Worklog Ginger's Wii Portable Worklog

Madmorda

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When that happens to me, I get a sewing needle, heat the solder directly, and use the sewing needle to flick the solder out of the crevice from the back. It's never failed me
 
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The best way is to use your soldering iron. Get some flux on those joints. The flux will clean the solder joint of oxidation and help the solder flow better due to the change in surface tension. Then use your iron to "swipe" off the solder. The solder will follow the heat source and wick right off.
 

Aurelio

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So I've made a bit of progress. Batteries and Gamepad buttons arrived. I've been working on operation GC+ revival, and the battle is hard.

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGE
View attachment 2270
As you can see, I managed to bridge six of the pins on the bottom of the IC. I also going out the Y pad, but I'm pretty sure I can just use the hole next to it. I've been using solder wick to try to coax the excess out from between the pins, but it isn't working as well anymore. Any tips?

Thanks!
You're killing me, y'know?
 

GingerOfOz

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GC+ IS REVIVED!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU @pineapples BETWEEN THAT AND MORE SOLDER ON THE BRIDGE IT ALL CAME OFF!!!!

YAY!!!!

In other news:

All battery parts came in, but I'm having issues getting them to charge. I've contacted BatterySpace to see if I'm making some stupid mistake or if it's a faulty product.

@JacksonS helped get my 3DS sticks soldered and ready to roll.

The rest of my Wii U Gamepad buttons came in as well as my speakers.

Speaking of the Wii U buttons, is there a way around that ribbon cable? Could I cut traces/ a hole in the ribbon cable and solder my own wires to a more convenient point or would that be idiotic?

The only parts I'm waiting on are the audio amp, my trimmed board, and my USB drive.

Today I'm going to get my controller ready to roll, at least until I have to go to work.

You guys are awesome! Thanks so much for your help!
 
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So I've made a bit of progress. Batteries and Gamepad buttons arrived. I've been working on operation GC+ revival, and the battle is hard.

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGE
View attachment 2270
As you can see, I managed to bridge six of the pins on the bottom of the IC. I also going out the Y pad, but I'm pretty sure I can just use the hole next to it. I've been using solder wick to try to coax the excess out from between the pins, but it isn't working as well anymore. Any tips?

Thanks!
Yeah, the best tip here is to get a better soldering iron. Seriously, that should just be a fairly simple heat to un-bridge that. You can get decent irons for a not too bad price so I recommend that.
 

GingerOfOz

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Spicy case pics:
2017-04-29 (2).png
2017-04-29 (3).png
2017-04-29.png
The next step will be adding the slots in the top for USB/ Switches/ LRZ, as well as holes for ABXY, Dpad, and my IR LEDs. It goes slowly, but it should be beautiful once it's finished...
 

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Lookin good!
If you are planing on 3D printing that, I would suggest you print the extending screen bezel as a separate piece and then gluing it on afterward. That way, you can print it face down and have a nice flat face to stick to the print bed.
 

GingerOfOz

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Lots of little bits of progress have been made.

Haven't done a whole lot with CAD. Made a testbed with basically every hole I think will be on my case and then printed it. Every single hole came out too small except for the DPDT switch hole. I changed the dimensions and sweet talked my electronics teacher into letting me use the super duper 3D printer for the testbed, so hopefully the holes will be more accurate. I'll probably have the better one printed on Tuesday. Here's a picture of the testbed that failed:
20170507_190839.jpg

Haven't done much with the main case, but I did design a custom L/R trigger.
2017-05-07.png

2017-05-07 (1).png

The hole in the bottom is so that I can put my tact switches inside so that they take up less space in the actual case.

Flash drive came in. Put 100ish gigs of info on it before I remembered that it needed to be formatted. And that I was using the only non USB 3.0 port on my laptop. REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Fixing that right now.

The Wii U Gamepad buttons are just what I wanted, but the pads that relay the information lack good portablizing functions. Should have expected that, it's Nintendo I'm dealing with anyways. The solution? I realized I had a moderately mediocre Bluetooth controller (Ipega 9021) that I could use for parts, so I dismantled it. It was built to be destroyed. The ABXY pads on the controller match up perfectly with the ABXY pads on my Gamepad buttons, plus it has lots of test pads to solder onto, as well as ground in random places, which makes it super easy to cut up and use it how I want. So I'll get that dremel tip from my Projects teacher on Tuesday, cut the controller up, and solder it to the GC+. I won't be able to use the D-Pad pads on the controller, because it used a giant, garbage, X-Box 360 d-pad. The joysticks on that controller are also trash, so that's where they'll go.
20170507_182131.jpg

I hate desoldering. It sucks. Got my hands on some solder wick, so I've been getting rid of the giant, useless ports on my screen board. Which meant that I desoldered it halfway and then pulled it out with a pair of pliers. Good enough.

