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| iBoy |
| Written by Max | ||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 21 January 2007 | ||||||||||||||||
 ** Mod by sirljohns. ** After some requests, I went ahead and wrote up some basic information on how to make one for yourself. I made this over 8 months ago, so I'm sorry if the details are not as in depth as one might like. I think though that, with the basic concepts explained here, even someone with a pretty basic understanding of electricity (such as myself) can figure this stuff out (I tried to explain things as simply as possible). I must warn you though: this is a very time consuming project. Likely a little bit less time consuming with this information...but still. Just about every single part has to be modified in some way to make space for an iPod. Every single part. Seriously. It sucks. There is a huge amount of filing, and gluing, and cutting...mostly with tiny parts. I guess there are a few shortcuts to be made, but for the most part, if you want it to look good...you need to have a lot of free time. I know of a couple improvements which could be made to this, and toyed with a few myself...but at the end of the day, I decided that what is here is the perfect level of complexity for my own model. I hope you have fun making one for yourself... 
Labels: Here are tags for some of the parts...each explanation will have a reference back to one of these numbers, so you can see where it is in the big picture. 
Making Space: Game Boys are big, but actually much smaller than some people think. It is actually a huge challenge to fit a 60 GB video into one of these things (30 is only a little bit easier, I allowed for the bigger, and can now fit either). A large amount of plastic had to be removed to get to this stage (I only had a hand file...I imagine that a Dremel would make it much faster). Some key changes here: both the multiplayer and DC inputs had to be cut in half, and then completely reassembled, as they were originally too long (if you wanted, you could just take a photo, and then put it in the place of the input holes, and from far away it would be hard to notice that it was not real...but I figured I might as well go all out).
The slot for the game is almost completely filed away, and so is one half of the game, as little material remains as possible so that it looks normal from the outside. The little plastic thing that holds in the battery cover also had to be cut away, and then carefully put together again so that it no longer jutted into the case. 
Game Cartridge: Not wanting to sacrifice a real working copy of Super Mario Bros., I bought this broken copy of Wario Land 3 for $1, scanned in the label from the Mario cartridge, printed it out on a nice printer, and pasted it over the Wario label (not covering up the metallic strips on the sides of the label, of course).
Back: If you do things correctly, it should look completely normal from the outside...nobody will know that the face of the game that you see is actually the only part of the cartridge that still exists...
Innards: I used some thin plastic sheeting to form the interior to the iPod, and then lined the whole interior with black leather (I just glued it in using Barge Cement...)
Connector: In order to allow the iPod to fit lengthwise, I had to modify the dock connector so that the wire ran out of the side rather than the bottom. On this model, I just popped it open with a screwdriver, removed the inner metal casing, moved the wire over, cut away a bit of material that was in the way, and then just put it all back together. I also had to cut off the pins that stick out of the sides to lock the connector in place (so you no longer need to press the side buttons to remove the dock connecter).
Side: The volume knob shown here is actually one which I took from a cell phone headset, and plugged into the headphone wire so that it turns the volume up and down. I actually had to use a dial that was not the original, because the diameter of the first was too large to allow space for the iPod. From there, the Right, Left and Ground wires connect to the headphone port (4), and then the ground continues over to the original speaker (5), the Left runs from another contact on the headphone port (there are only like 5...you can figure it out) to the speaker so that when headphones are unplugged, the speaker turns on, and when plugged in, the speaker turns off, and the headphones turn on. The speaker actually gets pretty loud...but the great thing is that if you want, you can buy one of those little dual amplified speaker boxes designed for the gameboy and plug it into the bottom (they sell on all electronics for about 5 dollars). Here you can also see how the trimmed up multiplayer connector ended up looking.
Remote: I bought one of these cheap remotes on eBay (actually, this exact model) which really made the whole process much more simple. I ended up cutting off the little headphone jack that comes from this one, and wiring in my own on a separate system. At the time, I couldn't figure out how to use the dock pins instead of the headphone jack to get the audio, so that you would only have to plug in one thing (for some reason, I could only get the left audio signal at a constant volume). I have seen, however, that they now sell remotes on eBay that only have the dock connector...which would make the whole thing a little bit nicer...either way works though.
Controls: This is the remote. Many things had to be removed from it so that it could fit underneath the circuit-board. As you can see, there are wires coming out of it. Each one of those is connected to a contact on the circuit board of the remote. The basic idea of a button is that when you push it, it connects two contacts on the board...now, instead of pressing a button, I can touch those wires together, and the same thing will happen. Without the "hold" function, it is pretty simple to just run these wires to the original Game Boy button board, so that when a button is pressed, it completes a circuit that causes that function in the iPod.
Board: This is what the original circuit board looks like. It normally runs throughout the entire Game Boy (it runs behind the original screen). You have to cut this in half so that it no longer blocks the screen (so you can see the iPod). Save this bottom part (and all screws).
Modifying: I bought one of those "circuitwriter" pens, and this is what I did. It has been too long, so I don't have a perfect diagram of everything, but this is part of the general idea. Basically, see which wires come out of the remote do what. You then know what buttons you want them to go to. Look at the original board for the Game Boy, and see which things are already connected (this is important)...then sit down for a really long time and think about where things need to go. I took a photo of it, and messed around with drawing lines in photoshop...that seemed to help a bit.
Extras: I used a 9V 21/23 (replaceable) battery (6) to operate the relay which controls the hold function, and also to run the LED (7). These are available at most drug stores. I didn't want to bother with draining any of the iPod's battery, although I'm sure you could get power from your iPod. There are some nice tutorials I remember looking at online which tell the function of each pin on the dock connector. Also, be sure to save all the screws, many of them are needed to hold the original inner components in place, and they are also needed to keep the case closed (provided that you use the same method I did).
Triwing: The Triwing screwdriver is a handy thing to have...they are a few dollars on eBay. It is possible to take out the screws using a little flat head, but for frequent use, it is much better to either get one of these, or find screws of the same size with standard heads.
Relay: I used a 5V sub-mini DPDT relay (8) (sorry I forgot where I bought it) like this one in order to work the hold switch. The one I used is the same shape and size as this, except for the one pictured here is a latching relay (meaning that once it turns on, it stays on until it is manually reset)...you don't want this. You want this, but not latching (only if you use this method, of course). I wired 9v battery through the on/off switch and then (using a couple resistors) to both the LED (7) and the relay (to the two contacts below the line marked on the relay). I then had two wires coming from the remote which I deemed "the important two"...when touched these to any of the remaining three wires, they would make magic happen (i.e. wire 1 plus one of the others would make the volume go up, while wire 2 would make it go down when touched to the same wire).
I guess the best way to imagine what the relay does is to first imagine the system without it. You connect all the wires to the button pad so that when you press a button, it makes a connection which does something in the iPod. This way, all the buttons work all the time. But...if you turn off "the important two" then none of the buttons will work anymore. That is what the relay does. Those two wires are run through the relay, so that when the on switch is triggered, an electric signal is sent from the battery to the relay, and turns on "the important two," and then turns them off again when the switch is turned off. We now have a "hold" button. 
Conclusion: Well, that's all I can think of right now. Again, I'm sorry I don't have much more, but I did this long ago, and didn't think to keep any of my diagrams. It is a pretty long process, so good luck to anyone who goes for it...this is definitely one of those thing that I've made which left me pretty satisfied at the end. I went through a lot of trial and error...hopefully it will be a bit better for you. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any more questions (sparkparty 'at' gmail.com) or if you just want to show off yours when it's done.
Additional photos at sirljohns' Flickr page.
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