  So that worked.  I then went on to wire up the 2nd port.  Loaded up the system with a controller plugged into port 2.  It already remembered the mappings, but I went in and manually configured them again to make sure all the buttons worked, which they did.  So bonus there!  I then plugged in both controllers and loaded up Super Mario Bros 3 (I knew it was 2 player).  Checked all the controls out for P1, then for P2.  Looking good!  I disconnected everything, then went back over my soldering with a pair of nail clippers and trimmed off the tails of the wires sticking out the back, just in case so they don't touch any other connections.  I'm going to go over it with a hot glue gun tomorrow to secure all the connections.  You'll notice in my pictures, there's 1 wire on each port that I didn't get to solder through the holes.  Somehow I managed to fill those holes with solder prior to getting the wire through (or I managed to pull the wire out before the solder had set).  So I ended up having to just solder it flat to the hole, rather than through.  It's not an ideal connection, but it seemed to work ok.  Man, I really need to think about investing in one of those "helping hands" rigs with the clips to hold stuff.  This was really hard to do, holding the iron in one hand, and the circuit/wire/solder in the other.  I managed, but man.. there's gotta be an easier way!

My next task is to figure out why Super Mario Brothers (the first one) doesn't load.  After that, I'm going to have to figure out why the controllers want to keep pressing UP once I exit a game, but then don't do it when both controllers are connected.  I suspect there is a grounding issue somewhere, but I can't figure out where.

[Kustom Kid]

10 hours ago, stigzler said:

Nice work, Hans!

Having recently done some similar work (see Ataroid: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,149221.0.html) I'd recommend using xlr-type panel mounts. E.g for your hdmi:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,149221.0.html

then using this to cut the hole:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-Pcs-Large-HSS-Steel-Step-Cone-Drill-Titanium-Bit-Set-Hole-Cutter-4-12-20-32mm-/272422588843?hash=item3f6da6d1ab:g:jXoAAOSwgHZYC1wh

Gives a result like this:

 

Also - for any other standoffs - i'd recommend using hot glue. Sure - leaves the insides a bit messy, but saves any traces on the outside. 

Excellent advice stigzler. A Neutrik HDMI pass through should work great for that. It gives a nice clean look. That's what I used for my arcade stick. The best part is, even if your hole is janky it'll be covered! You can get the step bits at Harbor Freight for about $6 as well. They cut through plexiglass and lexan well. I've used mine quite a bit, so it's money well spent if you want to do any other projects in the future.

 

EDIT: That's actually pretty good soldering. It's even better considering you didn't have anything extra to hold stuff in place.

[tthurman]

9 hours ago, Kustom Kid said:

EDIT: That's actually pretty good soldering. It's even better considering you didn't have anything extra to hold stuff in place

X2

Looks like a good job to me, soldering can be such a pain in the arse at times.

[hansolo77]

Thanks for the praise guys.  The only reason I don't like those plugs you linked to (beside the $16 price) is they're big.  Looks like a 3/4 inch hole.  I don't want something that large cut out.  Of course, the C14 plugs are pretty close to that too.  I probably should have just went with one of these.  Oh well, live and learn.

I posted a question on the RetroPie forums asking if anybody has seen that issue with the controller pressing UP after returning from a game.  Then I did a bit of searching (always search first!) and found this: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/4516/how-to-apply-raphnet-kernel-patch-to-fix-northwest-drift  Looks like this is a known problem with this particular device (although in the reply to my question it apparently is a larger issue with other devices as well).  Has to do with the way the kernel treats centering the input (remember having to center your joysticks back in the day before you could play?).  The fix is to actually rebuild the kernel of Linux with a few patches.  So that's my next task.  Rebuilding the kernel can take like 2 hours.  I'm about to leave for work, so this will have to wait till tonight/tomorrow or maybe Thursday. 

[stigzler]

Hans - check the J1 red wire - it looks like it's touching a contact in the ground plane. That may be your controller up issue?

[hansolo77]

Thanks stigzler.  I double-checked and it wasn't.  Just a bad photo.  I had the focus set wrong (it liked my fingerprint better than what I had centered in the frame).

