Building a ‘magic magnetic theater’ from a 1979 HP pen plotter driven by an RPi3. The pen here replaced by an electromagnet. Can track and move various objects that are placed on the (eventual) stage
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First computer I built in the 1970s only had a few LED lights, but there was such a sense of satisfaction when you wrote a program and they actually blinked!
40+ years later, it’s still magical for me when I repeat this using an Arduino or Raspberry Pi.
We built a box so our dog could talk to us. Not so sure it was the best idea, but we’ll see…
Testing out a Raspberry Pi and LCD combo for a future handheld build using Sega’s Golden Axe.
Started work on my Freeplaytech CM3 retropie. This involves a lot of modding of a Game Boy Advance shell to fit new buttons, the larger LCD and the Raspberry Pi compute module 3. (Luckily, the zillions of games I’m going to put on it don’t take up any additional space!)
My growing Retropie collection. I think I may have a problem.. (clockwise from top: PIGrrl 2, Raspberry Pi 3B+, Freeplaytech CM3)
The Nordsiek analog computer, from 1950, an electromechanical computer capable of calculating differential equations. Downside was it was programmed via patch cables carrying over 100 volts and the programmer routinely got shocked while doing his thing.
Built a sound box so our dog could tell us stuff. Not sure it’s the best idea.
Crashy crashy Retropie
I’ve been having some trouble with my Retropie system that I’ve installed into the NESpi case. It runs for a while but then hangs during gameplay. I thought for a while it was the NESpi case, and reworked the whole power system for it.
Then I tested without the case at all, and the same thing. Runs for several minutes in a game then freezes. I swapped out various cables/supplies trying to rule that out, but the killer clue was that I have a second RetroPie system I built for the upcoming PiGRRL project, and that machine using the identical power supply and cable runs fine. So it’s not the cable, supply, or case. Has to be the Pi itself, or the software. I am using:
- Raspberry Pi 3B+
- RetroPie 4.4
- RetroArch emulators and EmulationStation
- Installed the ffmpeg modification to record video
- Hangs observed in both MAME and GBA emulation
So I’m thinking it’s either the 3B+ board to blame, or my distro is corrupted, or maybe the SD card. Anyone with any similar experience/thoughts about it, let me know. I will probably try a card swap between boards next, to divide it between HW and SW…
It’s Down to Hardware…
Last night I swapped the SD cards between my “good” RetroPie system with an RPi3B, and the “bad” one with a 3B+. The regular 3B with the SD card from the bad system ran just fine, no freezing.
So it looks to be a hardware issue - either the 3B+ is bad somehow, or (more likely) the power supply/cord is the issue. I have tried several supplies and cords (including those with ratings at 2.5A and above), but I see browsing through this in google that a lot of people did not see stability until they ordered a specific adapter. I am going to probably go with this one on Amazon that some people have said works, but if anyone else has one they liked, let me know!
n0st4lgix
