• First working version

    Andre Baptista • 07/25/2018 at 03:24 • 0 comments

    Some improvement last days:

    - I could put all circuits inside the Tic Tac case;

    - Small update in software. The minimum viable game is done.

    Next steps:

    - Circuit to measure the batteries power level. It may show a small icon on top of the screen, just like an smartphone;

    - More buttons (all four directions, plus two action buttons);

    - Transparent case would be more cool than this orange partially transparent;

    - Back light (is it really needed?). The 5110 display has this feature, but I'm not using for now, because of power saving reasons;

    -Software reset (pressing the two buttons for 3 seconds). There is already a Hardware Reset: a small hole in the case's back to press the Arduino reset button;

    - More than one game pre-loaded (I'm not sure if the small memory of Arduino Nano would be enougth).

    - Many other things that I don't remember right now.

    Pictures (what really matters):

    And a video:

    Thanks for reading.

  • Progress update

    Andre Baptista • 07/18/2018 at 04:23 • 0 comments

    Finally some progress.

    After various problems I decided to put the components together using a universal PCB, both for electrical contacts and mecanical suport for them.

    Many changes since the original idea (I will update the components list later):

    Now I'm using the 5110 LCD display (same as the old Nokia phone), and my idea is to use a CR2032 coin battery, with a step-up module to convert the 3V of the battery to 5V necessary for Arduino.

    At least for now, there will be only 2 buttons (Left and Right), for sake of simplicity.

    I managed to soldering the Arduino, display and the buttons in the PCB. Besides this I wrote a very crude first draft of a breakout game. This took me aproximatelly 2 hours of work, which seems very good for me. 

    Next step is connect the power (Battery and step-up module), sound (a simple buzzer), and fit everything inside a TicTac plastic case.

    Some pictures of the progress so far (probably the worst soldering you have ever seen):

    Thanks for reading.