Worklog First N64 Portable

[The_Smeags]

Yeah I'm not sure either, it would be nice to be able to just connect everything via the top of the board but I haven't seen much of that.

EDIT: On a side note, my local electronics store carries these DC-DC step down regulator boards which convert to 3.3V: https://abra-electronics.com/voltage-regulator-modules/dc-dc-step-down-converters/psm-301.html

https://abra-electronics.com/voltag...car-charging-step-down-3.3v-power-module.html

Thoughts? Im swinging by there later today, they're only around $3 so I may pick one up just in case. The second one can deal with up to 3A max, which is similar to the PTH08080WAS which does 2.25A

I dont know the risks of a failing regulator. The best way to know is to try it out, people often try things out to see how it works, the price is cheap.
personally I'd rather just get a pth08080waz because they've always been solid, but the worst it can do is break your board I'd rather buy things that are a guarantee. Spending 15 to 20 bucks is better than having to buy another n64 which at that point youd have to buy a different regulator.
One thing I did see is someone made portable with a written guide on building one and I think he got 3.3v out of the stock power supply. I'd have to check that out again
Anyway my 2cents if you're willing to try it out go for it, but Imo it's better to stick to what works as some say. Believe me when I say this, I've failed at portablizing for years, I've made multiple attempts, but failed because I've rushed in different ways that if I took things slowly (I'm actually gonna give it another try soon and this time I guarantee that I wont fail, I wont have a worklog, but that's another story)
People who knew me since the bacteria forum days can tell you my failures lol
Hope that helps you make a choice. I'll continue to help you as you proceed fingers crossed for you bud.

 

[printsmith3d]

I dont know the risks of a failing regulator. The best way to know is to try it out, people often try things out to see how it works, the price is cheap.
personally I'd rather just get a pth08080waz because they've always been solid, but the worst it can do is break your board I'd rather buy things that are a guarantee. Spending 15 to 20 bucks is better than having to buy another n64 which at that point youd have to buy a different regulator.
One thing I did see is someone made portable with a written guide on building one and I think he got 3.3v out of the stock power supply. I'd have to check that out again
Anyway my 2cents if you're willing to try it out go for it, but Imo it's better to stick to what works as some say. Believe me when I say this, I've failed at portablizing for years, I've made multiple attempts, but failed because I've rushed in different ways that if I took things slowly (I'm actually gonna give it another try soon and this time I guarantee that I wont fail, I wont have a worklog, but that's another story)
People who knew me since the bacteria forum days can tell you my failures lol
Hope that helps you make a choice. I'll continue to help you as you proceed fingers crossed for you bud. View attachment 10778

Thanks for the advice, I need to order stuff from digikey so I think I'll go the safe route and use the pth08080. Im going to run some tests on this little 3.3V converter board I got, but not gonna plug it into the n64.

So it's been slow lately, but I connected the 3.3v traces on the back of the board today

Currently I'm cadding up some models of my motherboard and some other components. I'm planning on using the OG N64 controller buttons, but I'm making custom PCBs for tact buttons, which is also helping me learn EAGLE

 

[printsmith3d]

Hey everyone keeping up with this thread, so Coronavirus has hit, gonna be working from home until the 3rd of April so I guess I'm gonna have more time to tinker around with my portable. My screen and some other parts should be arriving soon, but in the mean time I've been teaching myself to make PCBs in EAGLE and so far I've come up with a board for the AB and C buttons, as well as a board for the Dpad (inspired by the board Downing has been using in his portables). The integration with Fusion360 is amazing and has been great for figuring out board size and button placement.

I'm using these ALPS squishy tacts I found at a local supplier, but I couldn't find the CAD files nor EAGLE library for the Alps 7.8mm x 7.8mm x 5mm tacts I'm using so I just made my own using the datasheet. If anyone wants I can make them public and upload the CAD and EAGLE library so others can get some use out of them.

So far here are the preliminary boards I've made, I'm definitely going to revise them and ensure they all are manufactureable before ordering, if anyone with more experience has any suggestions I'm open to learning from people more experienced in EAGLE.

Spoiler: PCB Images

I've also completely modeled each controller button as well as a quick sculpt of the middle part of the N64 controller (I guess it's the nunchuck part):

Spoiler: Nunchuck Sculpt

I initially wanted to have two handles similar to the middle controller part each with their respective Z buttons to maintain the feel of the controller, however I'm not sure how realistic this will be using only FDM printing which is part of the goal here. If I can end up making the case a multi-part print which screws/fits together then I may be able to use this model later on, or perhaps I can made a 'grip' attachment like they have available for the switch.

