Worklog Here Wii Go Again...

[Nold]

Hi guys,

as some might have noticed: i'm currently working on a project, i don't want to become public right now. Even if it's nothing big.. literally.
The project will be reviled when I made it to the MGC this year

I still can't believe that i get this possibility, i'm so exited to meet you all!. and a whole new continent.. i've never been so far away from home.. But i hope everything will work out! I also hope that you are maybe a little bit exited about this ;-)

This are the planned specs:
- Wii: LMAOv2 trim (with 3 screwholes)
- Case: My first Projects using Fusion360! so 3D print it is..
- BT: guess so...
- Wifi: guess not...
- ... stuff ...
- ...
- Oh, VGA! (thx @Aurelio)
- And USB ofc!
- ... bad stoner jokes ...


And beer!

... with these great boards the LMAOv2 is much simpler than a nand bend! (thx Aurelio!)

Meanwhile I received my first Windows device in over 10 years.. just so i can finally start using fusion 360! Well i got to say it's waaaay better than FreeCAD. But the cloud function still doesn't work for me & it deleted my work of two days... so it's kind of a hate-love right now..

Anyways the case design is pretty much finished, i just need to figure out why my prusa prints it so badly...

Today i finally finished the LDO relocation & prepared all the regs.. confirmed working..
Next up are printing the final case, relocating BT and everything else...

You see there is plenty to look forward to!

Btw. It feels like I'm spending the same amount of time in filming, photographing & promoting my shit, as working on it... idk.. should i keep doing this?? I like to share the stuff i do, even tho it's nothing special.. and i really like to do it.. shooting some nice pictures of hot GPUs, LDOs and loooong wires...

Anyways.. Maybe i'm just a little too attracted to tech... but for the moment I decided to just keep doing the shit i do! let me know what you think!

 

[jefflongo]

Yes! Keep sharing the pictures! By the way, love that U10 relocation lol

 

[GingerOfOz]

If this portable isn't built inside of a bong then I'm rioting.

 

[Nold]

If this portable isn't built inside of a bong then I'm rioting.

... well.. is would have all the needed watercooling parts lying around.. so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Apart from that i got not much interesting stuff to tell you. Except that fusion still sucks and killed yet another two days of work... so i'll switch to inventor or solidworks for the next project. The CAD design is pretty much done, anyways. But I just had a better idea on how to design the lid, so i still need to test if that works out.

Also i got problems with my new spool of filament, so i'm printing spool-spacers right now...

Anyways, i got basically everything prepared to put it all together. i just need to get a nice print >.<''
I really hope everything will fit as expected, since this is by far my smallest build yet and i love it already! I had this idea for so long and i really pushed it to the limit.

Sadly i got not much to show you.. so here is another pic of the trim and some wires I ain't gone use on this project..

cya

 

[Nold]

Oh boi.. this is one of those project where you think: "that's cool and is actually quite simple!" but turns out to be more complex than you expect

the last days were tuff.. two days ago i spend the whole evening cleaning/maintaining/calibrating my 3d printer, since i just couldn't get a nice print of the final case.. in the end it didn't help at all.. <.< ... so i figured it must have something to do with my model. I tried out different slicers & i got the best results with simplify3D! (2nd Cura, 3rd Slic3r PE)

Meanwhile printing the final case, i've been working on the BT relocation and preparing some other electronic parts. Since i FINALLY!1 had the final case I was super motivated today and started it by checking out some cool pizza magic that i might include in this project. (aka when i got enough time) So maybe more on that later.

After a few hours of sanding and polishing the case (dang i hate sanding PLA), i could start putting my new little bad boy together. First i figured out how to place & wire the regulators & hook them up for a test run:

With that working i went on connecting a controller and wire more stuff up.. it's insane how much time it just takes me to find the perfect routes for the wires in this case... guess there is just too little space for wires

Anyways, i can't boot to system menu right now, so i guess my BT relocation is not yet working.. checked the wiring multiple times, everything seems fine. think i'll have to resolder the data wires.. maybe try an other module.. etc.



All in all i'm very happy with the results of today. And since I'm in such a good mood, here's a sneak peek on the case:

Spoiler

See you space cowboy!

 

[Fruity_Grebbles]

If this portable isn't built inside of a bong then I'm rioting.

