Project Requirements
- Fonctional Game Gear
- Fonctional Game Gear Tuner TV
- Pi Zero W or better
- Pi Zero heat dissipator
- SD card - at least 8Go, faster is better (class 10)
- Some thin wires
- Some thick wires
- 1 x push button
- 1 x 3MM Led + 100 Ohm resistor (optional)
- 1 x 2 states slide switch (optional)
- Soldering iron
- Multimeter
- A simple 10$ USB game controller
- Philips screwdriver
- hexagonal screwdriver [LINK]
- A cool 74x24.5mm sticker
STEP 1 - Unmount Tuner TV
- Remove antenna, the corresponding screw is right under its base
- Remove all 6 screws, watch our 2 of them needs a special screwdriver
- Gently open the Tuner TV
- Remove both PCBs from the shell
- Detach the tuner selector, we won't need it anymore, it will be replaced by the pi zero
- Clean both PCBs with alcohol
STEP 2 - Install & configure RetroPie
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STEP 3 - Connect power, video & audio
⚠ Short thick wires must be used to connect analog video, audio and analog ground to prevent noise. Audio pin use an arbitrary GPIO, I used #12 (GPIO18), a line in your /boot/config.txt will specify this pin. Note that 2 pins must be soldered together on Tuner TV board, it is necessary to force external input mode on A/V jack component.
Tuner TV used pins
Pi Zero used pins
You should now be able to power the Pi Zero with the Tuner TV, video & sound should also be transmited from Pi Zero to Tuner TV analog input. If you have some noisy signal, ensure your cables doesn't cross each other. Oh and the existing A/V input jack has now become an output port, a standard A/V jack to RCA can be used to play on TV.
STEP 4 - Additional inputs
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STEP 5 - Add some polish
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STEP 6 - Add USB port to your Game Gear
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Pi Zero was slightly overclocked to enhance speed on Snes & Playstation emulators, here's what I added in /boot/config.txt:
- arm_freq=1050
- over_voltage=7
- sdram_freq=500
- sdram_over_voltage=2
- force_turbo=1
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