Mega Pi

Project is now complete. I fixed the ports in with some hot glue to allow for safe removal and attachment of the controllers. II added some Sugru around the ports to tidy them up a little. Here are some images from the final product:

Some feet:

Player 2 port now wired up. Tested and working however I don't currently have a 2nd controller for multiplayer gaming although this is coming soon! All that is left to do is to setup a way to exit games as all controller buttons are mapped. Currently thinking of wiring an extra button on the game itself to achieve this or adding a button combo in the config.

Here are some pictures from the almost finished project so far:

Player 2 port wired up (black):

Case closed with player 1 controller connected:

Game cartridge rear:

All connected:

Just a few bits left to polish off the build. Controllers ports need gluing in and the Pi needs fixing down. Almost there

Pi Zero has been setup and Retro Pie installed along with the relevant gpio drivers for the mega drive controller. Player 1 port soldered to the main board  and tested. All working!

Here are some pictures from the project so far:

Just need to wire up the Player 2 port and fix everything in place and test :)

All additional components purchased and ready to go. So far I have prepared the game cartridge cutting all required holes for ports and trimmed some plastic from the bottom to make the Raspberry Pi . First time cutting plastic to create port holes so it's a little rough but not bad for a first attempt.

I opted to use a larger EA game cartridge rather than the smaller Sega. Here are a few images:

Game cartridge port holes cut:

Rough internal layout:

Simple project to fit the Pi Zero and 2 Mega drive controller ports into an original mega drive game shell. So far I have managed to get 1 controller port wired and configured for use with Retro Pie using a Pi2 for prototyping. The 2nd port will be added as soon as it arrives!

The pin out for Mega drive controller to the GPIO took a while to figure out, always seemed to be one or 2 buttons that didn't seem to register. After a day of tinkering around I managed to get all buttons working using the following Pin to GPIO:

1. Pin 1 - GPIO 4 (UP)
2. Pin 2 - GPIO7 (DOWN)
3. Pin 3 - GPIO 8 (LEFT)
4. Pin 4 - GPIO 9 (RIGHT)
5. Pin 5 - 3.3 V
6. Pin 6 - GPIO 10 (FIRE 1)
7. Pin 7 - GPIO 14 (FIRE 3)
8. Pin 8 - Ground
9. Pin 9 - GPIO 11 (FIRE2)

Hardware so far:

Next Steps:

• Add and configure 2nd port for 2 player games.
• Wire both ports to perm-proto board for final installation
• Setup and configure Pi Zero for Retro Pi
• Install final hardware into Mega Drive game cartridge.