Question How should I go about building my first portable?

[OneXCL]

So first off, I'd like to say hi and thank you in advance for any advice given.

I'm trying to decide between making an Ashida for my first build, or use some of the boards made for the Ashida and use that to make a more original portable (Simply because I like the idea of designing my own case). My question about making my own portable is would it be a good idea.

I don't have much experience with electrical hardware/soldering, and my main goal is to make a portable and be able to learn to hopefull make a more complex portable down the line.

Anything would be much appreciated.

 

[Stitches]

Technically speaking it's often better to build an existing design first, and then create your own later. What you learn while building an existing design like an Ashida or G-Wii will help you along with your own design, and reduce the steepness of the learning curve. The build would passively teach you the basics of what's needed for a portable, where the important pads and vias are, how to wire things neatly, and where you can position parts like the PMS to be convenient and secure. Once you know those things and feel relatively comfortable with the assembly stage of a portable, it makes creating your own designs much easier and less of a daunting task.

Ultimately it's up to you whether you want to try diving in the deep end on the first attempt. Many people do that and it goes well for them, but I've also seen many people struggle hard trying to learn everything all at once. I imagine you know yourself fairly well, so you decide what path to take and we'll provide help when you need it

 

[OneXCL]

Technically speaking it's often better to build an existing design first, and then create your own later. What you learn while building an existing design like an Ashida or G-Wii will help you along with your own design, and reduce the steepness of the learning curve. The build would passively teach you the basics of what's needed for a portable, where the important pads and vias are, how to wire things neatly, and where you can position parts like the PMS to be convenient and secure. Once you know those things and feel relatively comfortable with the assembly stage of a portable, it makes creating your own designs much easier and less of a daunting task.

Ultimately it's up to you whether you want to try diving in the deep end on the first attempt. Many people do that and it goes well for them, but I've also seen many people struggle hard trying to learn everything all at once. I imagine you know yourself fairly well, so you decide what path to take and we'll provide help when you need it

Sorry for late reply, but thank you so much for the info. What I had in mind was make an ashida but make the grips on the sides be closer to the switch rather than the sides being either side of a GameCube controller. Would changing that part of the ashida for my first time be too much for my first time?

 

[Stitches]

It's not "too much", but you'd be doing away with the easy to use custom PCBs, and losing the mounting points for some of the 4layertech boards. It'd be enough work that you may as well design a Switch style case from scratch and save yourself the time trying to meshmix the Ashida files

 

[OneXCL]

It's not "too much", but you'd be doing away with the easy to use custom PCBs, and losing the mounting points for some of the 4layertech boards. It'd be enough work that you may as well design a Switch style case from scratch and save yourself the time trying to meshmix the Ashida files

Alright, I'll look into it, i already ordered the GC+ and the PD 2, and soon I'm going to order all the others that I would need. I think I'm going to end up going with my own design however.

Thanks again for all the help

 

[OneXCL]

Eventually I'll start a worklog