As I am kind of active on Recalbox community, I needed a small setup that fits on my desk to be able to make some tests to answer questions. So I decided to build a “desktop” Recalbox.

HARDWARE_

The hardware is pretty simple : 

  1. – A raspberry Pi3B
  2. – A 5 inch HDMI 800×480 screen
  3. – HDMI connector
  4. – Some small screws
Don’t forget averything you need to make it work (5V 3A power supply , SD card).
You can find the screen at “Bangalibest”.

3D PRINTED PARTS_

The frame is made up of : 

  1. – 2 pieces for the frame
  2. – 2 pieces for the case
  3. – 1 piece for the support

You can find the STL here.

These STLs are FREE ! But you can help me buying materials to make more stuff here !

Everything is simple to build. We start to put the screen on the frame. Then we install the case behind the screen and insert the PI on the case. Beware to align  correctly the GPIO pins in the GPIO slot from the screen. The two HDMI ports has to be aligned face to face. Close the case, put everything on the support and TADAAAA, you’re done. About 10mn of work.

CONFIGURATION_

To get the screen to work correctly, you’ll have to change some lines on the config.txt.

You can open a terminal and type : sudo nano /boot/config.txt or connect in SSH via putty to modify the file directly.

Then you’ll have to change the following lines :

disable_overscan=0

# uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA)
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=1
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt=800 480 60 6 0 0 0

CONCLUSION_

This is a fast and effective build, if your desk is like mine, with tons of stuff on it. I did not configured the touch screen because I’m using it as a retrogame station under Recalbox. But you’ll find a lot of video on how to configure it on the internets.

Hope this B_log was usefull, I tell you :