DreamBox - bacteria's DreamCast project

[bacteria]

Please do! So far, it hadn't been difficult, as long as your soldering skills are good. Pity the drive unit is so thick though, otherwise you could make a portable quite slim.

[64M320N3]

Please do! So far, it hadn't been difficult, as long as your soldering skills are good.

That is very good to know. I have confidence in my soldering skills, but I think I would need a smaller tip to do those drive connections. I might be able to put my CNC machine to good use!

Pity the drive unit is so thick though, otherwise you could make a portable quite slim.

Well you could make it smaller, but you might have to look into laser optics. And find smaller motors. In other words, it's more than it is worth.

[bacteria]

I just use a cheap pencil tip soldering iron off e-bay. 30w. About £4 each. Tend to throw one away after a full project, tips get in a bad way, still cheap enough, so who cares!

Smaller motor is ok - eg a GameCube rumble motor (remove the metal disk and the motor is balanced) however, the laser assembly is just as thick, so defeats the object.

[64M320N3]

I just use a cheap pencil tip soldering iron off e-bay. 30w. About £4 each. Tend to throw one away after a full project, tips get in a bad way, still cheap enough, so who cares!

I think I will just sand mine down for now and then get a new head later. It will make it smaller and clean it at the same time. Hey, what do you know, mine is 30 watts also.

however, the laser assembly is just as thick, so defeats the object.

Well, you could re-engineer it to make it smaller. You need to keep the actual laser intact, but you can change out the focusing lenses for smaller, more suitable for portablizing laser mechanism. You could get the lenses from a laptop drive.

[bacteria]

I don't know how

[64M320N3]

That's why I said it's too much trouble in my other post.
You CAN slim it down, but it's not really worth it.
To be honest, I just wish you could remove the drive completely. That thing is so noisy it is ridiculous.

[bacteria]

Bought a cheap laptop CD drive unit, a TEAC 24x Max CD-ROM reader. Says it takes 5v at 1.5 amps (WTF)!

Seriously doubt I will be able to change the optics over, but hey, if I can, will be fantastic! Seriously doubt I will succeed with the laptop drive, however, only cost me £1 so don't really care - worth experimenting!

[64M320N3]

You need to keep the original driver board for the GD-ROM drive in tact, and the laser. A laser is a laser, but you cannot use the one that is on the laptop drive because the Dreamcast has no means of communicating with it. Each one is hardware specific. Which means you will also need to keep the original lens on the top as well, because it has a mechanism on the side that moves it up and down so it may focus the beam. The Dreamcast has no means of communicating with a different focus mechanism (have no idea what it is really called) so you simply need to replace it with the one from the Dreamcast. After that, you should *theoretically* have a working GD-ROM Drive. You will need to be VERY careful with the components. I was screwing around with one of my drives and I assume I could do this for the Gamecube. Smaller portables= YAY!

[bacteria]

Excellent advice, I appreciate it.

You mentioned:

You need to keep the actual laser intact, but you can change out the focusing lenses for smaller, more suitable for portablizing laser mechanism. You could get the lenses from a laptop drive.

That was my inspiration - so I got a laptop drive!

There are too many factors against me making the slim laptop CD drive work, especially as I have no experience of doing so; worth a shot though.

Any advice you (and anyone else) can offer me will be received with gratitude!

[bacteria]

Failed with slim laptop drive, didn't know what I was doing. Nice slim drive motor, but couldn't find the connections to make it work! Didn't expect to get the laptop drive working anyway, worth a punt.

[bacteria]

Update - the VMU

To get the VMU in the case, it needs to lose height, so there is space for the 4 button pad board.

Put 4 x AA's in replacement for the two 3v watch batteries (6v); although, as tested before, works on 8.3v ok.

This is my new VMU, dated 2000, circuit is nearly the same as the 1999 one I used first - the LCD detached and therefore didn't work anymore on the board, so wrong to say it fried, but it is dead.

On this one, hot glued the sides to the board to stop it happening again!

Front and back:





Cut the board up (along blue line in first pic)





Works.



