Worklog First Portable Wii

walkyd

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I’ve started on my first Wii portable build recently and wanted to share my progress here. I wanted to take it step by step to make sure I understood everything along the way and that everything I do is working. I spent a lot of time reading through all of the guides and worklogs, so I felt there was no better time to get started.

I started with the custom regulator setup. I was/am most worried about the trim process, so I just made 3 regulators (3.3V, 1.15V, 1V)and jerry-rigged those to an old Wii power brick (12V) just for testing purposes. First time soldering after years of being out of electronics, so these were rough looking. Also didn’t have the exact resistors I needed on hand so I had to force it a bitI’ll probably make/order an rvl-pms once I’m ready to get things in the case.
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Soldering the U10 to the U5 last night
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And wired that to the GPU pad on the back
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Sent it on the trim!
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Today, I’m looking to hook up the regs and a composite cable and finally test out the trim. Super excited to see how this went! Anyone reading this, let me know how the trim looks. First time using a dremel and was not steady with it on some spots.

If the trim works, I’m going to order some parts (screen, pms, usb hookup, other misc items I still need) and start to print the Ashida case! I’ll keep this updated with my progress, especially on if this trim works or not!
 

AFE123

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Yeah, having an output filtering cap protects the system from any voltage ripple coming from the regulators. Ginger could tell you stories about all the GC+ boards he killed by not using an output cap and getting unlucky. Technically you don't need an output cap, but you should use them, and they're cheap anyway.
It's recommended to have two capacitors, at the input and output respectively.
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A little tidbit of info is that this black piece can be pretty easily removed with a pair of cutting pliers and then the area of the board that it was on can be trimmed.
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walkyd

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Finally got all the parts in and been busy with life but back at it. First things first, I shorted something on my first pms lite very quickly. Mystery smoke and no voltages when wired up. So, waited for another one to arrive! Now I’ve wired up the button on the usb pd and I’m getting correct voltages. Wired up the Wii and everything seems to be turning on as the cpu and gpu are heating up.

I left composite on there annnd got nothing when booting. So, thought maybe the old composite wire I was using to connect to the TV was busted (messed too much with it) so I pulled the driver board and IPS screen out to test with that. Everything still seems to boot, I’m even getting a blue screen on the IPS board. I was able to hook a tact switch to change the input to AV. Still getting nothing! Wondering if anyone has advice on what to check out next? Again, I THINK the Wii is booting based on the cpu and gpu heating up, but no way to tell without the screen hookup. Below are pics of some solder joints and general wiring. I can provide more detailed shots if anything looks sketchy.

P.S. I was able to lop off that cap on the Wii based on the suggestion from Dynamic_Hayden!!
 

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CrazyGadget

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The CPU / GPU is not a sufficient way to determine whether or not the Wii is booting or not; the only true tell is if it will output anything to the screen. The screen you have will show a blue screen when power is applied to it and it is not receiving any video signal, so that's not a particularly good sign.

Going back a bit to that mystery smoke you got from your first PMS, it would be best to investigate what the cause of that was before trying to move forward, just so that you minimize the chance of frying a second one. Did you check the resistances between your voltage lines after trimming and sanding, following this guide? That should be the first thing you do after trimming / sanding, before power is ever applied to the board. Once you fill that out, if everything looks good, we can cross that off the list of potential issues.
 

walkyd

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The first PMS was fried before it was ever wired to the Wii, so I’m not too worried about it affecting that. I moved too quickly and had a solder bubble touching across a few points on the pms when I was going to test to make sure that the output voltages matched what the board had…silly mistake.

The guide you linked is not something I’ve seen before so I definitely will follow that today to see if everything looks good. Is that a good way to tell if the Wii is in good shape still?
 

CrazyGadget

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Yes, it's mostly a sanity check to make sure there are no shorts across any of the main voltage lines. Not a 100% tell that the board will be perfectly functional, but it's a good place to start. Just make sure that you isolate the Wii from the PMS / anything else before taking your measurements.
 

walkyd

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Thanks for the tip to follow Nold’s guide. All my resistances fall right into the range found in the replies in the thread (happy to post them if there are still issues). I think I’m going to clean up my Wii board with some iso, double check my wiring, and try again. I’ll report back with updates!

Thanks again CrazyGadget for your help in troubleshooting.
 

CrazyGadget

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Just to confirm, you are getting the expected voltages at the Wii when everything is powered on? First thing after that is to double check your U10 via, make sure it's getting 3v3.
 

walkyd

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So, U10 via is getting 3.3v from the u10 chip. Pretty stumped as to why I can’t get any video output (composite). Any other ideas or things to try?
 

Stitches

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Got a photo of the back of the trim?
 

Stitches

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Nothing visually jumps out at me. I'm not sure what to suggest. What specifically have you changed since the last time it booted correctly? Have you tried booting it using the previously working PTH regs again?

EDIT: Wait hang on, you haven't connected the 1.8v pad on the PMS-lite to the Wii's 1.8v line. The PMS-lite actually needs to be fed 1.8v as reference, but that may only be for the I2C functions. Not sure, worth checking tho.
 
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walkyd

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Haven’t specifically tried the original PTH regs since blowing the first PMS lite I had, but was getting there just to try and backtrack. The PMS is the only thing that has been inserted/changed around, so it definitely is possibly it messed with the Wii, although the resistances across the board are looking good. Same with the voltages out of the PMS lite. I like the idea of hooking up the 1.8v line, going to try that now and will report back on if that changes things. Thanks for the help!
 
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