Pi Zero - Built into Dreamcast

[Sega1Dream]

Hey Guys,

So for the past week I have been working on fitting a Pi Zero in my Dreamcast, without the need for a separate power supply. This proved to be a little more difficult then I expected, but was finally able to fit the Pi Zero, LVI, USB hub, and modem into the Dreamcast. Not exactly the pretties inside, but it works

The power for the Pi, modem, and hub is feed off the Dreamcast 5v power supply prong. The LVI was off the 12v prong, and seems to work just fine for creating the dial tone. Later on, I want to add an RCA video output to the Pi, so I don't have to remove the cover anytime I want to change the Pi settings. The idea is to make this my "travel" Dreamcast, and I want to be able to change the WiFi when I get to a new location.

Let me what you all think and please give me any idea / recommendations on what I could fix or improve on.

Thanks!

[Tarnish]

Looks cool. I'm not a pro at modding at all, but I think there's a mod called 'Pico power supply' mod where you can replace the original DC PSU with a component that's a lot smaller. So maybe if you did that, you could free up space and put one (or maybe even more) of the components in place of the old PSU?

[RXShorty]

Yes a PicoPSU could be a nice solution
Check my topic it has info about the PicoPSU.

Awesome mod... whish I could have such mod to, but like Tarnish I am not very handy.

[pcwzrd13]

Nice job! I thought about doing this myself but I could never bring myself to cut a hole in the Dreamcast.

[Tarnish]

Nice job! I thought about doing this myself but I could never bring myself to cut a hole in the Dreamcast.

I couldn't either, lol. Tho maybe you can get the cable through one of the air vent holes in the back? If you'd remove the outer shielding of the cable I'm sure they could go through, tho dunno how good of an idea that would be.

[Sega1Dream]

Nice job! I thought about doing this myself but I could never bring myself to cut a hole in the Dreamcast.

Cant bring yourself to make a hole, but will paint a Dreamcast... Lol, j/k. Yea, I'm not a big fan of making new holes either, but had a spare Dreamcast used for parts. Only wanted to make a hole on the top shell, so I can replace that easily.

[Sega1Dream]

Looks cool. I'm not a pro at modding at all, but I think there's a mod called 'Pico power supply' mod where you can replace the original DC PSU with a component that's a lot smaller. So maybe if you did that, you could free up space and put one (or maybe even more) of the components in place of the old PSU?

Neat idea. Yea, I didn't know about the smaller PSU. Would have made things easier if I had some more room. Thanks for the info.

[alexh86]

Nice job! I thought about doing this myself but I could never bring myself to cut a hole in the Dreamcast.

You could probably cut into the modem from inside the console and solder the LVI wires directly. This is a neat mod, the Dreamcast is already pretty compact, I'm surprised this is even possible!

[livingonwheels]

Is that the Zero W? If so, did you get the WiFi working? If it's not a Zero W, where does the Ethernet cable go?

[Sega1Dream]

Is that the Zero W? If so, did you get the WiFi working? If it's not a Zero W, where does the Ethernet cable go?

It is the Zero W, but was not able to get the integrated Wifi card to work with the DreamPi software. I had a small USB Wifi dongle that is installed on the USB hub (towards the front of the system, above the controller port). That was the part that made things difficult, because I had to incorporate the hub so that the USB Wifi and the USB modem can be connected to the Pi. Otherwise, I would have soldered the USB modem directly to the Pi and been done in a day or two.