[hansolo77]

Day 17 - Massive Updates, will provide more details tomorrow.  I have to go to bed soon because I have a sleep-clinic appointment tomorrow really early that I can't miss. But here's where I'm at:

• Received C14 plugs from China and installed one this morning before work.  Still need to stop by the hardware store for some nuts.
• Received 7-Port USB Hub from England.  Haven't tested it yet.
• Received HDMI mounting cable. 
• Hot glued the soldered wires to the Raphnet NES-USB adapter to make sure they don't accidentally get pulled out.
• Rebuilt the Linux Kernel per the previously posted link and confirmed the problem with the gamepad getting stuck pressing UP has been fixed.
• Still trying to figure out why SMB1 and other various games don't work now.  Suspicions from the RetroPie forum suggest it might be something got hammered when I did all the updates.  I'll try recompiling the source (easy to do in RetroPie!!) tomorrow.

Also received yesterday but didn't report:

• Star Trek The Animated Series BluRay (was on preorder for over a year).
• Star Wars The Force Awakens Collector's Edition 3D BluRay (comes with all kinds of bonus stuff that was advertised then cut from the final version of the previously released version that I bitched about).  This required me to sign up for a trial version of Amazon Prime to preorder, as it was a special "Prime Members Only" opportunity.
• Star Wars Rogue One Catalyst Novel.
• Seagate 4tb NAS Drive (another addition to my server to replace a failing 1tb drive).

It's like Christmas over here lol.  I'm still waiting on my replacement Mausberry Power Circuit.  But I sent an email directly to the contact email link in my order confirmation rather than using their website's contact form.  I explained the situation again, and that I've been waiting and waiting, and the tracking information they gave me showed it was still sitting somewhere waiting for the USPS to PICK UP since last week.  The guy (or girl, or maybe somebody new) replied back apologizing, said there was a mixup with the order, and that he was just finishing up attaching the pin headers for me and was personally taking it out to ship right after sending the email.  So hopefully it'll be here soon.  That circuit is the last thing I'm waiting for.  I've got everything else I've ordered.  The only thing now is deciding on what to do next.  I'd still like to come up with a way to attach some DB9 plugs so I can use Atari Joysticks and Sega Gamepads.  But I'd like to get this phase of the build completed.

I'll take lots of pictures and stuff tomorrow when I get home from the clinic.

[hansolo77]

Day 18 (total 18 days in production, not counting days I didn't do anything)...

98% Build Day

I'm still waiting for my Mausberry Circuit.  But the tracking number I got a while ago for my replacement is now showing activity, so there's a good chance I can follow it now.  Hasn't moved out of Florida yet, been 2 days, but meh at least it's moving...

Stage 1 - Attach the HDMI cable to the case.

That was a bitch to do.  Because of the way the cable was designed, I had to cut the case from the OUTSIDE, and the mount is on the inside.  I used a dry-erase marker to mark where to cut, which of course only worked until I checked to see if it would fit then it got smudged out and disappeared.  Once I finally had the thing in the hole, the back wasn't pretty.  I mean, it was so bad I don't want to show pictures.  I had to trim and cut off one of the original motherboard mounting posts just so I could get it in there.. it used to be right under where the HDMI cable is mounted to the case.

Stage 2 - Wired up the USB Hard Drive to make sure everything still works.

At this point, I still haven't done anything with the C14 power in plug.. that was my next task, and took all day.

Stage 3 - The C14 Plug.  What we have here is a typical 3-way extension cord you can buy at any grocery store for $2 (this one was like $1.34 I think with my employee discount lol).  I cut like 95% of it off, so I was just left with a little bit of cord and the 3-way plugs.  I then stripped the wires, twisted them, tinned them, and soldered them onto the C14 plug.  The shrink tubing was a bitch to make work too, since I had to have the tubing on the cord before I soldered, and the heat from the gun caused them to start shrinking before I finished.  So the ends closest to the C14 plug had to be stretched up and over which made me fear it wouldn't be a good seal.  Looks ok from this picture.  The reason it's bulging is because those C14 plugs have holes on the inside of the pins, and I poked the wired through them then crimped them back for a good solid connection before completely soldering.  That makes them bulky.

Stage 5 - Connecting everything up.  This turned out to be a chore too.  I wanted to make sure EVERYTHING worked, which included the drive, the NES adapter, the USB HUB, my Xbox 360 controller, and a keyboard.  Running all the wires and stuff inside makes it appear to be very disorganized, but it's actually not that bad.

