ARDUINOBOY + Arduino Mega 2560 + GBA problem

Yeah sorry about that backwards diode. It's fixed in my schematics. I thought I uploaded those to the website, but I may need to check. All the printed boards I have are wrong, doh!

As far as what's wrong, I see that you have a jumper on the 5V input. That is for supplying power from the GameBoy instead of through the USB or power jack. That requires a modification to the GameBoy, however, and either way, you do not have any wire going to +5V on the GameLink header.

So try removing that jumper first and supplying power using USB. If everything is powered up correctly, you should see the LEDs cycle for about 1 second. Then to test that things work, break out LSDJ and set it to slave and set the ArduinoBoy to slave as well (2rd LED from the top if looking where the USB is on the top-left). Start your track in LSDJ and then start your DAW or whatever you have sending a clock. The LEDs should cycle to the beat of the clock and, if the cable is working as it should, things should start playing in LSDJ at the same rate.

Alternatively, you can test master mode. Press the button on the ArduinoBoy again to do that (3rd LED from the top) and set LSDJ to master. Now if you start playing the song, the lights should blink to the BPM of the song. Note that I could never get MIDI Out working on mine for whatever reason and if that problem is intrinsic to the design, it may not work for you. But the LEDs should blink regardless since the problem has to do with the MIDI Out port itself and anything coming through the GameLink interface.

Hope that helps!

Ah derp sorry! I missed some key points in your first explanation about power and the current state of things. If you don't see the LEDs cycling when LSDJ is in master mode, but do see them on incoming MIDI events, then you know it has something to do with the game-link cable. I have included, as best as I could, information about how to figure out the wiring for the GameLink cable here. That is for a DMG-001 so your situation may be a tad different.

The cable I have is something similar to this one. I say similar because I ordered another cable from the same shop recently and it appears to be slightly different. Likewise, I tested it with both a DMG-001 and GameBoy Color (as my cable has connections for both).

I can't think of a reason why the GBA shouldn't work but I haven't tried it Also, LSDJ does work in Master Mode - it's just that I have not isolated the problem as to why I'm not getting MIDI Out events from the ShieldBoy. I wasn't planning on using that myself but do plan on figuring that out so folks that want to use the ShieldBoy have that option. I don't have an o-scope at the moment so it's a tad hard to track down currently.

Ah that's a bummer. For what it's worth, the cart I use is this one that Kitsch sells. Really like it so it's got my vote!

Once you do a cart, if you still run into issues, let me know! Sometimes I don't get post updates via e-mail for whatever reason so you can always PM me if I don't respond, or contact me directly via the contact page on my band website (victimcache.com).

Hope you get it working man!

Awesome! I just built another one of these and didn't run into any issues, so I think the design is sound (other than the diode being backwards, which I fixed on my band's website; and the MIDI OUT thing). If it still doesn't work, check your cable and maybe start testing your traces just to make sure you don't have a cut/bad trace. Then do the same for your solder joints.