Worklog Waker of the Wiind - Ginger's Second Wii Portable

GingerOfOz

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The WaluWiigi is just about finished at this point, so I figure It's time to show off my ideas for my next portable. Apologies for the essay y’all are about to read (or not) but condensing 4 months worth of brainstorming into something brief is kinda tricky.


As you may have guessed by the title, this next project is going to be Wind Waker themed. I can't really make a coherent argument for why WW is my favorite Zelda game, but it's the one I have the most fond memories of. Also, I refuse to start a project that doesn't have at least two Ws in the name. I'm not entirely satisfied with the name, so if anyone has some better ideas, feel more than welcome to share them. But that's enough sentimentality, here's the plan.

THE PLAN:

So I've been following everyone's projects very closely, and it's become clear to me that the ideal portable is a GameCube portable built into a clamshell Altoids tin. If that doesn't work out, then I'll try this instead.

The Case:

This is the only part of the project that I have any solid progress on at this point. I'm using Inventor like I did before, but this time I'm going to use a fun little helper called common sense. It's difficult to use and can be somewhat unwieldy, but I think it'll make this case considerably more...errr... gooder than the WaluWiigi's case. The case is still in the early stages, but here are some pics.

2017-11-25.png
2017-11-25 (2).png


The case is going to be made up of several pieces. You'll have the front, as well as another piece that attaches to the front. This extra piece will be used to hold down the screen and the driver board. The back piece will be similar to the WWiigi, but will definitely have holders for my 18650s and my trimmed Wii. Speaking of holder, this case is going to have screwposts designed INTO the case! No need to thank me for sharing this wonderful revelation, I'm a genius, I know. :sadpreg:

2017-10-27.png


Button guides are what I’m working on designing right now. They’re a pain, but they’re going to be worth the effort.

2017-11-25 (3).png


The biggest difference is going to be the level of planning that goes into my case. This case is considerably smaller than my old one, which means that repeating any of my old mistakes will result in project failure. Even with good planning, this is going to be a tight fit. I have barely enough vertical space to fit a five inch screen, and just enough horizontal space for an OMGWTF and 4 18650s. This portable will likely be a little bit thicker than the WaluWiigi, but it won’t have those grips (which incidentally, the WWgii didn’t even need. Yay, planning…). The WWgii was basically a box to shove all my stuff inside and glue down. That isn't going to happen again.

2017-11-25 (1).png


One of the issues with constraining my size so much is that I don't have very much room for controls. With my testing of the WWgii, I’ve found that it’s difficult for me to adjust to a DS layout on GC games. I’d originally thought that I would use my portable for SNES/NES stuff more, but now that I’m close to using it, it’s pretty clear that it’s going to be used for pretty much nothing but GC. So I want to use a GC layout on this project, but I don’t have nearly enough space, so I’m going to go with a modified layout quite similar to Shank’s PWii pocket. I feel like if at least A and B are really close to how they normally are, then I should pick up on a modified layout fairly quickly. I do have enough space for DS buttons though, so worse case scenario I can still use those.

3DS sliders are the plan again. I toyed with the idea of using tiny joysticks like Gman’s most recent PS2p, but 3DS sticks haven’t bothered me at all. So I’ll keep it basic for now.

PCBs:

I’m planning on using GC+, the WiiHUD amp, PowerMii full, and any other spicy memes that the other cool people here make if they become available in the next 6 months or so. I expect this project to take a decent amount of time, so waiting isn’t a worry for me. I’ve also been toying with the idea of designing my own PCBs, and at this point I think I have solid ideas down for three boards.

2017-11-26.png


Not to scale and all that good stuff. This is just a rough sketch to show general placement for things.

Board 1: This board will go on the ABXY/ C-Stick side of the portable. It will have mounting spots for ABXY, a connector for the slider, a spot for a speaker, an IR LED, pads for the R trigger and Z button, and another FFC connector to go to a similar board on the other side of my portable (Board 2). This board will connect to Board 3 as well, likely through two FFCs. I plan on having this board contain all of the spots to mount GC+ components to, so that way I have less wires floating around in my portable and one less little board to find a spot for.

