Fugly NOAC portable ("The Fugtendo")

Website · Post by **Life of Brian** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:25 pm

At long last, I have finally finished a NOAC portable. It was the first portable I ever tried building, and yet it's taken me this long to finish it. Two fried Hip Gear screens and three fried SJ3's later, it's done. After frying stuff left and right, I put this portable aside to work on my first SNESp (The Nintendo Stupendo) which was a total success. I then completed another SNES portable (ZN-40 SNESp) as well as a PSOne portable. I'm currently working on a third SNES portable which looks almost identical to the ZN-40 SNESp.

Keep in mind that I made this case a couple of years ago and it was my first experience with bondo, a dremel, and making a portable so it all added up to one ugly case. In fact, it is beyond ugly. It's... fugly.

YouTube video link

And now for the obligatory pictures that inspires millions to go and build portables for their very selves!

I drilled the speaker holes free-hand. No measuring!

Before wiring

Traces scraped, fluxed, and tinned ready to be soldered to

After wiring

Here's the kicker: I measured what it was drawing and the whole system only takes 169 mA at 6 volts to operate! That's hours of gameplay off of only 4 AA's! I feel warm and fuzzy inside

The screen is a "Zate" 2.5 inch LCD screen I bought off of eBay for $60 total including shipping. Why use that when Hip Gear screens are so much cheaper? Well, had I used this one to begin with I would have saved a butt load of money in the long run. It's the same screen I mention in this thread. I have a second one I plan to use in a super-light SNES FC Twin portable that might possibly only need 4 AA's to run.

Post by **Triton** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:22 pm

if those lcds were in the 20-30$ range i would probably buy about 15 of them lol. i have a friend who owns a shop and would provide financial backing for a semi mass produced portable assuming we could get the requisite parts cheap enough

also its not THAT fugly lol, some more bondo and sanding on the front and it would look pretty damn good!

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 2:18 am

Don't do it down, I think it is bloody good! You obviously wanted to copy the look of a GameBoy original, great! Considering this was also your first project (shelved), excellent! I liked the pics from soldering to traces, I have some flux now so can do this myself now.

There is an easy way to make it look nice and hide the ills from the front - a piece of mounting board - if you can cut out carefully around the buttons, cross, screen and do a good job, stick it on top nice and flat, the surface will look very nice (don't forget to colour the edges of the mounting board so it doesn't look like it is!). A couple of coats of varnish, and done! You could spray paint the mounting board first and it will look more like plastic!!

Website · Post by **Life of Brian** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:53 am

That's a good tip, bacteria. It will save me the trouble of repainting the whole thing (which is why I just went ahead and used this case instead of building a new one now that I can make nice cases). I think I might have some of that at home that should work nicely. If I do it I'll post pictures to show you how it turns out. All I'd have to do is sand down the lumps and then put the covering layer on top of it.

Thanks for the compliments, guys. Triton, if I ever do find a supplier I'll give you a heads up. That would be the absolute sweet spot for small portable screens - $20 to $30 and draws less than 120 mA. I'd be all over that like Ben on an Atari!

ShockSlayer · Post by **ShockSlayer** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 4:50 pm

1337.

If it fits your hands, looks are useless.

SS

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 5:51 pm

Life of Brian - I say mounting board - it is only basically about 1mm thick card, smooth surfaced. Any smooth card is fine; I buy mounting board about A1 in size for about Â£1.99 a sheet (about $4). Lasts for a while! Yes, you only need to make sure your surface is smooth and free of bumps, then glue this down. If you have little bumps, consider using sticky foam pads instead of just glue, as they can hide ills too!

jedi knight · Post by **jedi knight** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:55 pm

Nice for your first attempt at a portable, which was just finished. It blows my nesp out of the water. Your's is probably 10x smaller than mine and that is no exaggeration.

Website · Post by **Life of Brian** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 7:17 pm

jedi knight wrote:Nice for your first attempt at a portable, which was just finished. It blows my nesp out of the water. Your's is probably 10x smaller than mine and that is no exaggeration.

Hey I once started making an Atari portable case using plexi-glass and bent aluminum sides that was a beast. It was huge! I finally came to my senses and scrapped it. One of these days I'll make a nice small case to put that portable in...

The NOACp is just about the same size as a GameBoy original. I was trying to imitate ladyada's Game Grrl.

dragonhead · Post by **dragonhead** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:33 pm

Life of Brian wrote:That's a good tip, bacteria. It will save me the trouble of repainting the whole thing (which is why I just went ahead and used this case instead of building a new one now that I can make nice cases). I think I might have some of that at home that should work nicely. If I do it I'll post pictures to show you how it turns out. All I'd have to do is sand down the lumps and then put the covering layer on top of it.

Thanks for the compliments, guys. Triton, if I ever do find a supplier I'll give you a heads up. That would be the absolute sweet spot for small portable screens - $20 to $30 and draws less than 120 mA. I'd be all over that like Ben on an Atari!

could also use peel-n-stick metal sheeting http://alsacorp.com/products/sheetingfx/sheetingfx.htm

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:38 pm

ShockSlayer wrote:1337.

If it fits your hands, looks are useless.

SS

Why am I not surprised by this?

But seriously, I agree. As long as it's functional, looks are only secondary. Besides, I think these imperfections have a nice ghetto charme to them

kasar · Post by **kasar** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:20 pm

tiny, thin, pretty,good,an excellent simple controls, and very portable!.

I like it

how about the battery life duration hours?

toby dawg · Post by **toby dawg** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:58 pm

The only usable portables are the ones like that. Good job. I wanted to make one like the game grrl for a long time but got homebrew goin on the psp so it would be poinless. Very good portable.

Website · Post by **Life of Brian** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:22 am

Thanks guys

I'm still working on testing battery life. I think I'm somewhere around 2.5 - 3 hours so far.

kasar · Post by **kasar** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:10 am

Life of Brian wrote:around 2.5 - 3 hours so far.

great

more than enough.

(my "gcp" is heavy, ugly , and the battery range is only arround 70 mins

)

c_mon · Post by **c_mon** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 6:00 am

Good job man; liked it very much. How about adding a cartridge slot at the back?