This is a project I played around with for a long time. With the release of the PI zero I wanted to build a handheld based on it. At the time I was thinking I should just use the stuff I had on hand and figure out a cheap easy way to build out this console. Well that didn't quite turn out to be true. This was not an easy build at all.
I started with an adafruit tft this nice little screen plugs directly into the pi making a pretty easy to setup device for this project. For the controls I thought I could just use a USB controller plugged in to allow all the buttons and an analog stick easier. I had a xbox 360 wired controller with a broken right analog stick. This seemed like a good candidate for use in this project. Tear the controller down to its components and just mount the board inside the case and we get the controller. Seems simple right?
After making the measurements, I designed this case. The case I thought turned out pretty good. Its proportional to the screen and holds pretty well. But it ended up fairly thick. I really wanted to with with a thinner design but after getting the components built in space became a concern, and had to go thicker.
I built out the buttons on tact switches that are wired directly to the controller buttons. This worked rather well. Then removed the right analog stick from the controller board. The board ended up fairly small and thin enough to fit inside.
For audio used a pam8403 and the PWM audio mod from adafruit https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-the-raspberry-pi-zero/audio-outputs
The audio was kinda scratchy and not that great but does work.
So everything was working well enough. But getting that thing closed up and ready to play became an issue. I ended up designing some mountings for the controller buttons to keep them in line when used. Some trial and error was needed to build out the mountings that fit these buttons in line, as well as give them support so when you press them they are pushed back against by the case.
Then a whole lot of glue was added putting all these parts in.
The software setup was pretty standard for retropi setup.
Worked out to a pretty decent gaming handheld. The raspberry pi zero is a decent emulator for the older systems. And it plays doom pretty well.
I would'nt use the 360 controller for the game controller. I've since found out a arduino leonardo could be programmed to do something similar in lot less space. I have another project I'm testing this in now. But thats another project.
