Worklog Kawaii

[Xelek]

Where can I find the discord for this? I work as a machinist and could get the shell made in house, I'm super interested in making one of these

 

[Y2K]

Where can I find the discord for this? I work as a machinist and could get the shell made in house, I'm super interested in making one of these

The Kawaii doesn't have a discord made for it specifically, but the BitBuilt discord is the next best thing! Check the front page of the forums on the sidebar for a join button in the embed.

 

[Paopei29]

I hope it have a part that I can put it in and it would work as a wii sensor bar.

 

[Alex1943]

This feels like a challenge for me to go smaller... Wait, is there even a smaller motherboard trim?

Also, who should I beg if I want to buy one?

(I'm 53% sure I'm using this website correctly)

 

[Chickacruh]

Awesome work on the Kawaii! This is the only Wii build I have seen that uses the Hollywood-2 revision of the Wii Mini. How many watts do you think the final trim will pull?

 

[YveltalGriffin]

The Kawaii made its public debut at the 2025 Midwest Gaming Classic last weekend!

It was connected to an HDMI monitor via my Retrotink 4K. Being able to pop it off the dock and hand it to people was really special. Many folks had seen it online, and were super excited to hold it in person!

Here are some better photos of the Kawaii and dock.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get Thundervolt's RGB LED control working in time for MGC. As a stopgap solution, I wired up a MaplePad RP2040 board I had lying around. The LEDs and MaplePad are hot glued in. The final RGB LED PCBs will fix this jankiness.

Some details about thermals:

• With the 20x20x6mm fan dock, the Hollywood-2 Kawaii "stabilized" at 60°C board temp, ~50°C external temp.
  • While this was 15°C lower than the Hollywood-1 Kawaii, it still wasn't cool enough for users to touch the unit while it was on
  • The tiny fan was kinda whiny. And the Wii still crashed if the ambient temp was high enough (>24C)
• At MGC, I used the original fanless dock, and had an external 5-inch fan blowing on the Kawaii at all times.
  • This kept the internal board temp at 40°C or less the whole time! External temps were 30-something degrees
  • People were able to touch and handle the unit with this setup, which was great!
• On achieving passive cooling:
  • Wesk and I played around with enlarging the dock to fit a bigger fan, but honestly I don't like how the bigger docks looked.
  • A copper Kawaii (with silkscreened graphics?) might solve the thermal issues, at the cost of aesthetics.
  • Increasing the aluminum shell's fin count, delidding and liquid metal probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

For me, this project was always a meme build / OMEGA showcase, rather than something meant to be used on a daily basis (build a Short Stack or GC Nano for that!) The Kawaii really is a piece of electronic jewelry more than anything else. As such, I am very satisfied with the current state of the project, even if it's not 100% passively cooled.

I'll design and order the RGB LED PCBs soon. Once those are tested, everything will be open sourced on my GitHub! After that, I'll look into doing a group order of anodized shells.

 

[Sdouyoulink]

The Kawaii made its public debut at the 2025 Midwest Gaming Classic last weekend!

View attachment 38329

It was connected to an HDMI monitor via my Retrotink 4K. Being able to pop it off the dock and hand it to people was really special. Many folks had seen it online, and were super excited to hold it in person!

Here are some better photos of the Kawaii and dock.

View attachment 38336
View attachment 38342

View attachment 38334View attachment 38335

View attachment 38337View attachment 38338
View attachment 38339View attachment 38340View attachment 38341

View attachment 38343


Unfortunately, I couldn't get Thundervolt's RGB LED control working in time for MGC. As a stopgap solution, I wired up a MaplePad RP2040 board I had lying around. The LEDs and MaplePad are hot glued in. The final RGB LED PCBs will fix this jankiness.

