“An introduction video about my homemade Odroid-go can be found here.
A full demonstration of the steps can be viewed in this youtube link
Odroid-Go is a great invention from hardkernel. It can function as a game console with many emulators. Though the no. of emulators is only a small portion of those supported by Retro-pie or recalbox installed on Raspberry Pi, I found the response faster and smoother than running retro-pie or recalbox on a raspberry pi zero, while consuming much less power. Game save is by default and very handy.
By loading different firmware, you can use it to run Arduino designed binary codes, micropython codes, and many other types of third party software.
Though this instructable shows you the steps how to do it, not every one can successfully build one as it requires reasonable soldering and desoldering skill.
I also recommend any one who want to own an odroid-go to order it from hardkernel as the cost to build one (plus all the shipping) may be close to or even exceeds that of buying directly form hardkernel.
I was not able to buy the Odroid-go at a reasonable price from Hong Kong, due to the high shipping cost to ship from US , hence I decided to create one myself.
It’s good that hardkernel shared the design schematics and firmware on github and make it open source , so makers like me can challenge themselves to make their own design of the odroid-go.
I intend to make it with a smaller 2.2” TFT LCD instead of the 2.4” one that comes with the originals.
I also do not need such loud audio output and headphone jack output is already too loud for me, so I do not need the amplifier circuit. Just connect the GPIO 26 and ground of the ESP32 to the mini/speaker or headphone jack with a hardware volume control. That will be all I need.
I kept the 10 pin extension header, but have to use my own set of silent buttons.
All is built on a prototype PCB as a frame, where I carved out a rectangular window to mount the LCD, so it will lay flat on the PCB on the front side.
For the mcu board, I chose the TTGO T8 ESP32 WRover board ESP32 WRover board has an additional 4MB PsRam (pseudo static Ram) compared to the ESP VRoom board that has only 4MB flash RAM but no PsRam.
The GO-Play firmware of Odroid-go that drives all the retro-game emulations cannot work with just 4MB Flash RAM.
The GO-Play firmware of Odroid-go cannot be flashed into just 4MB flash, so I upgraded the surface mounted 4MB Flash RAM to 16MB. I ruined one board by using hot air gun to desolder the original 4MB RAM and accidentally blew off a few resistors and could not find that.
I have to order a new one and this time I used the safer approach. Just cutoff the pins of the 4MB Ram , then put the new 16MB RAM on top and solder it up. It’s much easier this way.
Please follow the steps below to build one if you have good soldering skills. If you cannot solder just buy the original.”