Stage 6 - Power Adapter Modification.  As it turns out, everything worked great.  That is, until I went to close the case over top of it.  The power adapter on the right, used for powering the USB Hub, stands off to the side of the power plug, rather than vertically flush with the cord like the one on the left.  That caused a height problem, as it was too tall by about a half inch.  Luckily, it was 2 pieces held together by a single screw.  I took it apart to see if I could make something work.  I thought about running a splice and attach some longer wires, but that would require a lot more work that I just don't feel was necessary.  In the end, I just left the adapter the way it was, but took the back plate off (that the power plugs were attached to) and used my dremel to cut it down so it was only about 1-inch square.  That way I could plug it in, and keep all the original wiring.  When I get the Mausberry Circuit, I'll revisit this and close up the casing of the adapter with some electrical tape.

So that's it for 98%.  All the hardware is working harmoniously.  The case is screwed back together.  I've left the system on and running (not playing anything) for about 2 hours, and I do notice a bit of a warmup around where the power adapters are.  I'm not sure if it's something to be concerned about.  Obviously any kind of heat is bad for electronics, but it's not HOT, just warm.  My biggest worry is the PI power (the one on the left) since it's back is right up against the hard drive.  So the 2 being so close to each other might cause a problem.  I think if I were to build this again, I'd swap the locations of the C14 and the HDMI.  That would position the adapters farther away from the drive.  The only thing left to do really is attach the power circuit.  Before the USB plug snapped off, I was able to test it and make sure it works (which it does).  I even had the LED working.  Some time in the future, I bought a blue LED to replace the red one with, just because that's what cool people do lol.  I've also been able to wire up the reset switch to act as an EXIT button when you're playing games, in case you're using a controller that doesn't have a way to exit with a key combo (like an Atari Stick).  Speaking of which, that's still in the future plans, but I want to make sure this is all working and stable before I try anything with that.  I might just get a USB adapter and plug it into the hub until I feel like doing more cuts and solders.  Something else I'm considering is finding a way to get a fan in there to keep the system cool.  There's not much room, but I think a fan mounted somewhere by the exhaust vent holes on the upper right of the case (where there is all kinds of free space) blowing hot air out might be doable.  The problem is powering it.  I've seen some hacks, where people are using another power adapter (one to charge your phone) and they cut the USB plug off, then wire up the red/black wires to a fan.  The problem with that, you're only getting 5v and most computer case fans require 12v to spin, so it might not be worth it.  Maybe I can find a USB powered fan, but it'd have to be small (an preferably mountable).  These are just spitballed ideas though.

I've got a killer headache now though.  I still need to troubleshoot an issue I'm having with the controllers.  My Xbox controller works great by itself, as do the NES controllers.  But when they're all connected up together, weird things happen.  I can navigate in the system, then I lose control inside a game.  I can bring up RetroArch inside a game to change input devices, but then I can't exit the game.  If I don't have the Xbox controller plugged in, the system still detects it as Player 1, and ignores the NES pads until a game loads.  So something somewhere became read-only and doesn't detect hotplugging.  So yeah, still work to do, but for the most part I'm calling the hardware phase a 98% success!

[stigzler]

Good work, Hans. Lovin those pictures!

[hansolo77]

Head is feeling a little better after eating some dinner.  Back to troubleshooting.

So I think I'm going to start completely from square one again.  Burn a new copy of the SD card image from the download page, and go through the whole process all over.  I've got temporary files all over the place from various testings I had done, leftover files/folders from multiple tries at recompiling various emulator cores and systems for updated RetroAchievment compatibilities, countless driver changes, etc.  There's just so much junk.  I think starting fresh will clear the system as well as my head.  At least I kept a fairly well documented procedure here in the thread, so it shouldn't be that hard.  I've just been thinking that all the problems I seem to be having can't be happening to everybody.  I've asked on the RetroPie forums, and a lot of the time the solution was simple because of an error I had made.  So I think starting over is the best course of action.

