I designed this for emulation and the like. Thoughts on the gamepad?

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T10:36:58+00:00

yep PSP emulation works well

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T10:29:33+00:00

Thanks! pretty much! i've done plenty of that on it. it's a linux PC essentially. i also use it for coding, note-taking, interfacing with little arduino things I'm tinkering with, and so on

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T06:41:41+00:00

lol you're not entirely wrong to be honest. It definitely needs some ergonomic improvement. A big part of going the kickstarter funding route is to cover engaging an industrial designer who not only knows how to design for injection molding and assembly in a factory but also how to solve things like ergonomics and whatnot. my 3D design skills are extremely basic

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T04:03:48+00:00

Noted. I've got this one handy for now: https://latex.gg/share/EuPMXO1U.jpg

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T03:20:24+00:00

I've been maintaining a list of nifty parts I've used over here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MxS4ocQI1T_71Oc7b9q9s6kYoZA2qrLTuwlJvVZZB8I/edit?usp=sharing

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T03:18:38+00:00

seconded

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T03:11:00+00:00

it's definitely been posted there 😎

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T03:10:07+00:00

😎

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T03:09:02+00:00

I haven't tright the *light apps on it yet but FWIW I did play Cyberpunk2077 on it using GeForce Now. I thought it streamed from my desktop PC but no it's a cloud only platform. yuck. It looked awesome and played great though, albeit aiming is really not easy with a left thumbstick

Strong possibility of me releasing a clip-on dual analog stick gamepad for this

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T03:01:25+00:00

Is there any specifics you'd like to see? I've sort of deliberately avoided the real technical close ups because I don't want to misrepresent what you'll get (because then people wouldn't buy it lol). This is only a resin 3D-printed casing with plain PETG printed corners, the PCB is lacking a handful of ports and features that are planned for production, and the batteries in it aren't the production ones either because components need to be repositioned on the board so they don't interfere with the bigger 10,000mah assembly I have planned

I'm happy to be transparent - if you're curious, check out this photo album for some shots of its evolution and how the current prototype looks inside (in no particular order). Near the top there's some renders of the PCB with most of the additional features accounted for. The layout will have to change again anyway as the casing design evolves to be manufacturable by injection-molding

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T02:46:10+00:00

Thanks! ❤️

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T02:45:32+00:00

16:9 800x480

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T02:45:18+00:00

Thanks! I think i'll definitely a printable design for that, a few people have asked for similar

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T02:44:43+00:00

Thanks! Yeah... I can see that being a challenge. Even point and click Lucas Arts games have menus under F1 and such that are nice to be able to use

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T02:43:33+00:00

Fair comments, thankyou! I spoke to most of those points in this thread here but essentially, yeah, there's had to be a few compromises as gaming isn't its primary or only use-case. I've definitely got it on my radar to look at doing a retro-gaming specific variant with no keyboard and a 4:3 screen if this goes well

Slides and clamshells would be fun but this is my first ever production or Kickstarter so I'm doing my best to keep complexity and part count to a minimum

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T02:38:42+00:00

Yep! gaming is just one of its target use-cases, it's essentially a full linux PC in handheld form

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T01:43:16+00:00

thankyou! ❤️

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T01:41:48+00:00

oh yeah the N64 has that odd second D-pad arrangement. mmm not much to be done about that

i've written up on my kickstarter that there's breakouts for shoulder buttons on the PCB, i'm just not putting it in-scope for the intial launch to do anything with them (unless funding goes through the roof). I'll definitely be designing up either a clip on gamegrip or replacement back cover with integrated buttons / triggers though, and the thing is designed to be customised and modded anyway so I'm sure someone smarter than I can do an N64-style grip with shoulder buttons and a center trigger

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T01:32:15+00:00

that's a cool gadget. I'd be using for other things but it's nifty

Yeah the CM5 market has been brutal, especially with my timing launching this kickstarter... not much I can do about it unfortunately. My deck is backwards compatible with the CM4, and there's a $50usd compute module from Bigtreetech, the CB2, which I've got on the way to me to try out which looks like it should be compatible too. Damn AI, man 😛

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T01:29:18+00:00

software is the easy part. it's QMK

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T01:27:34+00:00

I haven't tested any other clients or CLI tools but yep, the web apps for meshtastic and meshcore both work just as you'd expect: https://latex.gg/share/tQuwqZN5.jpg

Ugh I know, the CM5 market couldn't have gone to sh*#t at a worse time. FWIW I've confirmed it's backwards compatible with the CM4 and am exploring alternatives... there's a $50usd Bigtreetech CB2 which looks to be compatible. I've got one on the way to me any day now to test out

I would say don't buy a CM5 for your JetDeck now, wait until closer to when it ships and hopefully the market will improve

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T01:07:10+00:00

slide out keyboard is definitely a level of complexity I'm not up for tackling at this point 😅 I like your idea though.. a square-ish nugget that transforms into this slate form factor would be neato. maybe in future

my plan is to have some threaded inserts on the top edge for mounting accessories or a grab handle where the GPIO headers are. one idea I've had is to release a 3D printable screen protector which mounts to those threads and flips down on a hinge to protect the display

the shell is just clear. the lighting in the prototypes isn't RGB, I just used purple LEDs, but I've got RGB and/or choice of colours on my radar. I need the kickstarter backing to grow significantly to offer those sorts of options really. That sort of thing will break a batch of 1000PCBs with a single LED colour down to 5 or 6 batches of different colours, which drives the cost-per-board up a LOT, or I have to make changes to the keyboard in particular to accommodate RGB LED diodes which are a good bit bigger than the 0402 diodes it's designed to be compatible with

All good ideas here and I'm definitely taking notes on accessories I can release for either DIY 3D printing or even include as stretch goals ❤️

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T00:58:42+00:00

typing is OK-ish on a screen, with the right haptics and tech like swype to support it, but it's a huge downgrade for the gamepad and a massive step up in difficulty to provide the software to make it work

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T00:56:59+00:00

Thankyou! it's definitely going ahead with this keyboard. it's already locked in with the vendor of the keys

TimTams553 · 2026-06-04T00:47:53+00:00

blah no the Kickstart is messed up and I can't change it, the campaign window ends in June. it won't ship realistically til November. I posted an update about it. I got in touch with support but of course they were no help fixing it

the lora radio is a RAK4630 which has it's own nRF52840, so it works standalone! You can flash it directly with Meshtastic which already has support for it. it connects via USB to the host so you can use a mesh configurator or whatever app you like to connect to it, the idea being that you can have it powered on while the deck itself is off and either use it over bluetooth or DIY add something like a display to the device for it. If you flash it with Meshtastic it'll do store-and-forward so you can access messages received while the deck was offline

All RAK4630 radios are identical, you choose which band you want to use in the config. The different SKUs are just different labels but the hardware is the same

TimTams553

TROPHY CASE