Board 2: This board is on the opposite side, and contains mounting spots for Dpad tacts, pads for the L trigger, the other speaker and IR LED, and a connector for the control stick. It’ll connect to Board 1 via FFC magic.

Board 3: Board 3 is the only board on the back half of my portable. The plan is for it to partially frame my OMGWTF trim, and fill in that little triangle wedge that you chop off with this PCB. This PCB will have ports for power/charging, headphones, a power switch (a button would be cool, but I don’t think I’m ready for that quite yet), as well as ~ 5 tact switches that would be pressable from outside the portable. Ideally, I’d set up a system where pushing one button toggles the controls from being BT sync, reset, volume up and volume down to my screen controls, quite similar to how JacksonS built his SP 2.0 with the three controller options, but on a much simpler level. I’ve done some basic research into this, and it looks very doable. I’d also like to include an internal USB port with it accessible through a micro-usb port on the bottom of my case. I’ve come to despise having a flash drive jutting out of my portable, and I don’t want to have to take my case apart every time I want to add another picture of Doom as my wallpaper. So this seems like an ideal solution to me. I’m still working out the details on this, but I’m fairly certain I can pull it off.

My main goal with using these PCBs is making my internals a lot nicer. It looks like I’ll be able to connect everything the front half and back half together with just two FFC cables - one for the higher amp power lines, and the other for everything else. This sounds like heaven to me, so I’m going to roll with it.

Aesthetics:

*DISCLAIMER: THIS PORTABLE HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ABOMINATION KNOWN AS “TINGLE”

Green and gold boys. It’ll be pretty. I also have a pretty crazy idea for my back plate, but I’m going to keep it under wraps for now so that if it doesn’t work out, I’m the only one that’ll be dissapointed.

I also plan on getting some custom made GameCube buttons to use in this portable, as I plan on it being quite pretty. I’ll likely have them made in a gold color, in order to augment the green that the rest on my case is going to be.

That's about all I have to share for now. I'm in the process of doing an OMGWTF trim, so hopefully I'll have good news about that in the next few days. I also just want to thank all of you who have offered advice and support and during this past year. If it wasn't for this amazing community, none of this would have ever been possible for me.

Tl,dr (and who could blame you?): I’m making a new portable, it’s going to have my own PCBs, it’s going to be smaller, it’s going to be green, it hopefully won’t suck, thank
 
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Where the holes for the XY buttons and the Start button?
 

GingerOfOz

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Where the holes for the XY buttons and the Start button?
The case is still early memes yet. There is still a lot more to add. Circles are easier to model than the funky moonish shapes that X and Y are, so since I hate myself I'm doing those later.
 
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Its ok to hate yourself. (Insert Ded Meme here)
 

BocuD

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So I've been following everyone's projects very closely, and it's become clear to me that the ideal portable is a GameCube portable built into a clamshell Altoids tin. If that doesn't work out, then I'll try this instead.
IMG_0311.JPG

@Shank

In all seriousness though, your plan is looking great! Nice essay lmao
 

GingerOfOz

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I wonder if we'll ever run out of Wii puns for names of portables
I siiriiouslii doubt it.

But honestly, if someone has a better name, please help before this one becomes cemented.
 
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Ii have a namii
Subwii. Now with footlongs
 

GingerOfOz

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20171126_193243.jpg
20171127_170303.jpg


YAAAAY!!

Pulled off a successful OMGWTF trim today. This is pretty insignificant to most of the veterans here, but this gave me the most grief on my last portable to the point where I caved and just commissioned one from SS. I don't regret doing that since the other wiring in that portable helped me grow more comfortable with soldering, but being able to do it myself makes me all warm and fuzzy. Definitely feel accomplished right now.

Anyways, with relocations I plan to solder up USB and a controller data line to help troubleshoot some of the controller issues I'm having on the WaluWiigi. After that, I plan to relocate Bluetooth and the MX chip, since I'd like to be able to play VC titles on this one. No Wifi because no. We'll see how I'm feeling about other relocations later on, but that's the main plan for now.

Now let's hope the rest of this project goes as smoothly :D !
 