For my own record keeping, these are the steps I have to make:

1. Reburn the RetroPie Image
2. Disconnect Hard Drive (important!)
3. Fix the Overscan
4. Change the Memory Settings
5. Turn off USBROM Service
6. Connect Hard Drive
7. Upgrade the Kernel - To patch in the Raphnet NES-USB adapter fixes
8. Backup the SD card before updating Cores
9. Compile from source the updated GIT version of RetroArch - To patch in new RetroAchievement fixes
10. Compile from source the updated GIT version of FCEUmm - To patch in new RetroAchievement fixes
11. Compile from source the updated GIT version of QuickNES - To patch in new RetroAchievement fixes
12. Compile from source the updated GIT version of Gambatte - To patch in new RetroAchievement fixes
13. Backup the SD card before installing updated controller mapping scripts
14. Remap the Roms to run from the Hard Drive
15. Make a Clean Backup of the System before...
16. TEST TEST TEST

[hansolo77]

Day 19 Updates

So I've been playing around with my setup again.  I've followed through my previous outline, and have made backups accordingly.  I'm on step 16 now.  One thing I haven't done yet is configure the controller mapping scripts.  I've installed it though.  Basically what this is, is an addon that allows you to configure via some nice menus what controllers you want to use for various consoles.  So for instance, right now I have an Xbox 360 wireless dongle, and the Raphnet NES-USB adapter to give me NES pads.  I can configure RetroPie to make the NES pads the controller #1 and controller #2 for JUST the NES system, and then use the Xbox 360 controller for everything else.  In the future, I'll also have some Sega Genesis controllers, and will be able to use those scripts to configure the system to use ONLY those controllers on that system.  That way I don't have to worry about doing some fancy command line/SSH editing.  It'll just be set already.  The other nice thing is I don't have to keep it that way.  With the menu system, it's a very simple task to go in and tell it "nah, use the Xbox 360 controller for NES for now". 

So now that I've got everything cleanly installed without a bunch of crap all over the place, I've hit a snag.  It probably existed before but I just never noticed it till last night.  When I'm inside EmulationStation I can navigate around with either the Xbox controller or the NES pads.  Once you launch a game, there is a screen that pops up prior to launching the game, that says something to the effect of "press any key to configure advanced options".  You can go in and tell it to run a different emulator for that particular game, or run at a different resolution, etc.  It's a nice handy feature.  The problem is, once a game has started to load, I can't press ANY KEY on my Xbox controller.  It acts like the controller completely dies.  It accepts no input.  Everything works great for the NES pads though.  This isn't limited to just that screen (called run-command) either.  It happens inside any setup menus as well.  Navigation and everything just ceases to function with the Xbox controller.  While the controller works great inside games, I can't use it anywhere else.  This wasn't an issue until I had the NES adapter connected on the system together with the Xbox dongle.  Through talking with the guys over at RetroPie, I learned of a Linux utility called jstest which I assume means "joystick test".  By running that in the terminal screen along with a device (such as /dev/input/js0) you can see the actual input from the controller, and it's identification as discovered by the OS.  Changing the # to js1 or js2 etc. gives you a different controller connected.  When I ran that this morning, I discovered that the NES pads are actually being identified by the OS before the Xbox controller.  This is a problem, as the way RetroPie's programming works, it configures "joy2key" (I'm sure ya'll have heard of that) with the navigational mappings to js0 only.  So if the NES adapter is connected, RetroPie will configure the left port of the NES as the primary navigational input.  If the NES adapter is disconnected, then the only controller the OS detects is the Xbox controller, and configures THAT to be the primary input (because it becomes connected in /dev/input/js0).  This was a complete revelation to me, as I figured the OS would simply identify the inputs based on which USB plug they were connected to.  It was my understanding the the top-left USB plug on the Raspberry Pi was USB0, the one below that was USB1, the top-right plug was USB2, and the bottom-right plug was USB3.  And so, by having the Xbox adapter plugged into USB0, and the NES adapter plugged into USB3, I figured that would make the Xbox adapter be detected first.  Apparently that's not the case.  So the solution I was given is to override the controller mapping that "joy2key" is looking to configure.  Rather than have it assign to js0, I just need to assign it to js2.  So this is my next task to work on tomorrow.