Didn't wire up the d-pad or buttons, as not needed - when you turn on the DreamCast, it asks you to get the time and date anyway if the battery is flat on the VMU.

Not easy to show here, but idea is the VMU screen will be alongside the PSone screen in the case front.



I need to trim about 2mm from the edges of the VMU board to fit in the case ok so the PSone screen is central.

Ignore the black connectors, they will go. The top of the board was removed from pic to represent how the real board looks like (as it is trimmed).



As you see, the VMU board is really snug, there will be no le-way for the four button board either. Everything will be up against each other!

I think I can take it that the relocated VMU card works ok, each connection was tested and scrutinized, and the fact it booted up is great.

[64M320N3]

Failed with slim laptop drive, didn't know what I was doing. Nice slim drive motor, but couldn't find the connections to make it work! Didn't expect to get the laptop drive working anyway, worth a punt.

Sorry, my bad.
Maybe it can be a separate project, and then later integrate it into your portable.
It would be awesome!

[bacteria]

Ok, deviation - looked very closely at the areas I need to trim on the DC board to make it fit in my case. It's very close, but I think it might not quite fit (by about 3mm), also of course, the case isn't thick enough, designed for an absolute maximum of 58mm (as per the IntoGrafx), this will need more like 70-75mm for the DreamCast. Building up the sides is one thing, however a) may not quite fit anyway quite b) why put this effort in when I can make a different cast mold?

Two choices, off in an hour to have a look

1) Modify a lunchbox. Sounds noobie, but isn't. The top of a lunchbox isn't great, or strong, but nothing stopping using the sides of one, adding perspex to the top and sealing smoothly. I have a lunchbox, only just larger than my case, ideal - problem is I only have one not two. So, I will visit a local "The Range" store soon and see what they have. Might be I can modify a plastic case to what I need.

You know if I do this method, it will end up awesome not noobie! You can easily use the sides and change the top after all (and make it strong).

2) Other option - off to hardware store to get some plywood or similar to make a new case mold.

Found one very interesting thing - opened up an original DreamCast controller, looked inside. Swore a bit when I saw the joystick uses tony components that react when a magnet is applied (if it's anything like the shoulder buttons). Never seen that before. Problem of course in a close case for a portable is that there is a lot of electronics crammed in there, entirely probable that it would affect the joystick and or shoulder buttons.

Remembered Hailraiser did something with a shoulder button from something else, a shaft on a spring as I recall, however, before reading his old thread, had a better idea. I had a third party DC controller - MadCatz (their controllers on different systems are really cool) - opened up:



Look - shoulder buttons use one of the variable thingies you have on jotsticks!



And here - joystick uses stock 3rd party joystick! YAY!



Great find!!!

[bacteria]

Ok, back from shops. Found exactly what I wanted - got 4 lunchboxes, so spares in case needed.

These are 2L lunch boxes, 22 x 15 cms.



This is not a naff idea, it is actually a very good one.

The base to lunchboxes is not very strong, but that doesn't matter, the base will be replaced with 2mm perspex. The sides are angled and so are the edges, which is nice. Not going to keep all the slope, but enough. The sides are strong and smooth.

The alternative, was to make a mold, which would have been virtually the same size, and needed a lot more effort to produce; also, using generic cases means you guys can copy my methods for your cases, for free. Double bonus!

I will start a new thread with "how to make a quality case from bad lunchboxes" when this is underway.

The lunchbox is just bigger than my vacuum formed cases as you see below.



...but just smaller than the size of the DC motherboard. To lay flat in the box, just needs a couple of millimeters off the corners - however of course the box is sloped, the bottom of the lunchbox is where the CD drive is going, not the base, so plenty of room. This means I don't need to trim the DC board on my system.

Seriously guys, the lunchbox is perfect in size for the project, and I will make this look awesome, not like a crappy lunchbox. Using two lunchboxes, I will get sloping sides too, no lip on the joins.

[IRisH360]

So I'm sorry if you already said this, but where did this lunch box case come from? i thought u were going to use your vacuum formed case?