Hackaday.io user mincepi wanted a VGA output on his Raspberry Pi Zero. His quest led him to design a PCB that mates with a VGA monitor and the Pi board and–according to his estimates–costs about $3.62 each (although to get that price, you have to build three).
mincepi has shared the board on OSH Park:
pi2vga-v2.1
More details are on minepi’s website:
pi2vga: Pi Zero lowest cost VGA output
The vga666 by Gert is already a low cost VGA output option for the Pi. But we can do better with the Zero! First, we’ll use 16 bit output instead of 18 bit. This frees up the SPI and I2C ports with little loss in quality. The resistors can also be soldered between the Zero and the adapter, making the PCB smaller and eliminating a connector. I’ve also determined that 5% resistors are good enough: no need for higher cost 1% units. And by not using the middle row of pins in the HD15 connector, we can straddle-mount it on the PCB edge. The connector can be male, so the Zero will connect to the monitor ChromeCast style: no VGA cable needed. (This connector could even be scrounged from an old VGA monitor cable for free!)
OSH Park 