Origami

This was a very early project that got ahead of me, but I'd love to revisit it one day

Originally written 12/29/2017

History

nbPi was initially conceived around October of 2017. It is in direct response to projects like Pocket C.H.I.P, Pandora Project, PiGirl/PiBoy and others. It hopes to be an infinitely modular portable computing system based around the Raspberry Pi Zero/W with considerations for other Raspberry Pi boards.

Key Goals:

• Single board backplane design to incorporate all major I/O and connectivity to modules.

• Detachable keyboard and gamepad sections

• stuff and things

Goals

• Single circuit board implementation containing the following

  • Top Section: 'The Brains'

    • FRONT: 3.5" Touchscreen attached via standard GPIO header

    • BACK: Raspberry Pi Zero/W attached via standard GPIO header

    • Extend and label left over GPIO pins for easy access

    • USB Hub connected to RPI0/W via a custom pin header and pogo pins

    • Power delivery and battery charger for 3.7v LiPo batteries -JST Connector for battery -- Micro/USB/C input

    • Audio output header - common pin alignment for off-board audio amps - rotary volume control?

    • Easy access USB ports connected to build in hub circuitry

  • Middle section: 'The Gamer'

    • Gamepad consisting of the following:

    • 4-Way D-Pad

    • Two Analog Joysticks: (PSP1000 part is being considered)

    • A/B/X/Y Button set

    • Start/Select/Home

    • BACK: L/R Shoulder and Trigger

    • Controller - ATMEGA32u4 --> USB

  • Bottom Section: 'The Typist'

    • Full QWERTY Keyboard based on an existing membrane layout

    • Considering v1 to use T-Mobile/HTC G1/Dream keyboard membrane

    • Design shall allow users to re-orient keyboard layout for other membranes and order themselves

    • Controller - ATMEGA32u4 --> USB

• Entire system should be able to be created and used on a single double-sided circuit-board

  • Top/Middle/Bottom sections are scored between their perimeter for modification purposes

    • Connections between boards will be USB only and contain pads for re-connection after board is broken

  • Use any dead space for custom parts that can be punched out - eg. pin-header to pogo pin board for USB hub connection