WIP: Arduboy Advance FX

Arduboy Homemade
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Greetings fellow humans!

This is the thread for my WIP Arduboy Advance FX.

I’m designing a 3D-printed shell similar to a Gameboy Advance for it, and plan on designing a PCB board as well. I’m going to/am using Fusion 360 to design the shell and PCB.

Here’s a WIP of the case front:

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Here’s the link to my Adafruit parts list (so far).

So far, I have three questions:

  1. Will the ItsyBitsy work since it has the Atmega32u4 chip?
  2. If so, should I go with the 5V or the 3V?
  3. Will the Monochrome 2.7" 128x64 OLED Graphic Display work since it has SPI capabilities and is 128x64 pixels?

My goal is to have the Arduboy Advance FX require as little modifications as possible when it comes to loading games. I’m hoping this project will be helpful to others. If/when I get this working, I plan on making a tutorial and provide the 3D print files.

If you have any input, feel free to share. This is a learning experience for me, and I appreciate any and all information. :smile:

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Yes, check out this image for the wiring

Depends on the power source and display you’d use both will do. Get the 5V version the ‘3V’ is too slow

That display uses 4-bit gray display controller and I’m not sure it works with the current Homemade package display setup. If a 2.42" size display would do to I recommend that as those use SSD1309 display controllers. In combination with the itsy bitsy you can make an near full compatible arduboy and play existing games by applying the display patch option.

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That’s awesome! Thanks for providing that.

Got it. Thanks!

Yes, I want maximum compatibility/ease of use. Thanks for the tip! I found a display that fits that size and criteria.

Thanks for your help!

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BTW you may also like this

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It says that I don’t have access to view that. :frowning:

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Oh sorry about that. This is accessible.

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Yeah, I saw that when doing my search! I just thought it would be neat to make a 3D printed one, since I can customize it to fit the parts and not have holes or buttons that don’t do anything.

EDIT: I had a Gameboy Advance a while back, but got rid of it because I already had a device that could play those games. It felt silly to have multiple devices that can play the exact same games. I’m also in a “Less is more” sort of mindset at the moment. I’m going to keep my Arduboy FX so I can test and make sure any games I make work with it. :slight_smile:

I also had a Gameboy Advance SP growing up, but never had that many games for it, nor was I that good at them. :smile:

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With that argument you only need a computer and a bunch of emulators :stuck_out_tongue:

Looking forward to see your Advance FX progress.

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However, the 3V version runs at 8MHz, so may be slow or cause timing problems with some sketches. (The 5V ItsyBitsy runs at 16MHz, the same as the Arduboy.)

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Hope to have a Arduboy XL kit out before the end of the year!

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Thanks for the info! I’m getting the 5V because that’s what the display takes.

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I’d say go with the 5V. Everyone told me to use the 5V version-and I saw everyone else using it, too. Like @MLXXXp said, it has a higher clock speed, so keep that in mind.

You can power it with 3.7V (from my testing) just fine though.

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I love gameboy advance design. but mine is not arduboy , it is Retropie with Rpi zero2.

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looking forward for you Arduboy advance FX :slight_smile:

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That’s cool! Thanks for sharing! :smile: