Newbie Test Build

[boopek]

Thought I'd post about my experience so far with the GPA v2 kit. Considering how little experience I have soldering, getting it working was pretty dang easy.

I got a hold of a ratty GBA shell that nobody would miss if I messed up (and I did, ack). Can't wait to try this again on a nice case now. Some friction I ran into though:

• The ribbon cable for the LCD seems like it needs to be plugged in perfectly for it to work
  
• I am an idiot and had the X/Y button drilling guide flipped, causing the holes to be misaligned.
  
• My case seems slightly different than the tutorial case, so I'm still trying to get the the fit right so there's no pressure on the screen.
  

Now I'm a bit stuck with the RetroPie side of things. I burned the image to an SD card using Apple PiBaker, but I don't know how to access the /retropie/roms folder when I've got the SD card connected to my computer. It looks like I'm limited to the 'boot' volume. Any pointers?

[thebonuslevel]

Thought I'd post about my experience so far with the GPA v2 kit. Considering how little experience I have soldering, getting it working was pretty dang easy.

I got a hold of a ratty GBA shell that nobody would miss if I messed up (and I did, ack). Can't wait to try this again on a nice case now. Some friction I ran into though:

• The ribbon cable for the LCD seems like it needs to be plugged in perfectly for it to work
  
• I am an idiot and had the X/Y button drilling guide flipped, causing the holes to be misaligned.
  
• My case seems slightly different than the tutorial case, so I'm still trying to get the the fit right so there's no pressure on the screen.
  

Now I'm a bit stuck with the RetroPie side of things. I burned the image to an SD card using Apple PiBaker, but I don't know how to access the /retropie/roms folder when I've got the SD card connected to my computer. It looks like I'm limited to the 'boot' volume. Any pointers?

Oh man, thank you so much for that bit about the LCD Ribbon. After my initial problems the screen stopped working and was doing the same blank white transmission as before and I got really bummed out. I realigned the cable and all is well. PHEW

[Flavor]

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-set...rring-Roms

The problem is that all of the methods require a USB dongle of some sort. I should probably add this to some sort of "what you need" page. You pretty much need to have a MicroUSB to USB cable so you can connect a USB drive, WiFi, or Ethernet.

I think that a USB stick/drive is the easiest method. You boot up the GPA and then plug in a USB drive. After a minute, you can unplug it. Back on your Windows/Mac/Linux computer, you can pop in the USB drive. You will see a "retropie" folder on it. It has a tree full of subfolders. That's where you put your files. Plug it back into the GPA, and RetroPie will grab all the files from it (wait a few minutes). Then you can restart EmulationStation or shut down/restart the GPA.

[Flavor]

• I am an idiot and had the X/Y button drilling guide flipped, causing the holes to be misaligned.
  

You are actually the second person that I know of that's done this. We need to come up with a way to make this more obvious for makers.

[boopek]

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-set...rring-Roms
...

Thank you! I am completely new to Raspberry Pi, so I wasn't sure how specific some of this was to your build.

Also regarding the X/Y template, I think having the "right" side having a different color would help a ton. I had a brain-fart and forgot about the Nintendo A/B reverse order that is on every Nintendo system.