Retropie in the Dreamcast

Greetings to all!

A year ago, after reading articles about the retropie and after watching its implementations in various cases of old consoles, I decided to put together something similar in the Dreamcast case.

I started with the purchase on Ali (I do not give the links, otherwise they will not publish it), that's what I needed:

1. Raspberry pi 3 model - $ 36.19 (1 pc.);
2. USB extension cable - $ 1.32 (4 pcs.);
3. HDMI extension cable - $ 1.39 (1 pc.);
4. Micro SD 16 GB - 450 rub. (1 pc.), Purchased in Auchan;
5. Power supply 5V 2.5A - $ 2.40 (1 pc.);
6. Power connector - $ 1 (5 pcs.), 1 pc is needed;
7. Power lead - $ 1.20 (1 pc.);
8. HDMI wire - 100 rubles., Purchased on Avito;
9. Cooler 5V - $ 1.02 (1 pc.);
10. Radiator Kit for raspberry - $ 1.36 (1 set);
11. Blue LED with a lens of 5 mm - 8 rubles. (1 pc.), Purchased in ChipiDipa;
12. Gamepad 1 - $ 10.72 (1 pc.);
13. Gamepad 2 - $ 3 (1 pc.).

Initially, I planned to take extension cords no longer than 30 cm, but this posed a problem, since the sellers did not have them in stock, and they were added to the store to attract buyers with a low price. Therefore, I bought a length of 0.5 m and this ultimately complicated their laying and closing the case.

Here is about everything that was ordered (without gamepads):



While waiting for the delivery of goods from Ali, he started buying the case, working out the layout and fixing the connectors in the case (the idea was to use all the standard holes without modifications using the parts printed on the 3D printer). After a brief search, the corps was found in an online store from Novosibirsk. With delivery he cost me 750 rubles. The condition was at 4, there were scratches and the color was already closer to yellow. Therefore, I decided to paint the body. I ordered paint (white and gray), primer and lacquer for 1000 rubles, but, looking ahead, I would say that the idea failed.



The hull came fairly quickly (after about 7 days) and I started to fill it. First of all, I worked the plate on which the raspberry was attached:



It cost me nothing (thanks to the production at my work). Next, I began to work out the attachment of connectors. To do this, I circled the opening, threw photos into the Compass, adjusted the scale and painted the mounting model (at the end I will give a link to my models for 3d printing). For printing on a 3D printer, a separate Thank you mate! It turned out like this:



USB brackets:



Bracket for HDMI (here I had to cut off the rubber part of the connector body, otherwise I could not fix it):



Bracket for microSD extension cord (here you just needed to remove the plastic case from the extension cord):



Bracket for an RJ45 adapter (everything here was not easy: it took to cut off the entire rubber case, cut a metal plate of the Dreamcast modem, using plastic washers to assemble the whole thing on weight):



In the bracket, in order not to reprint, I had to drill a hole in the places where the soldering protruded.

To install the remaining parts:

1. The cooler was placed in the same place where the mother stood and was powered by raspberry pins;
2. The power connector turned out to be slightly larger than the opening and was modified by a file;
3. The case was removed from the power supply, the 220V contacts were sealed to the power connector via the “Power” button, 5V were connected to the raspberry wire by USB-microUSB and the LED was 0.35 sq. Meters.

Intermediate result:







In the place where the GD-ROM was installed, I decided to insert the easter egg. For this, I bought a VMU memory card (I took it on ebay, the page was gone, cost about 500 rubles), circled the opening and threw it into the Compass, found the VMU map model on the network and it turned out:



In the summer there was a break, did not reach out and was lazy. But in the fall, I still decided to finish the console. I started with painting the hull and I was waiting for a bummer. The soil went perfectly, but the paint was awful, flakes were flying from a balloon, the whole body turned out to be in them and it looked not presentable (the painter from me was terrible). After some deliberation, I decided to find a new building and it was not easy, because it was difficult to find even a non-working carcass. As a result, I was unreal lucky, it turns out we have an office in St. Petersburg that sells retro consoles, spare parts for them and most importantly they are in the 1st metro station from me. I went to them and picked up a decent body (the only negative is an orange spiral, instead of a blue one) and it cost me 1000 rubles.

The assembly was not complicated, all the details have already been fitted. There was only one problem with the power supply, raspberry constantly gave an error, the replacement of the USB-microUSB wire between the power supply and the raspberry helped.

And now - the final version:









To install Retropie and the Dreamcast emulator I will give links.

Total:

1. $ 66.5 - purchases on Ali and ebay;
2. 3808 rub. - the rest (including both cases and paint);
3. 1 year - for the development and assembly.

Thank you all for your attention!

USEFUL LINKS:

Works that helped me get started:

1. Selection of cases for 3D printing
2. In the Playstation
3. In NES Cartridge
4. In the case of Megadrive II

Retropie:

1. Installation
2. Dreamcast emulator installation
3. If the gamepad does not work on the Dreamcast emulator

My:

1. Models for printing
2. Plate for raspberry