[WIP] Arduboy Dock - 3d printed dock + RPi

This backpack way is how I’ve been thinking. For diy an altoids tin isn’t too far out for size but there’s credit card/ wallet sized power banks (96x62x6.6MM) available online that look good for the job, it shouldn’t be too hard to make a Arduboy sized but slightly thicker case and cram all the required circuitry inside or even add some acrylic spacers and get it all in an Arduboy with a short micro usb cable hanging out the bottom.
The LiPo SHIM looks very appealing although I would possibly lose the JST connector and locate it off the pi.
lipo-shim-3_1024x1024Arduboy-Front copy

that LiPo SSHIM looks interesting. Just too bad it doesn’t include a charge function.But with a seperate charger you could power the pi and charge at the same time.

I’m not sure yet if I will make a standing dock like @eried did or mount the connector horizontal and Arduboy horizontal. The first looks more attractive but the 2nd fit’s better in hand.

This is where I am at :joy: I want a desktop dock but also something for on the go because I have an iPhone and not android…
For now I am going to just hotglue a breakout board to the Pi until I can decide what I want.
SparkFun-USB-MicroB-Plug-Breakout_01

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I spotted this dock in Poundland today It’s just an empty shell with a cable but there’s plenty of room for a Pi making it an option with very little modification for those lacking access to a 3D printer.

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Is your Poundland like our $2 shop? Nearly everything is more than a pound?

Nope, the business model is that every single item in the shop is £1 each, and most of it is actually worth less than that which is how they make a profit :P.

(It’s also the origin of many unwanted Christmas gifts.)

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I would prefer this dock to some of the crap I know I will receive. Great Auntie, are you listening?

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Depends if it breaks 3 weeks later or not.

It would possibly be worth buying to gut it and upgrade it to an Arduboy dock though. (I have no idea what the running cost of a 3D printer is like though, that might be cheaper.)

BTW, did you see the Dock in action in the promotional video of Santa's Happy Little Packer: Help santa to fill the sleigh ? :smile:

I just saw you plug in an usb cable and didn’t notice you plugged in the other end in your back pack until I watched it again :sunglasses: are you hiding a new version of your dock in your backpack ?

Nah, it is the same old one inside the backpack :smiley:

Cool for on the go game switching.

Sorry for necroing, but this sounds really neat! The only issue is that i dont have a pi zero…or a soldering gun…or resistors…or wires…going to print it anyway.

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I do extensive console mods. You can pick this stuff as you go along with build projects. Over time and individually they are not expensive.

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I can’t seem to understand what files you have to copy to /home/pi/arduboy/ and where can you get uploader.exe?

You need to copy these files and compile them with xbuild Uploader.sln (that generates the uploader.exe in /bin/) but keep in mind that I never fully finished the whole functionality :confused: so you will have a half working system like the ones in the videos

I have this error when compiling!?

/home/pi/arduboy/Uploader.sln (default targets) ->
(Build target) ->
/home/pi/arduboy/Uploader/Uploader.csproj (default targets) ->
/usr/lib/mono/xbuild/14.0/bin/Microsoft.CSharp.targets (CoreCompile target) ->

    Program.cs(185,76): error CS1644: Feature `declaration expression' cannot be used because it is not part of the C# 6.0 language specification
    Program.cs(198,76): error CS1644: Feature `declaration expression' cannot be used because it is not part of the C# 6.0 language specification

Were these the only errors?

If you pull the source from my local fork then this should work:
Edit
My change has been merged, so I’m going to nuke my fork.


Bascially ‘declaration expressions’ (i.e. out int n) were removed in C# 6.0.
(i.e. int.TryParse(cmd[1], out int n)).

The fix is to declare the int n; variables manually and fall back to the old style of out n.
(i.e. int.TryParse(cmd[1], out n)).

I’ve made a PR to get this fixed in the main version:

Edit
The PR has been since been merged.

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Great! thanks @Pharap, I liked the expression declaration :confused:

So if you do git pull, it should compile now. And if you want to fork it and enhance it I would be happy to test it in my dock! :stuck_out_tongue:

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From what I hear it’s not gone for good, they’ve just removed it because it’s linked to some other features and they want to add all those features at once instead of doing it picece-by-piece so they don’t lock themselves into doing things a particular way and then discover there’s a better way.

There’s an SO answer quoting some relevant text here:

I have uploader.exe and repo folder in the arduboy directory, but when its launched it gives me this:

[ERROR] FATAL UNHANDLED EXCEPTION: System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: Directory ‘repo’ not found.