element14 Presents

Seeing as everyone loves to a bit of intricate soldering, it's time for one last super solder episode! Ben is feeling nostalgic looking at his collection of CPUs so decides to use the z80 to create a basic Microsoft computer...giving him the perfect excuse to do lots of lovely soldering!

If big companies can glue portable electronics together, why can't we? Ben decides to go all the way with the sticky stuff when he rebuilds the Mini Arcade. Originally designed as a keychain, the Mini Arcade isn't quite small enough, so join the team as we hack it, take it apart, find out how it works and rebuild it to make it better, smaller, more compact thanks to the trusty tools of 3D printing and soldering! Ben also finds out something interestingly hidden in the hardware! What're your favourite retro games? Have you rebuilt a portable console? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Felix is revisiting his retro gaming console, the Atari 5200, unfortunately after being sat in a barn for years it's lost its controllers and gained a lot of rust! Cue Ben giving the console a teardown to see what state the hardware is in, and rebuilding new game controllers from scratch with the help of Autodesk Fusion 360 and Arduino! Would you design it differently? What retro consoles do you have lying around? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

It's not a Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft console for a change, it's a dedicated portable game console: Oregon Trail. Ben takes apart a shop-bought game to find out how it runs. Felix the sudo Sergeant steps in with his Linux knowledge to communicate with the hardware using the i2c protocol so they can hack away at the eeprom. What hardware do you want to see the team teardown? Have you modified hardware yourself? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

It's not a Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft console for a change, it's a dedicated portable game console: Oregon Trail. Ben takes apart a shop-bought game to find out how it runs. Felix the sudo Sergeant steps in with his Linux knowledge to communicate with the hardware using the i2c protocol so they can hack away at the eeprom. What hardware do you want to see the team teardown? Have you modified hardware yourself? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Everything should be portable, every console, ever, even the replicated ones. This is why Ben is taking apart a 'Yobo NES' and designing an enclosure to see how small he can make it and still be able to play Nintendo Entertainment System games! Using Autodesk's Fusion 360, a laser cutter and a bit of 3D modelling design, watch now to find out just how small Ben has managed to get it. What other hardware would you make portable? How's your computer aided design? Let us know on the element14 Community!

Everything should be portable, every console, ever, even the replicated ones. This is why Ben is taking apart a 'Yobo NES' and designing an enclosure to see how small he can make it and still be able to play Nintendo Entertainment System games! Using Autodesk's Fusion 360, a laser cutter and a bit of 3D modelling design, watch now to find out just how small Ben has managed to get it. What other hardware would you make portable? How's your computer aided design? Let us know on the element14 Community!

What do you do, when you have a broken 3D printer? Throw it away? Take it down for parts? Felix has a better idea, repurpose the old Makerbot Replicator with a microscope to make a controlled, precision microscope machine! Using the Beaglebone Black and Replicape as the basis for the control circuitry, Ben Heck and Jason Kridner from Beagleboard.org lend their assistance to get Felix up and running! Have you used a Beaglebone Black? Or repurposed a 3D printer? What would you do differently? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

As the team come to the end of the long-term builds it's time that the team take a deeper look with some advice, what do they axe? What can be taken into production? And what was the most fun? Join Ben, Felix and James Ray from AVID as the team discuss the viability of the Mini Pinball, Super Glue Gun and Portable Raspberry Pi projects! The team learn some very important things, including the ability to customise a Raspberry Pi, what up-front costs to expect and what considerations have to be made. Have you brought a project into production? Which build would you like to see made fully? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Ben's moving walls around, he hasn't taken up a job as an architect though! After a few tests of the pieces for the modular miniature pinball kit it has been decided that the angles need to change for the pinball run and that requires a redesign. Also Felix has received the final design of the printed circuit board from OSHPark, and from some initial tests it appears to be a-okay! What do you think of the build so far? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

By popular request Ben is tearing down the retro games console: the Sega Saturn! Back in the day, Sega attempted to compete against Sony's Playstation by releasing the Sega Saturn, even though it already had a CD based console add-on for the Genesis / Mega Drive in the form of the Sega CD they really had to step up their game. In this episode we check out the internals of the Sega Saturn and what chips and processors were used onboard, including the overly popular Motorola 68000! What hardware have you tore down or made portable? Do you design your own retro computers? Let the team know on the element14 Community!

Are we nearly there yet? Well, yes, yes we are! The time has finally come for Ben to stick together the 3D printed and laser cut components of the Super Glue Gun prototype! While it has been a long, and sticky road to completion, and features have been cut and stuck from the design, we are at the final product. Sure there are things we would like to do differently, but what would you change? Let the team know on the element14 Community.

Ben and Karen talk through some of the suggestions from elemnt14 Community members for the super glue gun build, before getting on with the motor placement for the final design. However, after some 'Hand Polling' Ben is concerned that the handle might end up too thick if the motor is placed at the side or near the handle. Luckily, Karen has a proposed design change that could make all of Ben's headaches go away...for a while at least! So Ben goes back to his trusty Autodesk Fusion 360 to make the changes to the design…

It is finally done, the Raspberry Pi (with no HDMI) portable MAME emulator based on the Raspberry Pi A+! Ben and Felix have put the finishing touches to the portable gaming device with the use of laser cutting and 3D printing. With 8 GPIO left though, Felix decides that it's best to do a low-level input for the buttons and directional pad to control the device. If you want to build one yourself, we've got the code and build files linked on the element14 Community! What would you do differently? Have you made a Raspberry Pi Portable? Let the team know on the element14 Community.