Raspberry Pi

[KILZ FILLZ]

How hard is it to set one of these up as an SNES/N64 emulator?

 

 

[misteraven]

Might be a question for @Merceror @Dirty_habiT.

 

Been wanting to get into Arduino, but have a little experience with Raspberry Pi. Not in terms of emulation, but more back in the day when I started trying to get my son to learn computers and programming.

[Dirty_habiT]

I'll tell you that they are both fun to play with.  The arduino is more of a "low level" device though.

 

One very important thing to keep in mind is that these are both prototyping tools.  Yes, many people use them as a "production" thing like an SNES emulator or the like.... but that is not their intended purpose.  My MAJOR gripe w/ the RPi is that it uses an SD card for it's operating system.  Once you start using an SD card as your storage media for an OS then the clock starts ticking until the thing shits itself, the card that is.  They were not meant to be used with "heavy I/O" operations like running a linux OS on them..... while they do work, they just don't last as long as a spinny disk or an SSD like in your normal laptop/computer/phone.

 

This is why it's IMPERATIVE to have some sort of data backup or remote storage for anything you're doing considered "important".  Like, if you're using it to record crib videos of your new baby, I wouldn't rely upon the SD card to be a good permanent storage device.  What I WOULD do, however, is have it connected to the internet and have the images/videos uploaded to an Amazon S3 bucket because the data durability of an S3 bucket is like stupid high.  Like the whole USA would have to get nuked off the planet before you'd lose your photos of gubbin wubbins.

 

So, with that said, putting emulators on an RPi is not hard to do.  The main hurdles you'll face are getting a good controller that works, and making the "ease of use" work out.  What I mean by that is potentially getting it to boot up into your emulator without having to use a keyboard/mouse to make it work.  This isn't "hard" to do and I'd be happy to help with any specific questions you might have.

 

Do not buy an old unit, buy the newest/fastest one they offer because that's going to have the best performance.... they aren't expensive enough to shy away from purchasing "the best" one.  I highly encourage you to use it to learn some coding and electrical engineering, however.  Making a portable SNES is cool but the real power comes in being able to control those I/O pins on the board.  This is where you can write code to make an electronic thing connected to your RPi "do something".  An example project I did with a RPi is I had a lightweight webserver running using Python with the Flask library (https://www.fullstackpython.com/flask.html) . I modified a power strip (don't attempt this unless you fully understand what you're dealing with because you could start a fire easily or shock the shit out of yourself) so that the ports could be turned on and off via the RPi's software.  I then got my girlfriend's Pebble watch to be able to turn our living room lamp on and off without leaving the couch.  The ultimate in laziness.  Of course there were products that you could buy to do the same thing at the time, but I wanted to learn how to do this on my own, and so I did.

 

The emulator you probably want to use is SNES 9x, although there may be something  newer/better out there.  I know that's one that has been around for a very long time and will run on linux, which is what you're going to be running if you use an RPi.

 

As for the Arduino, you cannot run emulators on it because it's not strong enough and has no video output on the board.  That's not to say you can't get it to drive displays, you can.... but you're going to be looking at using an LCD display (think 7-segment display like on your calculator).  It's called a 7-segment display because each "character field" is made up of 7 lines that can be used to form any number... and in some cases letters.

 

Anyway, I hope that is helpful for you, and I hope Mercer can add some good information on to this thread as well.  Again, if you have questions don't hesitate to ask here and I'll do my best to help you.

[misteraven]

@Dirty_habiT

 

I was looking to setup a solar back up system for my well pump. Something that auto detects a power outage and then automatically converts its power draw from a bank of deep cycle marine batteries up until primary power is restored. Obviously the solar is intended to keep the batteries topped off.

 

Not to thread jack, but think this is worth pursuing or would I be better off just buying some existing device that likely does the same thing?

 

I think @Mercerhas already built something similar.

[Dirty_habiT]

It depends on what a system that you could buy would cost and the labor involved in setting up the off the shelf system.  Since I like to rig shit, I would be the first to tell you I'd probably attempt to build it unless the off the shelf systems do something way better than I could make myself.  There's a certain degree of accomplishment involved with making your own stuff, especially in this "smart person" realm of fucking w/ code and electronics.  It's kinda like changing the oil in your vehicle the first time, you're like "holy shit, the sky is the limit, i can work on vehicles!!"  That's a little bit of a stretch, but I'd say go for it because of the learning experience.  Your biggest expense is likely going to be the batteries and the solar panel..... but you could also get something that is wind powered (car alternator) hooked up to a planetary gear or something to get more spins per winds..... or a water wheel if you have running water somewhere near by (which I think you do from some of the pictures you've sent me before).

 

edit: an even cooler project would be some sort of small fossil fuel powered pump motor that you could cause to turn on automatically if the power shut off.  The storage/energy density of a petroleum based fuel is quit a bit easier to deal with vs. the amount of batteries you'd need to drive any sort of head pressure for a period of time.  It'd be WAY easier to have a few gallons of fuel in a fuel cell powering a "trash pump" or a "bilge pump".  You could still automate this since they're typically devices that are operated manually.  For that matter you could have a generator that starts up and powers your electronic motor, much like a datacenter has for power outtages.  Big DC's have diesel generators outside that start up when the weather is expected to knock power out.... this prevents any downtime.

[Mercer]

I have no 1st hand experience with Raspberry PI, as far as @KILZ FILLZoriginal question goes. I'd imagine it's pretty easy to set up an emulator like that provided you could download the program from somewhere. Those things are so dope, and affordable to get into I'd like to set something up with one just for fun.

 

@misteravenAs far as the pump, solar/grid power situation goes I'd get a pre existing setup with a charger, automatic emergency power switch, and inverter made exactly for this task. Too many expensive parts would be involved to risk experimenting.

 

Some of the better setups I've seen you just replace the breakers for whatever you want to switch to emergency power during power loss. Installing breakers that automatically switch to the alternate power source when the grid goes down.

 

You'd have get the alternate A/C power source from an inverter that automatically activates, and is powered by your battery bank. If your battery bank was charged like my system it would be mad easy to engineer correctly, and safely. Problem is you're using solar, which would require something a little more complicated than a relay to operate correctly.

 

You'd need a board that monitors the power coming in from the grid, in from the solar panels, and also monitors/charges the batteries. These systems switch the solar output between proving emergency power when needed, to charging the batteries when needed, or a combo of the two. Putting together a system like that safely goes well beyond my level of engineering expertise.

 

My setup was too cheap, and dirty. I just had a single pull, double throw relay with the coil/pull simply connected to grid power. If grid power goes down, one of the double throws switches my refrigerator from grid power, to the A/C inverter. The second throw switches the batteries from their battery tender, to powering the inverter during power loss. 

 

My batteries are also just lead acid, not deep cycle, so you just need a cheap battery tender for each battery which cost less than $20 a pop to blow. Solar charging boards aren't $20. The other advantage is Lead Acid batteries like mine hold their amperage output capabilities at lower charges, so they can continue to power an inverter even when they're close to drained unlike most deep cycle, and rechargeable types of batteries. Bad news is my system isn't indefinitely sustainable, you can only drain these batteries once and before needing to replace them.

 

Electric Boogaloo Flex:

 

 

 

[Kults]

On 12/6/2019 at 8:23 AM, KILZ FILLZ said:

How hard is it to set one of these up as an SNES/N64 emulator?

 

 

Incredibly easy. DL wtv emulator and ROMS you want on to it and voila

 

For that purpose Id pay a bit more and get a launch box though, much prettier UI and actually feels like a console, has box art, manuals etc

 

https://www.launchbox-app.com/