View attachment 38332

Some details about thermals:

• With the 20x20x6mm fan dock, the Hollywood-2 Kawaii "stabilized" at 60°C board temp, ~50°C external temp.
  • While this was 15°C lower than the Hollywood-1 Kawaii, it still wasn't cool enough for users to touch the unit while it was on
  • The tiny fan was kinda whiny. And the Wii still crashed if the ambient temp was high enough (>24C)
• At MGC, I used the original fanless dock, and had an external 5-inch fan blowing on the Kawaii at all times.
  • This kept the internal board temp at 40°C or less the whole time! External temps were 30-something degrees
  • People were able to touch and handle the unit with this setup, which was great!
• On achieving passive cooling:
  • Wesk and I played around with enlarging the dock to fit a bigger fan, but honestly I don't like how the bigger docks looked.
  • A copper Kawaii (with silkscreened graphics?) might solve the thermal issues, at the cost of aesthetics.
  • Increasing the aluminum shell's fin count, delidding and liquid metal probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

For me, this project was always a meme build / OMEGA showcase, rather than something meant to be used on a daily basis (build a Short Stack or GC Nano for that!) The Kawaii really is a piece of electronic jewelry more than anything else. As such, I am very satisfied with the current state of the project, even if it's not 100% passively cooled.

I'll design and order the RGB LED PCBs soon. Once those are tested, everything will be open sourced on my GitHub! After that, I'll look into doing a group order of anodized shells.

Extreme beauty of craftsmanship, fantastic, I'm going to build one.

 

[loopj]

too hot to handle

Can’t wait to build one of these bad boys

 

[JamesPi]

The Kawaii made its public debut at the 2025 Midwest Gaming Classic last weekend!

View attachment 38329

It was connected to an HDMI monitor via my Retrotink 4K. Being able to pop it off the dock and hand it to people was really special. Many folks had seen it online, and were super excited to hold it in person!

Here are some better photos of the Kawaii and dock.

View attachment 38336
View attachment 38342

View attachment 38334View attachment 38335

View attachment 38337View attachment 38338
View attachment 38339View attachment 38340View attachment 38341

View attachment 38343


Unfortunately, I couldn't get Thundervolt's RGB LED control working in time for MGC. As a stopgap solution, I wired up a MaplePad RP2040 board I had lying around. The LEDs and MaplePad are hot glued in. The final RGB LED PCBs will fix this jankiness.

View attachment 38332

Some details about thermals:

• With the 20x20x6mm fan dock, the Hollywood-2 Kawaii "stabilized" at 60°C board temp, ~50°C external temp.
  • While this was 15°C lower than the Hollywood-1 Kawaii, it still wasn't cool enough for users to touch the unit while it was on
  • The tiny fan was kinda whiny. And the Wii still crashed if the ambient temp was high enough (>24C)
• At MGC, I used the original fanless dock, and had an external 5-inch fan blowing on the Kawaii at all times.
  • This kept the internal board temp at 40°C or less the whole time! External temps were 30-something degrees
  • People were able to touch and handle the unit with this setup, which was great!
• On achieving passive cooling:
  • Wesk and I played around with enlarging the dock to fit a bigger fan, but honestly I don't like how the bigger docks looked.
  • A copper Kawaii (with silkscreened graphics?) might solve the thermal issues, at the cost of aesthetics.
  • Increasing the aluminum shell's fin count, delidding and liquid metal probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

For me, this project was always a meme build / OMEGA showcase, rather than something meant to be used on a daily basis (build a Short Stack or GC Nano for that!) The Kawaii really is a piece of electronic jewelry more than anything else. As such, I am very satisfied with the current state of the project, even if it's not 100% passively cooled.

I'll design and order the RGB LED PCBs soon. Once those are tested, everything will be open sourced on my GitHub! After that, I'll look into doing a group order of anodized shells.

Wish I could've been there this year, this was a really special project that you guys put together. I'm glad it all went well, and am always extremely impressed by your work. Great job!

 

[ChadPlayzGamezYT]

What I'd like to know is when this is expected to release, because I'd love one of these. I'd also like to know what the game library is like just out of curiosity.

 

[Shank]

What I'd like to know is when this is expected to release, because I'd love one of these. I'd also like to know what the game library is like just out of curiosity.

This is an insanely hard DIY project, not something you will be able to buy. The news sites were misreporting it as a complete product that will be for sale, but this is not the case.

The game library will be whatever GameCube games, Wii games, virtual console, and homebrew you install on it after you finish building it.

 

[MrCoreyTys]

This is going to be OPEN SOURCE so that anyone can make it?! Cool! Can't wait for the many videos there'll be on this topic!