Am I missing a meme?

Oh, and obligatory: this is goddamn gorgeous. You keep taking those glamour shots.

 

[Stitches]

Oh boi.. this is one of those project where you think: "that's cool and is actually quite simple!" but turns out to be more complex than you expect

the last days were tuff.. two days ago i spend the whole evening cleaning/maintaining/calibrating my 3d printer, since i just couldn't get a nice print of the final case.. in the end it didn't help at all.. <.< ... so i figured it must have something to do with my model. I tried out different slicers & i got the best results with simplify3D! (2nd Cura, 3rd Slic3r PE)

Meanwhile printing the final case, i've been working on the BT relocation and preparing some other electronic parts. Since i FINALLY!1 had the final case I was super motivated today and started it by checking out some cool pizza magic that i might include in this project. (aka when i got enough time) So maybe more on that later.

After a few hours of sanding and polishing the case (dang i hate sanding PLA), i could start putting my new little bad boy together. First i figured out how to place & wire the regulators & hook them up for a test run:

With that working i went on connecting a controller and wire more stuff up.. it's insane how much time it just takes me to find the perfect routes for the wires in this case... guess there is just too little space for wires

Anyways, i can't boot to system menu right now, so i guess my BT relocation is not yet working.. checked the wiring multiple times, everything seems fine. think i'll have to resolder the data wires.. maybe try an other module.. etc.



All in all i'm very happy with the results of today. And since I'm in such a good mood, here's a sneak peek on the case:

Spoiler

View attachment 8216

View attachment 8217

See you space cowboy!

 

[Nold]

Yea.. I'm Mr. Robot!


Man, i'm having a hard time on this project... today i removed everything from the board, resanded, cleaned, changed, eliminating as many variables as possible. But nothing helped, USB simply seems to be broken - as i know everything else is working, i believe because of ESD. It's the same problem my latest omega seems to have..

Even with my anti-static mat, grounding hand band thingy (whatever that's called) & the hakko iron grounded.. I blame my house shoes now, since i did my last trim in summer or so.

So i'll do the next trim/sanding work with cold feet - lol

Anyways, so new wii, new luck! Gladly i still have a few 4-layers in stock, so i just grabbed one & installed PM. Thanks to @Aurelio 's flex pizza board, the NAND relocation worked fast & hassle-free. And I finally could try out @Shank 's awesome wireless U10 relocation

confirmed working! so tomorrow i'll hopefully have another working LMAOv2 again...

Oh and btw.. I killed my Samsung fit drive.. but it's been acting weirdly in the last time anyway...



Someday i'm gonna finish this project!!!1....

This project is 80% fixing mistakes, 15% fixing mistakes, and 5% making the same things over and over again."

 

[Nold]

Today finally every worked out as planed...

First i bought myself some custom made, ESD-Safe socks:

Now i felt confident, that if this trim dies, i couldn't blame ESD any longer..

So i started of by removing the LDO & some other useless stuff from the board.. then i trimmed & sanded the shit out it, until it was smooth and sexy af... got a beautiful curvy mushroom-trim.

(the photos suck today, cause i made the last two with my shitty smartphone...)

Anyhow.. 4~5 hours after coming home from work, i can confirm trim, BT, GCC and USB fiiiiinally working!

WOOP, WOOP! Tomorrow i can hopefully continue putting this badboy together..


So, what did we learn, kids? Always test the shit out of your trims. Go step by step. And get some ESD-Safe socks, bro!

Whatever.. I recorded soo much video material this time, basically everything i did with the board, has been recorded.. So I hope I still got time to cut everything together. could become really cool.
Also I might write down something like "trimming for dummies" or "10 tips how to not fuck up a trim".. I definitely have some ideas what i'll do after this project.. or after MGC

 

[DeoNaught]

Today finally every worked out as planed...

First i bought myself some custom made, ESD-Safe socks:
View attachment 8227

Now i felt confident, that if this trim dies, i couldn't blame ESD any longer..

So i started of by removing the LDO & some other useless stuff from the board.. then i trimmed & sanded the shit out it, until it was smooth and sexy af... got a beautiful curvy mushroom-trim.
View attachment 8228

(the photos suck today, cause i made the last two with my shitty smartphone...)