And finally, what I'm most excited about... my batteries work!
20170507_182109.jpg

It turns out that "Battery will protect be charge when load to release protection mode" means "connect your batteries in the PCB to something that will drain them. This will disable protection mode and allow your batteries to charge". Maybe I should have known that, but I didn't. Once they were working, I wired up the Charge and Play diagram and got the whole system working! I modified the diagram by putting in a SPDT switch and only using one charging port. This way, I can fluidly move from playing and charging to just charging, and only have to have one charging port on the portable.

Once I get that dremel tip, I'll also go ahead and remove the PCB from the battery holder. That's the only part I care about, and this will also allow me to stick the batteries wherever it's most convenient.

My commission from SS will be arriving soon, so after that the fun will really begin. Track also ends this week, so I'll suddenly have another 3 hours every day to devote to this project.

We're getting somewhere!!

*exhale*

EDIT: Forgot to mention that my dad came back from a work conference with a bunch of Pi Zero stuff, so after this project I might make a small portable with my leftover tact switches. (Wari0 confirmed?)
 

GingerOfOz

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20170513_220611.jpg

The fact that this can happen is amazing. I am so excited that the end is in sight. I could be done by the end of this week if I get my CAD nailed down and the squishy tacts come in.

Most have my time has been spent working with physical soldering, but I've done some other stuff too. I reprinted the testbed on a good 3D printer, and this time the holes were perfectly sized. I also got a trigger printed out, and it's going to feel really nice when put in my portable. The curve fits my finger perfectly, which is awesome considering that I was using the TLAR method when designing the curve part (That Looks About Right)
20170514_144925.jpg


The black you see on it is from me experimenting with Sharpie. It sticks pretty well, so I might use that on the smaller parts, but definitely not my whole case.

My bluetooth controller got cut up and it works pretty well. I severed something critical on the A line, but I think I'll drill a tiny hole up through the back of it and solder a ground wire there so that it is still usable. I also scavenged some clicky tacts from the controller.

As always, I have questions. First of all, I'm having issues with my sound. I bought the audio amp from the BOM and wired it up, but I don't get sound out of it. What does the SDN pin do? The ebay listing gives a brief description of it, but it doesn't make any sense, so I figured I'd ask you guys. If you spot an issue with my wiring, please let me know. I know the Wii isn't the problem because sound worked fine on my TV with a normal connector.
20170514_180112.jpg

Also, how do you guys sand your 3D parts? I tried going at my trigger with some 200 grit by hand, but it didn't do much. Should I use a tool?

Thanks for all you guys do!
 

Stitches

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Well to start, the grounds are already connected internally. So get rid of that horrid linkage you've made there, it won't do anything good. SDN is shutdown, the off switch basically.
 

GingerOfOz

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Well to start, the grounds are already connected internally. So get rid of that horrid linkage you've made there, it won't do anything good. SDN is shutdown, the off switch basically.
Oh, okay. Will do. Do I need to wire something to SDN, or will it run fine if I don't want a shutdown switch?
 

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In your case, make sure the left and right audio lines are connected to the bottom side of the on board audio amp as described in the guide (marked 1 and 2 at the very bottom of the image).
av_port.png

I messed up the first time by connecting it to the left and right above the on board amp, and it wouldn't work until I moved them properly. Might not be the issue, just throwing it out there since I had trouble with it when wiring my amp.
 

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In your case, make sure the left and right audio lines are connected to the bottom side of the on board audio amp as described in the guide (marked 1 and 2 at the very bottom of the image).
View attachment 2461

I messed up the first time by connecting it to the left and right above the on board amp, and it wouldn't work until I moved them properly. Might not be the issue, just throwing it out there since I had trouble with it when wiring my amp.
ShockSlayer trimmed/ relocated my board, so I'm sure it's fine. Sound worked just fine when I ran tests on my TV, so it's probably an issue with my amp setup.
 
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How did you supply battery power to the screen?
 
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