It’s Tiny!
Mr Dom Superfro knocked up a schematic to allow two joysticks to be used on the Xberry-Pi. I’ve thus tweaked my small triangular Adaptinator PCB to be more rectangular and having ‘stuff’ on it
The Thing is tiny. I’ll work on a 3D printed shell for it also to be used with non cased X-Berry Pi’s!
Lots of house rennovations, busy at work, hoping to get some tinkering time in May!
Had chance to spend some quality time with my loved ones The computer. Have started on the final stages of getting the Next Mini ready.
Needed to finesse the keyboard design a little to allow for better fitting inside the Next mini. Have been mindful that it’s also designed to be standalone so the PCB isn’t an ‘odd’ custom shape like my previous iterations were and can be easily sit inside a standard rectangular case if need be.
Have designed a Middle board (in yellow in the images) to accommodate the PS2 (keyboard / mouse), DB9 (Joystick) , Power LED, Micro SD slot and the side buttons. I’m planning on using the Xberry Pi without any mods so it complicates things a little.
Still not quite sure how to handle all of those electrically yet – but there’s quite a few options available, even if worst case, someone has to solder a bunch of wires in place
If you count the Rasperry Pi zero, and the ESP-01 wifi device, there’s FOUR layers of PCB’s, two custom PCB’s and over 70 3D printed items (well, less than 20 if you now count the keycaps as 5 items which is how they come off the printer!)
Just spotted that i’ve not put the power LED in place yet…then there’s the potential blinkenator-ish illuminated inserts, then, then, then…………
Picture heavy this post!
The Keyboards (Spectrum Next Mini, The A500 Mini and TheC64 Mini) are actually being made right now at JLCPCB – The Keyswitches arrived, were checked and manufacturing is go!
So, in the meanwhile, I’ve been playing around with the Next mini case – My original design was a proper , almost exact 50% scale. That means you place 4 of them in a square next to each other 2×2. Then Stack another 4 on top.
So That’s EIGHT spectrum Next mini’s, stacked in a ‘cube’ of 2x2x2…
Recently, Some clever guy Released the Xberry Pi, A ‘credit card’ sized Spectrum Next that can fit in a Raspberry Pi case…
Of course, it wouldn’t fit inside my Next Mini! There’s just not enough space inside to fit a keyboard and this….Infact, this thing needs exactly the same amount of height as a full sized Spectrum Next!
So, after some re-jigging, I’ve now made the Next Chibi (name, work in progress)
This version keeps the impractical 50% scale keyboard…BUT
It’s a 100% height Next!
(So you can only fit four in the space of a full sized next)
Inside’s not quite finished
Decided that VGA will have to go – for now
Continue reading “More Xberry Pi / Spectrum Next Mini!”I ordered one of the amazing X-Berry Pi’s from https://github.com/DonSuperfo
It’s Tiny! –
Thanks to Richard Szerman for the image comparing the Xberry Pi to a standard Next Daughterboard
Continue reading “Xberry Pi and another rabbit hole”
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