As for the rest of the night tonight...  I got my replacement Mausberry power circuit in.  It has the newly soldered on pin headers like I asked.  So that's awesome.  I plugged it in and tested everything, and it worked.  Then I took it a step further and changed some things.  Rather than having the RESET and LED wires running to the circuit, I instead ran them directly to the Pi.  I discovered that the LED would be switched off pretty much the moment I hit the POWER button.  The system would still be ON though, running through it's shutdown routine before finally cutting the power.  By moving the ORANGE wire to PIN1 on the GPIO (for +3v) and the WHITE wire to PIN6 (for GND), I've essentially wired up the LED to run off the Pi's power, and when the Pi loses power, the LED goes out.  That way I have a better idea of when it's safe to remove the SD card, or the power cable in the back, etc.  I also have the RESET wire connected to the Pi rather than the power circuit.  By connecting the YELLOW wire to PIN11 (GPIO17) I am now able to run a script that watches for a signal on the pin, and sends the ESCAPE command to the currently running game to exit back to the ES system.  I just checked something though.. with the LED connected to PIN1 for +3v, it gets EXTREMELY hot.  Connected to the header on the power circuit though is ok.  So I might have to add something somewhere to the wire to make it not run as hot.  Would that be a resistor?  I don't want it to burn red hot and cause a fire..

So here's some pictures for Stigzler:

This shows the re-wire I had, before noticed the power LED was getting way too hot.  I've moved it back to the power circuit for now...  I also have the NES adapter currently unplugged from the USB on the PI for testing of those joystick things I mentioned above.  Lastly, I managed to tuck the power adapter for the USB in between the cord channel cutout on the bottom of the NES and the internal HDMI plug.  Fit perfectly!  I still need to get some electrical tape to seal that up for safety, and I want to get some more hot glue to make sure the wire connectors don't come loose where I have it attached to the extension cord.

This is the diagram of the PIN layout on the Raspberry Pi for reference.  The way I have the Pi mounted, PIN1 is in the top-right, PIN2 is the bottom-right, PIN39 is top-left and PIN40 is bottom-left.  Essentially rotated 90 degrees to the right.

So yeah, I'd really like to have the LED wired to the Pi because it just makes more sense.  Anybody know how I can get in there an modify something to make the LED run cooler?  Just for shits-n-giggles, I plugged it into the +5v (PIN2) and it felt even HOTTER (I knew it would) but interestingly not as bright.  Need some smart electrician people to help me.  What would be really cool (though I have no idea how to do it) would be to have the LED blink while the system is shutting down before going completely dark.  Maybe sometime in the future I can figure out how to do that.

- Later!

[stigzler]

Do you have any pics of how you put together the female gpio pin header plugs? I had similar task to do with Ataroid and bought the means to make dupont connectors. problem was they are an absolute ***** to use, so looking for alternative means.

As for the led, didnt read it all, but cant you put a resistor in front of it.

[hansolo77]

I did a bit more research last night after posting this.  Apparently, you pretty much DO have to put a resistor in line with LEDs.  Not necessarily for the reason I was asking (getting too hot), but because if you don't you'll burn out the LED.  It'll burn SUPER-DUPER BRIGHT for a short time, then stop working.  I saw somebody else's build while Googling, and the guy actually just harvested a couple from his non-working NES motherboard.  I'll probably do the same.  My only problem is not knowing which way they go.  Obviously I'll want to have it on the +3v line prior to connecting to the LED, but which way does it go, or does it even matter?

As for the pin header plugs, that was simple.  MicroCenter sells these bags of pre-attched header wires, designed specifically for the electrician project hobbyist in mind.  It even comes with some header pins.  They come in different styles, different colors.  The kind I got has female connectors on both ends, but they make them with male on both ends, and male on one and female on the other.  What I envisioned doing, was just cutting off the plug from the NES switches that attaches to the motherboard, strip and twist the wires, then just poke them into the header plug.  That didn't work, because I discovered those plug holes are TINY.. so I ended up just cutting off one side of the wire and soldering the 2 ends together, then heat shrink them.  It works, which is all that matters.    You might be able to order them online...

http://www.microcenter.com/product/419360/Female_Jumpers_and_40_Headers_-_Blue

[stigzler]

Thanks Hans - they look the ticket.

As for the resistor - doesn't matter which way round - only diodes do. My electronics is sketchy, but I think you put it before the connection to the positive leg of the LED...

[hansolo77]

Day 20

Yeah, I did a lot of of fiddling yesterday, and have a working BLUE LED now. 

Also, I don't know what I did, but SMB1 now works in RetroPie.  Might have been something to do with my rebuild of the system from my above checklist.  Something like updating RetroArch or FCEUmm from source, or maybe just the whole thing being so cluttered from all kinds of "experimenting".  In any case, I tested it yesterday and it booted right up.

