Worklog Ginger's Wii Portable Worklog

[GingerOfOz]

Decided it was time to start a worklog since I'm actually going to have time to work on my portable this week. I've ordered a bunch of parts, some of whch have arrived and others will be arriving soon.

THE PLAN

• OM6 Trim
• Custom 3D Printed Case
• 5 inch screen
• I'd REALLY like to put a Wiimote/nunchuk into my portable and have a switch that would allow me to switch from GC+ to Wiimote to Wiimote+Nunchuk. I think I saw a diagram from JacksonS showing the various pinouts of a Wiimote, but after pulling one apart I realized just how small those holes are. I might try it eventually. Maybe. (Wiimote+ board plz...)
• Headphone Jack
• Stand on the back for tabletop play.
• PortablizeMii (Not a really a feature, pretty much a given at this point)
• 4 Li-ion batteries
• Built in sensor bar

WHAT I'VE DONE SO FAR (27-Mar-2017)

• Not much
• Installed PortablizeMii
• Mangled a GC+ board
• Taken apart some Wii components
• Purchased my screen, resistors, various wire.
• Gathered together a soldering iron, solder, wire strippers, dremel, other basic things.

I'm out of school this week for spring break, so I'm hoping to perform relocations, trim the motherboard, and hopefully fix my GC+. I'll post what I've done to the poor thing when I can bear to look at it.

Oh, and really the main purpose of this post was to say dibs on the name WaluWiigi!!!!

More updates to come. Hopefully.

 

[cheese]

Dang your spring break is super late (compared to my area, mine was three weeks ago!)
Curious what you intend to do with the built in wiimote. Hope to see more!

 

[pineapples]

Dang your spring break is super late (compared to my area, mine was three weeks ago!)

mfw my spring break starts in 2 weeks.

 

[fibbef]

Yay! Compo worklogs are springing up! I'll get off my butt one of these days and start one too.

 

[Shank]

WaluWiigi!!!!

I love it. The portable better be purple. You should also consider making a custom waluigi portablizemii intro video.

 

[GingerOfOz]

I love it. The portable better be purple. You should also consider making a custom waluigi portablizemii intro video.

I have so many Waluigi themed ideas that it's not even funny. (Except that they are very funny.). My airflow vent on the back is going to have a purple LED lighting it up and it'll be in the shape of the upside down L. That stand I want? It's gonna be his mustache. It's gonna be beautiful.

I'll look into the custom intro because that would be heckin amazing.

Just ran out to RadioShack again, got some capacitors, more wire, and got IR LEDs. So I added built in sensor bar to my planned features.

Thanks for all the support!

 

[Matthew]

'd REALLY like to put a Wiimote/nunchuk into my portable and have a switch that would allow me to switch from GC+ to Wiimote to Wiimote+Nunchuk.

I'm with Cheese, why are you wanting to put in a wiimote/nunchuck into your build?

Good luck! I'll be following this thread.

 

[GingerOfOz]

I'm with Cheese, why are you wanting to put in a wiimote/nunchuck into your build?

I'd just like to be able to play some Wii games without having to carry around a Wiimote and Nunchuk. I get that it's probably more effort than it's worth, and odds are that it won't make it into my portable.

Tearing down the Wii right now.

 

[Ikeprodigy]

I can tell this is gonna be good! Love all the creative ideas!

 

[GingerOfOz]

The carnage...

 

[Shank]

The carnage...

One of us
One of us

 

[GingerOfOz]

Well I have not much of an update, but today I got some flux ordered which will hopefully make soldering lot easier. My PTH08080s came in today, so now I have some more toys to play with. I am convinced that my Wii is possessed by the WiFi module. Like the WiFi module is the brain of my Wii. I have installed the noWiFi WADs through the cheese installer (didn't work), manually with three different WAD managers (also didn't work), tried installing them in different orders (didn't work), and prayed to Ashen devoutly (became enlightened, but didn't fix the WiFi module), but nothing has changed. Without the WiFi module, my board just won't boot. It's a Rev-20 board, untrimmed, all I did was strip my Wii down to the motherboard. Is there some sort of noob thing I'm forgetting? I'm willing to try just about anything at this point...

