LAMEBOY - another ESP12 handheld

There's a little edge on the bottom left for the screw less corner. I want to preserve the colorful pcbs as much as i can but also protect the parts. I still need to add the "shoulder" buttons and roughly check if everything fits.

Since the AMS1117 regulator is not the best when it comes to the dropout voltage, I've made a little add on board, that will hopefully let me add the AP2112 regulator instead. They can be found on many adafruit boards, so I took that instead. I've ordered 12 boards, but the I'm still ashamed of what I "paid" and the board size :D

Yesterday I've received my beautiful OSHPark boards and started to solder with the help of the stencil I got from OSHstencil.com. Sadly I've noticed that the crystal I got is the wrong size and I need to touch up some connections (pins are shorted at the power muxing chip etc.) I also need to solder the front side, meaning buttons and RGB LEDs. 

Some thoughts about the parts used led me to change some footprints or completely  swap parts. Already a lot of work to do again, but hopefully this way production might be easier and is not dependent on getting parts on ebay for cheap, but having them available on large amounts on digikey and mouser etc.

• To have almost every part available on mouser meant to switch the CH340G to the CP2102N, this also means no crystal footprint to worry anymore
• the LDO AMS1117 has not the lowest dropout voltage you can get for a board like this, so I switched to the AP2112 like adafruit uses on their huzza boards
• I've also changed the footprint of every cap and resistor to use 0603 parts
• There are still some footprints to change, like the SD card adapter
• probably the PCF8574 that scans then buttons (there are QFN and BGA footprints that are missing in my library)
• the I2C port / grove connector was 1.5mm by accident, so I also had to redesign that
• I've took out the complete RGB section with resistors, LEDs and transistors and replaced them with 2mm APA102 LEDs, will make rerouting a lot easier
• the footprint for the USB micro socket also doesn't have the holes, so I had to use the USB mini port

please ignore this, was too early for anything goes!

I've played around with the #Hackaday API to show me my likes. Yes, I'm one of those guys - I even noticed that it isn't the same like you can see on my profile page, since there the page likes are calculated in as well (bug is reported though).

At first I tried ArduinoJSON to extract the data, but then returned to char arrays and some brain-fu. Well some Strings are in as well, so it's not beautiful but get's results!

const char* skw = "skulls\":";
  int counter = 0;
  while (
    client.available() &&
    counter != 8
  ) {
    char json = client.read();
    if (json == skw[counter])
    {
      counter++;
    }
    else counter=0;
  }
  String skulls = client.readStringUntil(',');

there's an invertDisplay function for the display, if you can find a version of the library that works on ESP8266 and you pipe in some lines of code... not the point now. The concept is inspired by stranger things, you have to get through a world and run into obstacles. You can only get through certain worlds by changing to the upside-down world (meaning invertDisplay) but there is that creature that closes in on you when you move, so you can't stay long on the other side.

Thanks to @Radomir Dopieralski  I've soldered up a semi prototype. LCD and keys work :) that makes everything on I2C and SPI pretty much work as well.

Parts are ordered, some of them over eBay, some of them "locally" at voelkner.de - they're basically conrad.de but with a different pricing ethos and a flatrate for shipping. The almost most expensive part I've ordered there, the TPS2113A for power muxing. Boards are ordered at @oshpark as well and with a little help they might be here even sooner :) Also, first time order at https://www.oshstencils.com/

For that I had to move and rewire some stuff, the I2C grove connector now sits on the other side. The SD card found it's place close to the LCD connections and I was able to use the last pin of the ESP for CS of the SD card. Some labels had to be moved as well. The extra C button is more of a troubleshoot / bootloader thing for Gamebuino, but I've added it as some kind of shoulder button anyways. I thought it would make sense to have that SD card and button for supporting the gamebuino games. They won't work with pre-compiled hex files over SD card, since they are compiled for atmega328 chips, but some of them should be easy to install with the Arduino IDE.

I'm not sure why, but at some point I've decided to place the display upside down :D Since they're using adafruit libraries I'll still be able to rotate the display. Nice.

Nice. Last input on the PCF8574 is connected to the SD card connect detection switch pin. Totally overlooked that before. Pretty cool to actually wait and further design the board, instead of rushing orders.

https://iamzxlee.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/2048-on-arduino/ - why not make a fibonacci number version of it :D

http://gamebuino.com/wiki/index.php?title=Getting_started

http://gamebuino.com/wiki/index.php?title=Games they seem to be shared by hexes for the atmega328 to read, but there's also arduino code that I could compile. nice. I've added a C button to my design.

Seems like https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/albertgajsak/makerbuino-a-diy-game-console is a module based clone of a gamebuino.

https://github.com/tobiasbu/marduino

https://hackaday.io/project/3981-flappy-bird-on-arduino