Now all I have to do is figure out why my Xbox controller isn't working in the "extra" parts of RetroPie.  It works for games, and navigating the main menus.  But if I try to enter anything "setup"-wise, it doesn't work.  I posted about it in the RetroPie forums, and reported it back on Day 19's post.  I'm still waiting for a solution.  They thought it would be a simple fix, but their fix didn't fix it.  So in the meanwhile, I'm just keeping the Raphnet NES-USB adapter unplugged.

Oh, and yesterday I added an old computer fan inside the case too, though I think I want to get a Noctua one.  This one rattles a little.  I did it by just stripping the black and red wires leading to the fan, attached some jumper wires to them, and plugged the red into pin 2 (+5v) and the black into pin 6 (GND).  I didn't know if it would work, since this is a 12v DC fan. But I remembered that a lot of fan controllers you get for your computer just have voltage adjusting knobs.  So I had hoped by using the 5v header, it would just run slower than it would at 12v.  I was right, and I even tested the 3v which worked too, just even slower.  I want to get a Noctua fan though that will be even quieter. 

My next project after I get this all working is to see if I can maybe come up with a script to control the fan.  If I can find an alternate pin that runs at 5v, but is controllable via GPIO, I can in theory have a script that checks the temp of the Pi, then turn the pin ON if it's at a certain level, and turn the pin OFF at another.  I've already played around with that with the LED, making it turn on and off with a script.  So I think it's doable.  What I really was trying to do with the LED was figure out a way to make the it blink when the system was shutting down.  But I don't know enough about programming in Python (or BASH, or whatever it is I'd need) to make that work.  Looks like I'd need some kind of WHILE statement, to say "while shutting down, blink".  I'll bet somebody around here could figure it out (Adultery, Tom, HK, etc perhaps).  But I don't want to bother them with it.  It's my project, and I'll figure it out, or just live with it not doing it. 

[rtkiii]

Cool project, Han!  

I'm not sure how to respond to everything else you talked about  - just keep your chin up and women are over-rated.  Either pay for a quickly or just masturbate and then get your mind back on this project. ...unless you want a kiddo...well then...you need one  - Love?  OVERRATED and usually fades in time...in my experiences anyway.

 

High Score Competition Forever!

[hansolo77]

Thank rtkiii.  I know it's all overrated.  But when you suffer from depression for 24 years, and realize a large portion of it stems from being single your whole life, things just look kinda gloomy for you.  I mean, my brother is 3 years younger than me, has had 3 fiances, married 2 of them (not at the same time lol), and is now about to have his first child.  I'm the oldest, I should be the first one to have a family like that.  But whatever.  It doesn't do any good to compare my life to others.  I take my drugs and live life how it comes to me.

Looking at that last picture I posted, I'm definitely going to revisit the USB Hub.  I don't like the way it looks.  I didn't want to drill more screw holes into the case, but I also don't like the look of the CommandN strips under the hub.  Maybe it'll look better if I mount it from the top of the case a little further back.  Then at least the strips will be hidden better behind the door.

I'm a little bummed the guy who was helping me with my controller problem hasn't come up with a solution.  He has 2 different controllers in his own setup, and is trying to make his controllers do what I need to (although he doesn't NEED them to).  When I said it didn't work, he said he had some other ideas but wasn't near his Pi to troubleshoot it.  I got home from work today to see if he had any good news, and he had actually replied that he thought he was on the right path but it ended up not working for him either, so the problem is still unsolved.  Fingers crossed that a solution will come soon. 

[stigzler]

You could de-case it, hans and the do something like this:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,149221.msg1592187.html#msg1592187

good decision to polish this bit.. the rest is looking fab.

[hansolo77]

Yeah I thought about that when I first got it.  Trouble is, I can't figure out how to separate the casing.  It's not screwed together, so it would require prying it apart.  When I've done that in the past, I pretty much end up breaking the clips that snap it together, which makes it useless to put back together if I can't figure something else out.

[stigzler]

Superglue. However, you wont, of course, need it. This is because you'll be creative and find a way to mount it and then create a bezel for it. 

Be bold.

Bezel:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A4-Colour-Polypropylene-Plastic-Sheet-0-8-75mm-Binding-Art-Craft-Model-Making-/162105071097?var=461066200528&hash=item25be3715f9:m:mlAVZyLtosF0L5G7YUHLcQQ

Exacto knife. Hot glue. Superglue. Job done.