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I've got it; Lose the battery Protection, paint it red, make it more circular, and call it Tii-N-Tii, and then for finishing touches put it on a plane.

But back on topic;
with your Pcbs, you plan to have yours, and then Other people's Like Wiihud.
And then, if bbvideo comes out in the Next six months or so, Do you plan to switch your screen? or is it one with Av and Hdmi/Vga?

Also Good luck,
For buttons you can do commission, because Molds and Epoxies cost a metric crap ton of money for like one use
There is a CustomGcc Discord you can ask for commission on there, Or Serisium on the bb Discord you can ask as well .
 

GingerOfOz

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But back on topic;
with your Pcbs, you plan to have yours, and then Other people's Like Wiihud.
And then, if bbvideo comes out in the Next six months or so, Do you plan to switch your screen? or is it one with Av and Hdmi/Vga?
I've talked with one of the people working on BBVideo, and I'll probably just go with a screen that I know will work with it to begin with. I'll probably just use one of the screens I used in my last portable, haven't decided which yet. The only thing that would impact my case design in switching screens would be that the driver board would be slightly larger on the other, but it wouldn't force me to change my design at all.
Also Good luck,
For buttons you can do commission, because Molds and Epoxies cost a metric crap ton of money for like one use
There is a CustomGcc Discord you can ask for commission on there, Or Serisium on the bb Discord you can ask as well .
Yes, the plan is to get in touch with Serisium. He made some really nice buttons for Shank, so I know the kind of quality I'd get from him. Designing my own molds and stuff isn't worth the $40,000.
 

GingerOfOz

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Progress!

I spent a few hours working on PCB design, and haven't gotten very far but I'm really enjoying it. Right now I'm making packages for the ports I plan on using, like headphones, power, USB etc. Here's a few pictures.

2017-12-20 (1).png 2017-12-20.png 2017-12-20 (2).png

From left to right is the micro USB port, the USB port, and the speaker I plan on using. These are simple, but they took me a while to make because some things in Eagle don't make much sense. I'm definitely getting faster on it though. If people have any recommendations for these/ future designs I'd love to hear them.

No significant progress on CAD. I changed and added a couple of things, but it's mostly the same. I am considering moving to DS butons though, as I'm starting to think that a modified GC layout would look ugly on this portable. I'm not 100% set either way, but shifting is a possibility right now.

And on the workbench I've done things!

20171220_183842.jpg


Just about all the peripherals on the Wii are wired up right now. USB went pretty smoothly, with the exception of the original Wii USB ports not working at all. Even though I sanded down the edges and made sure there were no shorts, the port just didn't work. But after harvesting a port out of a USB extension cable, it worked without a hitch! Very grateful for @Madmorda and @GarageFactory offering that tip.

You'll notice that in my previous picture of the trimmed Wii, the regulators weren't pictured, because they were really, really bad. I wired them up in a much neater process, but I managed to (even though both the regs and wires were color coded and ordered by voltage) wire 3.3v to 1.15v, 1.15v to 3.3v, and 1v to 1.15v. For whatever reason, my brain decided that wiring the regulators up to whatever voltage spot was closest was a fine plan. It wasn't. But amazingly, it still works. Wiis are amazing. My regs still aren't perfect, but I'm not too worried about it since the final product is going to have a PowerMii in it.

20171220_181711_HDR.jpg


Hey, Bluetooth works too! I'm really happy that this worked first try, as I was pretty worried about pulling this off. I found that @Fruity_Grebbles ' method of scratching the solder mask off with multimeter probes was perfect, which was good because I was struggling pretty badly with a box cutter.

Next up on the list is a lot of time on the computer doing CAD and PCB design. I'll also probably wire up the MX chip pretty soon as well. Let's hope the WaluWiigi learns a thing or two from how well this project is going...

Thanks for all the help.
 

fibbef

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Good stuff mate! Does Eagle not have footprints (feetprint?) for common components like microUSB? I guess I can understand if it doesn’t; I toyed around with KiCAD a bit but for the life of me couldn’t find an HDMI port footprint. I thought it was pretty weird.
 
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