Anyhow.. 4~5 hours after coming home from work, i can confirm trim, BT, GCC and USB fiiiiinally working!
View attachment 8229

WOOP, WOOP! Tomorrow i can hopefully continue putting this badboy together..


So, what did we learn, kids? Always test the shit out of your trims. Go step by step. And get some ESD-Safe socks, bro!

Whatever.. I recorded soo much video material this time, basically everything i did with the board, has been recorded.. So I hope I still got time to cut everything together. could become really cool.
Also I might write down something like "trimming for dummies" or "10 tips how to not fuck up a trim".. I definitely have some ideas what i'll do after this project.. or after MGC

Huh, all my socks are all ESD-safe!

 

[BocuD]

Huh, all my socks are all ESD-safe!

Thats what you think
Then, suddenly, stuff ALL around you starts randomly dying. And you have no idea why!
In a few days you'll have over 9000 dead Wiis on your name, and then you realise..Gman is actually just SS

 

[Nold]

Oh boi..

Aurelio was right (as always)... LEDs suck. I spend hours this day to install 3 LEDs in the case. [And fix VGA cause i always mix up the colors, even if i know that the colors on the pics don't match to RGB... <.<'']
Was it worth it?.. decide yourself:

Talking of sadly: I have to remove it again, to make the lid close (it's 1mm to high, but the best green leds i got!). Also I had to put the Pizza-Magic back in the Box, since I just couldn't fit it somewhere in the case.. (i wanted to use a trinket attiny85). Also the software part took me quite some time to figure out & now the code is totally broken again - after working on it yesterdays for many hours <.<

If somebody knows a way to easily program text-based menus in a gc homebrew: please tell me!...

Well the days before that i was mostly doing some video editing (& also coding).. the first part of the video is pretty much done and became pretty epic i hope ;-)

For the second part i don't really know how to go on right now.. since idk if i should make it more of an "art/trailer" video, that's just fun to watch OR explain more of the shit i did in detail - for ppl who aren't that familiar with portableizing and the other crazy stuff we do...

What do you guys think? Art or Education (+ a little bit art)?

Besides all that & doing the same shit (much too often) over & over - i'm actually pretty much done. So i think i'll finish this weekend - since i'm sadly out of town for a few days... Oh, and i'm starting to go crazy because in only two tweeks i'll fly to merica!... O.O'''



.... oh and before i forget ....

Spoiler: WARNING: Contains Light Emitting Diodes!

Btw.: I feel like i'm doing tech pr0n & am much too attracted to it.. but whatever, haha...

 

[DeoNaught]

gc homebrew:

Do you mean Wii? or am I missing something?

 

[Nold]

Do you mean Wii? or am I missing something?

Yea, sorry, i'm old - for me a dol-file without a fancy gui is still a GC-Homebrew - lol ... lets say a "devkitppc"-homebrew ;-)

 

[DeoNaught]

Yea, sorry, i'm old - for me a dol-file without a fancy gui is still a GC-Homebrew - lol ... lets say a "devkitppc"-homebrew ;-)

have you checked out http://www.codemii.com/category/wii-programming-tutorials/ ?
wiibrew.org also has good resources, And Devkitpro has a forum if you weren't aware
if you have started with this, what IDE do you use? I'm using VS, but takes time to load files, so I'm looking for an alternative

you could also find some simple text homebrews and use doltool to take apart the homebrew and see how it works.
do you plan to interface it with the arduino? or do you just plan to have it read some text or something similar

 

[Nold]

what IDE do you use?

vim

 

[Nold]

It has been done!

Yesterday i made the last polishing of my next youtube vid. i think it became pretty cool.
Also i had some cool ideas & made some additionals - so i'm pretty sure you'll like it as much as i do!

Anyways: Release of the video will be: 13.4.2019 - 20:00 (GMT-5)
Video will be here / on my channel (if the upload filter isn't active until then):

Spoiler: Nothing to see here

so if you're @MGC you'll get an exclusive first look ;-)


here is a video how i solder a flex PCB from @Aurelio.....

 

[Aurelio]

Why the magnet wire?

 

[Nold]

Why the magnet wire?

helped me perfectly allign it. one in the first via, one in the last. removed again after soldering.

didn't work that nice this time somehow.. but i think it's a pretty safe way to do it.

 

[Nold]

Wii is ready!

... only two days left :O