RetroPie Portable Looks Like SNES Gameboy

RetroPie SNES Portable

[Mat] wanted a portable RetroPie project he could take while travelling. He made one with a laser cut plastic housing and, according to him, it turned out to be a ‘hideous deformed beast’. In version 2 he took a different approach and we must say it came out looking pretty nice.

This time [Mat] went with a 3D printed case. He designed it himself in SketchUp. Unfortunately, [Mat] doesn’t have access to a 3D printer so he had to send it out to a professional printing company to the tune of £60 ($90). Although that was a large chunk of change, he was happy with the quality of the print. The final exterior dimensions of the case is 13 x 13 x 2.5 cm.

A quick look at the controls will remind anyone of an SNES controller. [Mat] took the innards of an SNES-like USB gamepad and modeled the new case around it. Not having to cut up or otherwise modify the controller PCB makes for an easy addition to the project. Conveniently, the width of the controller was just about the same as the 4.3 inch LCD used for the gamepad’s display. Both fit nicely together.

Under the hood is a Rasberry Pi running RetroPie. An internal 2600mAh Lithium Ion battery provides up to 3.5 hours of game play. Battery charging management is provided by an Adafruit Powerboost 500 which also has a micro USB port that makes connecting an external charger easy.

5 thoughts on “RetroPie Portable Looks Like SNES Gameboy

  1. You can get threaded inserts instead of using ordinary nuts. These are for press fitting into plastic parts, don’t need glue and won’t come off easily.
    google for “Brass Flower Screw Nut” (always a good laugh at these type of Chinese-English descriptions)

  2. One of the better looking retro projects, I really dig the way it looks like a gameboy / SNES controller mashup.
    Was wondering though how you fit the Pi in the case, it doesn’t seems to be attached to anything.

Leave a Reply to tekkieneetCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.