Adding RTC?

[majorpbx]

I'm not sure how feasible this is but can an RTC be added so that file times aren't all the same? Plus it will help across the board with remembering when you dumped which copy of what game.

Here is my work up of the board. It combines 2 Adafruit boards (Clock Gen Si5351A and RTC DS3231) into one and removes unnecessary solder pads. Looking into changing the DS3231 to DS1307 as the chip is cheaper. Essentially, both boards can be combined as they use different addresses. I'm going to bread board this and see if the Arduino sees all 3 SDA/SCL addresses from the OLED, Clock Gen, and RTC.

Board Dimensions: 25 mm x 34 mm

Front

Back

[Dakkaron]

I like the idea, but wouldn't it be cheaper to just add a ready-made module instead of creating a new one? It would cut down on soldering work and mlst likely also cost.

[Androxilogin]

But it grabs the time automatically once updated? I just got mine in the mail today and might end up soldering it in tonight to give it a try. Awesome work!

[majorpbx]

It does have a time but it’s not used. At present it simply uses the same time stamp across all SD save actions.

I will post here once i have submitted the final file modifications. I’ve been busy lately and i want to make sure it will work. The biggest thing is making sure it’s know what chip it will support.

I found another DS1307 data sheet but it indicates requiring 5V to operate normally. So this will need more time to iron out more support.

[majorpbx]

As for testing I received my test boards today and need to give them a go. Once i confirm it works I want to tweak the boad and provide a link to the files if anyone else wants them.

[majorpbx]

Current output of at least the n64log.txt file. It doesn't show it here to well but the data lines up tab style.

Name : MARIOKART64
ID : NKTE
ROM CRC1: 3e5055b6
ROM CRC2: 2e92da52
Size : 12MB
Save : 4K Eeprom
Version : 1.0
Saved To: N64/ROM/MARIOKART64/857
Dumped : 01OCT2021 03:17:32PM
CRC : 434389c1 [Match]
Time : 61

Here are a few pictures of the PCB's I have. Unpopulated for now, will populate one as soon as I can.
Front

Back:

[majorpbx]

Posted the changes, please keep in mind this only supports DS3231. Swapping it out for DS1307 if it can actually operate at 3V at least for my board should be possible.

[Icesythe7]

Did this all work? This would be a nice addition for gbc\gba games to allow for dumping and setting of rtc related things for the mbc3 and gba games that support it.

[majorpbx]

It does though I'm not familiar enough with GBC/GBA rtc games. The same could likely be done with N64 and other carts that use rtc. I'd have to look closer at the code to see what if anything can be done. But maybe someone else has more knowledge on this and can offer suggestions. Also, I don't think I can test this on any other system than N64 as I have most carts that use rtc. I don't have any GBC/GBA titles that have rtc.

[Ancyker]

If you added networking instead of an RTC you could use NTP to get the current time as well as for saving files to network shares and such. More work, but also more features, however, I'm not sure of the memory situation on the microcontroller.

[majorpbx]

True, though that would add way more effort than a general person could commit to building one of these bad boys. As you stated memory would need a serious bump up and a way more powerful micro controller.

[Ancyker]

As you stated memory would need a serious bump up and a way more powerful micro controller.

I'm actually working on that. :3

[majorpbx]

Awesome! Can't wait to see what you come up with.