Worklog Booshman's N64 portable

Stitches

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You can get away with sinks with no fan, but it's better to have some airflow.
 
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Some more progress:



And a test fit. To my surprise, after I took this pic, I put in everything and ran the bundles of wires out the holes at the bottom, and everything fit when I put the front on with the screen in it.



I'm a bit confused though. With my wiring I'm getting 3.55-3.59 from each cel, and if I measure between + and - on the red board I get 7.13. However when I measure at Vout on the red board I get 4.69 only.

I've also been looking at the detector switches I bought, with the intent of redirecting the data line for controller 1 when docked, and I don't think they'll work. Looking at the circuit I believe it would be the equivalent of conrtoller 1 linked to the portable when undocked, and both the portable and the breakout box connected to controller 1 simultaniously when docked. Is that correct?



I think this might be what I'm after:

 

MRKane

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I'm a bit confused though. With my wiring I'm getting 3.55-3.59 from each cel, and if I measure between + and - on the red board I get 7.13. However when I measure at Vout on the red board I get 4.69 only.
Ok, I'm not a good communicator and am forever worried that I sound like I'm talking down to someone, but I've been here and this was my issue: I hadn't wired the batteries up in pairs to the correct terminals. Here's a helpful diagram on how to wire up four batteries:
 
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OK some good news. I checked it and quadruple checked it, and i wired it up right. I took a reading from the red board, one battery in its holder at a time. The second one along from the left was giving a reading of less than two, so I added more solder to the connections there and to the ones on the red board, and now I have 7.14 at the Vout on the red board.

I still need to get my detector switches sorted, ut I can't order anything for a few days until the sellers get back from Chinese new year.
 
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OK some good news. I checked it and quadruple checked it, and i wired it up right. I took a reading from the red board, one battery in its holder at a time. The second one along from the left was giving a reading of less than two, so I added more solder to the connections there and to the ones on the red board, and now I have 7.14 at the Vout on the red board.

I still need to get my detector switches sorted, ut I can't order anything for a few days until the sellers get back from Chinese new year.
Good Night(here when I'm typing this)! I'm thinking of doing a n64 portable I looked at the trimming guide etc. but realized it doesn't say how to do the power switch or redo the controller. any assistant with that?
 
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Good Night(here when I'm typing this)! I'm thinking of doing a n64 portable I looked at the trimming guide etc. but realized it doesn't say how to do the power switch or redo the controller. any assistant with that?
View attachment 5363

MRKane's pic a few posts back actually has a picture of where the switch goes from the red board.

Here's a pic for where the controller goes.
 
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After a lot of looking, I found a switch I can use. The ones I posted above were only available locally to me at a massive mark up, or in a box of 100. I managed to find a good alternative for the equivalent a $1 each. Here's a pic of one of them lay on top of where it will live. Once I cut a hole for it, the plunger will stick out far enough to be able to be activated in docked mode.

 
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Hey folks, no progress on this unfortunately. My daughter takes up so much of m time, as well as work and I moved too. I'd love to have this finished, but I would have little time to play on it anyway as of late. Anyway, that said, I'm always trying to keep up to date with new tech that could be added or improve this project. Have you heard about the rad2x?

https://www.retrorgb.com/unveiling-the-rad2x-hdmi-cables.html

I wonder how easy it would be to use one of these in a portable. All the other options I looked into were dead ends or not in production. This looks pretty damn small and might actually fit in my case. Could the contacts from the N64 multi-out be wired to the input on the red2x, and the contacts from the HDMI out wired to the HDMI port on the driver board of the LCD?
 

Stitches

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Hey folks, no progress on this unfortunately. My daughter takes up so much of m time, as well as work and I moved too. I'd love to have this finished, but I would have little time to play on it anyway as of late. Anyway, that said, I'm always trying to keep up to date with new tech that could be added or improve this project. Have you heard about the rad2x?

https://www.retrorgb.com/unveiling-the-rad2x-hdmi-cables.html

I wonder how easy it would be to use one of these in a portable. All the other options I looked into were dead ends or not in production. This looks pretty damn small and might actually fit in my case. Could the contacts from the N64 multi-out be wired to the input on the red2x, and the contacts from the HDMI out wired to the HDMI port on the driver board of the LCD?
Yep, you'd just have to pinout it and wire it to the N64's AV out.
 

Stitches

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Cool, I take it there would be no way to use a driver board that just takes VGA, like the one I have currently.

Sadly, no. The RAD2x is HDMI out only, so you need a screen with HDMI in. You could make your own DAC PCB to get VGA out from the N64 GPU's raw digital out, but that's about all you can do short of just using composite video with that board.
 
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Sadly, no. The RAD2x is HDMI out only, so you need a screen with HDMI in. You could make your own DAC PCB to get VGA out from the N64 GPU's raw digital out, but that's about all you can do short of just using composite video with that board.
As I suspected, thanks for confirming. These RAD2x do seem like they would be a cool addition to a portable, but with my design I think I'll have to keep my plan for regular composite. Since I want to have the option to play either on the portable or on a larger TV when docked, I can't see how I could switch while using the RAD2x. With composite I onl have to worry about on signal being turned on and off with a switch. If I have all the AV lines going to my dock as I planned and connect a RAD2x between the dock and the TV, I could at least get a better picture whe playing on a larger screen.
 

Stitches

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As I suspected, thanks for confirming. These RAD2x do seem like they would be a cool addition to a portable, but with my design I think I'll have to keep my plan for regular composite. Since I want to have the option to play either on the portable or on a larger TV when docked, I can't see how I could switch while using the RAD2x. With composite I onl have to worry about on signal being turned on and off with a switch. If I have all the AV lines going to my dock as I planned and connect a RAD2x between the dock and the TV, I could at least get a better picture whe playing on a larger screen.
That'd probably work out better and be a lot simpler.
 
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So I finally have a small update. Been working on the dock. It has some ways to go, but the portable will fit now and it's coning together.



I'm going to cut a piece of EVA foam to fit in the rectangle gap to support the underside of the portable.

 
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I got the piece printed and its attached to the dock now.


I have filled and, sanded and primed a couple of times, still got a few spots to sort out but it's getting there. Added a little surround for the AV port and a hole for the power to plug in.




I'm unsure what to do with the dock audio. I have a solution for the portable, taking audio from the motherboard to the speakers with the option of headphones. I ideally would like to take the audio to the dock via the mini HDMI connector as this would look the best, but the only way I can see it working would be to take audio externally from the headphone jack to the AV port , having a wire connected to the dock. Any ideas on a work around?
 
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I'm going to relocate the headphone jack to the bottom of the portable so I can connect the audio through the dock without external wires. I'm going to have decide what to do with the existing hole headphone jack in the top. I might fill it in, but I'm deliberating on making it a secont controller port. If I make a 3.5mm jack to controller converter I could play with a second player when not in docked mode.

 
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I'm going to relocate the headphone jack to the bottom of the portable so I can connect the audio through the dock without external wires. I'm going to have decide what to do with the existing hole headphone jack in the top. I might fill it in, but I'm deliberating on making it a secont controller port. If I make a 3.5mm jack to controller converter I could play with a second player when not in docked mode.

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