 

[cheese]

Hold reset when booting without a wifi module to see if it is doing anything or just failing right away.

 

[GingerOfOz]

Hold reset when booting without a wifi module to see if it is doing anything or just failing right away.

Just tried that, but still same thing. My TV never picks up any signal. The only things that happen are that the LED changes to green and the fan turns on. Any other ideas?

Also, randomly found a status of Shank's that said he used Rev-20 Wiis (which is what I'm trying to use) as a stepping stool. Was that just a quip about 6-Layer boards, or is there actually an issue with Rev-20 Wiis?

Thanks for the suggestion though!

 

[cheese]

Also, randomly found a status of Shank's that said he used Rev-20 Wiis (which is what I'm trying to use) as a stepping stool. Was that just a quip about 6-Layer boards, or is there actually an issue with Rev-20 Wiis?

It was more just that he had a bunch of Wiis that he didn't want to use (because of the higher power consumption, and at the time there was no OM6 guide). Got pics of your board so we can see what may be wrong? Also, have you tried re-downloading the pack and re-installing the IOSes manually again?

 

[GingerOfOz]

I'll try redownloading portablizemii tomorrow (I've said portablizemii enough that my phone autocorrects it correctly now ). Here are pics of my board:

Edit: Things happened that needed to be fixed.

 

[GingerOfOz]

OK, so small update/ question. Got a different Wii that previously had issues to install PortablizeMii with no hiccups whatsoever, so I put the first Wii back together. (And by that I mean I electrical taped the Bluetooth/WiFi Boards down, screwed the heatsink back on, put the case back on, and called it good.) The issue with the new Wii is that there is a stripped screw in the most inconvenient spot. There are two screws that run through basically the whole Wii, and the stripped one is one of those. It's about an inch from the top of the hole to the screw, so many of the methods I've tried to get it out haven't worked. I tried making a BIC pen screwdriver (It was too wide so it just mushed up around the beginning of the hole), tried using a rubber band between the screwdriver, but all this did was make the stripped screw worse. Do you guys have any suggestions on how to get it out?

I'm not even sure how the screw got stripped in the first place. Maybe there's a Wiikey at the end of this rainbow...

 

[Matthew]

Do you guys have any suggestions on how to get it out?

Now take this with a grain of salt because I can only speak from my experience and there are probably way better ways to do it, but I usually get a screwdriver with the correct bit and put a little hot glue on it and shove it in the whole and wait until it dries. Make sure the hot glue is just a super tiny amount so you don't feel any holes and just get the screw.

I have heard of people using locktite for this as well but usually you just need to loosen the screw and then it's no big deal after that.

Now this might work in a quick pinch but be cautious with it.

If anyone else has a better/alternative way, I would go with that because hot glue has been a great friend but also one of the things I hate most.

EDIT: Another way that just came to mind:

If you don't care about the case at all, just cut around the screw post until it no longer is attached to the case. Just be careful not to damage the board.

 

[fibbef]

Dealt with a stripped screw in a laptop just last week. First thought was try to grip the screw head with needle nose pliers, but couldn't get a grip on the screw. Only other option available (this was at work) was a pair of cutting pliers. The sharp edges of the pliers grabbed the screw head and I was unable to unscrew it in a heartbeat.

 

[Shank]

Also, randomly found a status of Shank's that said he used Rev-20 Wiis (which is what I'm trying to use) as a stepping stool. Was that just a quip about 6-Layer boards, or is there actually an issue with Rev-20 Wiis?

I just had so many Wiis that a stack of just my 20s was tall enough for me to reach the light bulb in the ceiling, and so many that I was using a stack of them as a footstool. Aside from the higher power consumption (just like the other 6 layer boards) nothing is wrong with the 20. Just me self evaluating my Wii hoarding problem...