Next goal is to design the controller on a chip with the help of @Luis Mendonça 's library they graciously shared with me. I'd love to grab an N64+ if they come out eventually, but for now I'm going to try and do it all myself and use an original CNT-NUS chip, and build a board for it.

That's it for now, stay safe out there everyone.

 

[Gman]

Nice work so far. Yeah man just stay indoors and make something cool!

 

[printsmith3d]

Nice work so far. Yeah man just stay indoors and make something cool!

Yup, it's all I can do for now. Still quite new to PCB design but I took a few electrical eng classes back in the day so my fundamentals and theory are there. Still not sure if I'll get boards from OSHPark or JLCPCB. OSHPark seems more expensive.

 

[Gman]

Yup, it's all I can do for now. Still quite new to PCB design but I took a few electrical eng classes back in the day so my fundamentals and theory are there. Still not sure if I'll get boards from OSHPark or JLCPCB. OSHPark seems more expensive.

JLC is great. Cheaper, deliveries faster, and better quality than OSH.

 

[printsmith3d]

JLC is great. Cheaper, deliveries faster, and better quality than OSH.

Awesome thanks for the advice. I've never ordered a PCB before so I guess I'll go JLC. I'm using the OSH design rules in EAGLE as a baseline, I figure if it passed their rules JLC should be fine eh? Not sure how deep into the custom PCB world I'm going to go, but for now I have 2 boards made, I'm thinking of integrating the stick converter v3 onto a chip as well as a switching headphone jack. Perhaps the corona quarantine is a blessing because I have more time to figure out how I'll implement this

 

[printsmith3d]

I've been super busy working on the portable. Ended up performing the board bend and decided how I'll finally relocate the cart slot: I'm taking inspiration from the SixtyFlex but putting my own little twist on it.

I soldered in some pin headers upside down in the holes where the cartridge slot normally resides, and bridged them with solder onto the exterior connections. I cut the board with a razor blade very carefully, resoldered the 3.3V traces and then went ham with some milliput. I probably put more than I needed, and I could have used hot glue, but I like the rigidity of the board now and I can always sand down some of the putty.

Spoiler: Board Bend Pictures

I'm going to be connecting the board via a breakout board with an FPC molex connector and flex cable. The same board is going on the cartridge slot and the motherboard, and I'm using a flex cable that has leads on opposite sides of the cable.

Spoiler: Cart Relocation Pic

In addition to this, I've been hard at work on my custom PCBs for all the other components in the portable. I've got a board ready to go which has the CNT-NUS chip from a first party controller (along with the required resistors and clk chip), connections for an FRAM chip to have an internal memory pack, as well as an ATTINY for the stick converter.

Spoiler: Controller PCB pictures

I reached out to JacksonS for a little help on using his audio amp solution in my portable. I'm opting for analog control of the volume via a potentiometer, much like the GameBoy Color audio control, so I was able to remove some of the components which handle using tact switches for audio control.

Spoiler: Audio Amp PCB pictures

I also have boards ready to go for the AB and C buttons, the first party D pad as well as a board to use a DS4 joystick (10k pot), but I think I'm going to end up going with a Switch joystick instead due to the small size. I'm still pretty new at PCB design, so I'm a bit nervous to order my boards but my digikey cart is full, and I'm just about ready to pull the trigger.

 

[printsmith3d]

So I haven't posted an update in a while, and since then I've entered into the 2020 building comp. So I've been slowly receiving my orders for various equipment and parts needed. I got my Expansion Pak from Japan as well as my Mouser order with all my SMD components the other week, and this week my Pickit3, AVR programmer and heatsinks showed up.

I'm waiting for my screen and speakers to arrive from Aliexpress, ordered them in February but I hear epacket is really slow lately due to corona so I'm unfortunately not expecting those packages for a while... Additionally my custom PCBs have shipped and may be here this week or early next!

So I figured I'd hunker down and work on my case design. I knew from the start I wanted the case to have an N64-esque vibe about it, and to me that means a slightly curved front similar to the curve on the original N64 controller, as well as the circular features on the DPAD and C buttons. To do this curved front I'm going to be printing the case in several pieces and fitting them together with small pegs and then glueing filling sanding and painting. I'm getting to the point where I'm happy with the front, and after some test prints for sizing and tolerances it seems to be good. It's still missing holes for the speakers and I haven't decided where to put the board for controlling the screen yet (mainly because I don't have the screen and board yet, so I don't have the proper dimensions for it). Anyway here's a preview of it so far:

Currently working on the back, using the Wii-u gamepad shape as inspiration. I've got the basic surface shape down, but now I'm going in and hollowing out sections for the batteries, expansion Pak, motherboard and red battery board. After then I'll work on the triggers, I'll probably go dual Z buttons.

 

[Gman]

Love the case design!

 

[printsmith3d]

Love the case design!

