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A project log for Ye Olde Nowt

Yet another pi zero retro handheld game console.

dehipudeʃhipu 06/23/2017 at 22:210 Comments

Leaving the struggles with device tree overlays on the side for a moment, I decided to try and get the audio to work. When designing the board, I followed instructions by Adafruit on how to get PWM Audio on the Pi Zero. Except that instead of headphones I have two tiny SMD speakers in there.

Of course the device tree method didn't work -- results in a Segmentation Fault as soon as audio is used. Poking around a bit, I found this tutorial that lets you do it by only editing the config.txt, without your own overlay, and this worked: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=168084

Of course, without an amplifier I expect the sound to be very quiet. It is in fact barely audible. What's worse, the noise from the display, and the noise from the display signal induced in the speaker, are orders of magnitude louder!

I think I will either need an amplifier module for this, or just give up on the sound. For now I ordered an amplifier and will see how it will work.

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