 

[Ding]

What I'd like to know is when this is expected to release, because I'd love one of these. I'd also like to know what the game library is like just out of curiosity.

I am improving the high temperature problem

 

[YveltalGriffin]

I took a break from projects for a while, but I'm back and preparing for the release of the Kawaii.

This weekend I tested the new RGB LED PCB, which has an ATtiny1616 and six SK6805-EC15 addressable LEDs.

It's adhered to the rear shell with super strong 3M 300LSE tape.

The LEDs looking washed out is a limitation of my new phone's HDR. They're just as vibrant as before.

@Redherring32 and I have discussed making a pure silver Kawaii, by melting down some bullion to form a square billet for Ding or someone else to CNC. Besides the higher thermal conductivity, silver would bring the project full circle, back to the idea of jewelry.

But for now, I want to wrap this project up so I can focus on other things. I'll post all of the MCAD & ECAD files to GitHub within a few days, so anyone can build a Kawaii of their own. No assembly guide will be provided beyond what's already been posted in the worklog. Thanks for following along!

 

[linxi]

我暂时停止了项目，但我回来了，并准备发布 Kawaii。

这个周末我测试了新的 RGB LED PCB，它有一个 ATtiny1616 和六个 SK6805-EC15 可寻址 LED。

View attachment 39325
View attachment 39326

它用超强 3M 300LSE 胶带粘贴到后壳上。

View attachment 39327

View attachment 39328

LED 灯看起来有点褪色，这是我新手机 HDR 的一个限制。它们和以前一样鲜艳。

我和 @Redherring32 讨论过做一个纯银的 Kawaii，方法是熔化一些银条，形成方形的坯料，供 Ding 或其他人进行 CNC 加工。除了更高的导热性之外，银还能让这个项目更加完整，回归到珠宝的概念。

但现在，我想先把这个项目收尾，好把精力放在其他事情上。我会在几天内把所有 MCAD 和 ECAD 文件发布到 GitHub，这样大家都能自己动手做一个 Kawaii 了。除了工作日志里已经发布的内容外，不会再提供任何组装指南。感谢大家的关注！
[/引用]
want

I took a break from projects for a while, but I'm back and preparing for the release of the Kawaii.

This weekend I tested the new RGB LED PCB, which has an ATtiny1616 and six SK6805-EC15 addressable LEDs.

View attachment 39325
View attachment 39326

It's adhered to the rear shell with super strong 3M 300LSE tape.

View attachment 39327

View attachment 39328

The LEDs looking washed out is a limitation of my new phone's HDR. They're just as vibrant as before.

@Redherring32 and I have discussed making a pure silver Kawaii, by melting down some bullion to form a square billet for Ding or someone else to CNC. Besides the higher thermal conductivity, silver would bring the project full circle, back to the idea of jewelry.

But for now, I want to wrap this project up so I can focus on other things. I'll post all of the MCAD & ECAD files to GitHub within a few days, so anyone can build a Kawaii of their own. No assembly guide will be provided beyond what's already been posted in the worklog. Thanks for following along!

want

 

[michael8035]

are there still plans to organize an order for shells?

 

[YveltalGriffin]

The Kawaii has been released! Here's the Cutting Edge post in case you missed it.

are there still plans to organize an order for shells?

Ding and I are discussing the logistics. A group buy would probably be limited to around 10 shells, and restricted to active community members. In parallel I'm putting together some technical drawings to streamline ordering the shell from PCBWay.

 

[maZa]

damn,and im still processing the fact that you can trim a Wii....

 

[YveltalGriffin]

A very limited number of Kawaii shells are available for preorder on my store, Flashfire.

These are empty aluminum housings only— no Wii, no PCBs, no screws, no dock.

Shells are expected to be picked up the first weekend of August and shipped to buyers the following week. Please do not order a shell if you're unwilling to wait!

Due to the 95% tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from China, this group buy is a rare opportunity for community members to purchase shells at a reasonable price. So please be conscientious and refrain from ordering a shell if you have never trimmed a Wii or don't intend to build a Kawaii. Thanks!

 

[Customledmods]

Just placed order thanks man.