Thanks, I can't wait to show off the internals, and I'm hoping I can pull off the back of it as I imagined in my head. So far it's going well, but I had to do a good amount of tweaking to get the surface model the way I wanted. The hardest part is gonna be the filling and sanding, but I've got plenty of time to worry about that...

 

[E64]

So I haven't posted an update in a while, and since then I've entered into the 2020 building comp. So I've been slowly receiving my orders for various equipment and parts needed. I got my Expansion Pak from Japan as well as my Mouser order with all my SMD components the other week, and this week my Pickit3, AVR programmer and heatsinks showed up.View attachment 11543

I'm waiting for my screen and speakers to arrive from Aliexpress, ordered them in February but I hear epacket is really slow lately due to corona so I'm unfortunately not expecting those packages for a while... Additionally my custom PCBs have shipped and may be here this week or early next!

So I figured I'd hunker down and work on my case design. I knew from the start I wanted the case to have an N64-esque vibe about it, and to me that means a slightly curved front similar to the curve on the original N64 controller, as well as the circular features on the DPAD and C buttons. To do this curved front I'm going to be printing the case in several pieces and fitting them together with small pegs and then glueing filling sanding and painting. I'm getting to the point where I'm happy with the front, and after some test prints for sizing and tolerances it seems to be good. It's still missing holes for the speakers and I haven't decided where to put the board for controlling the screen yet (mainly because I don't have the screen and board yet, so I don't have the proper dimensions for it). Anyway here's a preview of it so far:View attachment 11544Currently working on the back, using the Wii-u gamepad shape as inspiration. I've got the basic surface shape down, but now I'm going in and hollowing out sections for the batteries, expansion Pak, motherboard and red battery board. After that I'll work on the triggers, I'll probably go dual Z buttons.

What joystick are you going to use?

 

[StonedEdge]

Dang. That case is sleek. Going to look awesome.

 

[printsmith3d]

What joystick are you going to use?

Switch joystick. I have a PCB I designed for the controller which includes the CNT-NUS chip from a first party controller along with FRAM for an internal memory card along with an attiny to convert the joystick inputs so the n64 can read them properly.

 

[E64]

Switch joystick. I have a PCB I designed for the controller which includes the CNT-NUS chip from a first party controller along with FRAM for an internal memory card along with an attiny to convert the joystick inputs so the n64 can read them properly.

Can't wait to see it being used in your portable and what's the size of the custom board for the controller?

 

[printsmith3d]

Can't wait to see it being used in your portable and what's the size of the custom board for the controller?

37mm x 47mm

 

[The_Smeags]

Hell yea man, I'm sure the back wont be too hard for you to figure out. How many cells are you using?

 

[printsmith3d]

Hell yea man, I'm sure the back wont be too hard for you to figure out. How many cells are you using?

Haha well it's proving to be one of the bigger hurdles right now, but I've got some time. I'm using 4x 18650 cells at 3000mAh each.

 

[printsmith3d]

Got my PCBs in the mail on Friday so I spent the day soldering a few up. I ended up ordering from Oshpark, took around 2 weeks to ship to Canada but didn't get hit by import duties so that's awesome. The finish is really nice, only annoying thing is I need to file down the little tabs on the edges of the board but besides that I'm quite happy with them.

On the left is the all in one controller board. Features a first party N64 controller chip, FRAM for a battery-less internal memory card, as well as an ATTINY with the stick converter code allowing me to use the switch joysticks. On the right is the audio amp which I based off of JacksonS' amp, but removed the components required to control the volume digitally, and added in thumbwheel potentiometer much like the one on the Gameboy Color.

Next up are my controls. This is pretty self explanatory, squishy tacts for the ABC and Start buttons on the left. The DPAD on the top right which has the option of tacts or the rubber contacts of the OG controller (which I'll be using). I custom made the footprint for the buttons in Eagle, from preliminary tests it seems to work well. On the bottom right is the switch joystick board. I made it so it will fit on top of the switch stick and be part of what anchors it into place.

Finally I have the method of relocating the cartridge. Full props to Noah, used the sixty flex as inspiration for this design.

Here it is wired up to the cartridge slot

I was planning on using the same PCB on the N64, however I used 0.1" male pin headers on the board, which are too large to fit through these holes, so I'm going to have to order another set of boards with larger holes. That's a measure twice cut once kinda moment, but not a big set back because I'm still waiting on my battery management board, speakers and screen to get here. I'm thinking of ways I can test everything now but until I get my screen, speakers and new PCB, I may have to hook my controller up to my other N64 to make sure all is good. Anyways, time to continue working on the case I guess!

 

[The_Smeags]

Sweet, the pcbs came out clean. Looking forward to the progress.