[hansolo77]

I didn't know you could buy that stuff in sheets.  All it would take is 2 pieces trimmed down and glued at a 90-degree angle.  Maybe a good future project.  As for now, I took the CommandN strips off the bottom, and put them up on the top part of the case instead.  Pushed the Hub back a little too, so it could get a better grip on the strips without just hanging on an edge.  Looks better now I think, but you can still see inside and all the wires, etc.  So yeah, maybe getting some plastic sheets that match in color with the case would be nice.  Or maybe just black to match the hub would be cool.

Based on my terrible cutting job on the black for the power/hdmi, I think I'm going to skip trying to attached an externally accessible set of DB9 connectors.  My original plan was to attach them directly above the NES controller connectors, in the top half of the case, in the black area.  But I don't know if I could make it look good or not.  I don't even have a way to hook them up internally yet.  There are about 3-4 different ways to do it and reports are suggesting none of them work 100%.  Some Sega controllers work fine on Sega hardware, but then fail when converting to USB 50% of the time.  Also, there is only one inline USB chip that works with Atari paddles, whereas there are about 4 different USB circuits that DON'T work with paddles.  I'd kinda like to have paddles, as you can use them for more than just the few tennis-type Atari games.  Game like Arkanoid pretty much need them.  I suppose you could use a mouse, but I don't really want to do it that way, especially if I already have a DB9 connector present that can take other Atari joysticks.  This is something I'm going to have to revisit in the future once I have a working system in place.  Extras are extra, and not a necessity.  Getting my NES controllers to work is necessary because there are ports ON the case.  But I want them secondary to my Xbox controller, because it's wireless and can be used for a lot more systems.  But getting them secondary is the problem I'm now having, as the OS wants them to be primary.  So close yet so far.

[hansolo77]

Update Day 22 (I skipped a day a couple of posts back)

Been a week since I updated.  Sorry about that.  I've been really busy at work because of the Holiday.  I'm still working on my project though!  I finally got the joystick order issue fixed, so I can now go through configuring games with my Xbox controller even with the NES controllers plugged in.  Turns out it was an issue on many levels, but hat always worked in the past.  The first reason it didn't work was because of the kernel update.  The latest update disabled the ability to define a system-wide variable from within a script.  Instead, you have to define it in it's own file.  Once that was figured out, it still wasn't working, because the ability to define a system-wide variable is limited only to SUPER USERS.  Since you're not a super user by default, you needed to edit the super user file (that runs at boot) to tell it read that new file you create.  Once that was done, everything should have worked, but it still didn't.  Now the issue was related to changes in RetroPie's scripts.  In an effort to make things easier to debug, a process was started to rename all the VARIABLES into ALL CAPS.  So they started going through all the various tools and scripts and changing anything that was a variable into all caps.  That's all well and good, except the variable to control what joystick is dominant was only half-way changed.  They changed the variable CALL in the scripts to all caps, but didn't actually change variable itself.  Then when the changed the variable to all caps, it then broke something else in the scripts.  So the solution was apparently to go back to the way it was before with all lower-case (for this particular variable).  After doing that, and figuring out the whole Super User requirement, the thing works like it should have from the very beginning!

So now that's done, and I'm on to the next step.  I have ordered (and just received today) a Mayflash Genesis->USB adapter.  It was the most cost effective.  There are some dedicated single-plug devices that work, but I'd have to buy 2 of them for 2 players.  The Mayflash comes with 2 plugs already.  The down side about it is that you can't play with Atari Paddles.  I'm bummed about that, because I really wanted to play some Breakout and Kaboom! but that's ok.  I think what I'll do is some time in the future maybe get one of those single-plug adapters just for paddles, and use that when I want.  I haven't tested anything yet with the Mayflash adapter.  I also ordered (arrived in the same box) 2 Hyperkin 6-button Sega Genesis controllers.  Lots and lots of positive reviews on that, so I'm keen on seeing if it works.  I've seen Amazon reviews and YouTube reviews of people using THIS adapter with THOSE controllers, ON A PI in RETROPIE, and they all say it works great with no issues.  So I don't see anything bad happening here.

My next case mod will be adding these DB9 plugs to it.  I'm not sure how I want to do it.  Should I just cut out a large rectangle on the front (grey) of the case and slide the Mayflash adapter in there, or should I disassemble the Mayflash and actually solder some wires to the DB9 pins and run the plugs separately?