Worklog Link270's Whiip! (Tentative title)

[link270]

Hey guys,

I've been putting off starting a worklog for a bit now, as I'm pretty new to this so I wanted to make sure I understood the basics and got relatively far before posting one. I have finally gotten to a point where I feel I can share my work and work towards finishing.

So far here's what I've done:

• Bought a better soldering iron and a multimeter
• Installed noWIFI/portabilizemii
• Harvested the buttons from an old GC controller
• Rewired the GC controller right onto the Wii motherboard, as mine didn't have the GC ports soldered on
• Practiced and practiced and practiced soldering until I successfully relocated bluetooth and USB and confirmed them working
• Relocated U10, went surprisingly smoothly and worked first try
• Order a bunch of parts (Resistors, capacitors, speakers, an Audio Amp, GC+ (Still waiting on this), Powermii lite (I'm planning to use this on my second attempt) and a ton more stuff
• Wired up a 2S1P battery pack and made sure the charger worked properly. (I will probably add 2 more cells for a 2S2P)
• Got everything for my custom regulators, wired them up onto some perf board in an attempt to keep it neat looking, the voltages all came out good
• Bought another wii off eBay (I guess I have to make a second portable now. )
• Taped up and trimmed the board, it went a lot smoother than I was anticipating.
• Sanded and sanded and sanded some more first with some 400 grit then back around with 1000 grit, I had some 1500 as well but it seemed pretty solid after the 1000
• Tested the board with the regulators, GPU/CPU were heating up and voltages appeared correct (Didn't have video wired up yet)
• Wired up audio and video, everything boots up and appears to work great! Although I don't have a controller yet, so I couldn't fully test games, etc. (I am thinking of soldering my buttons onto my GC board just for testing, but hopefully I'll get my GC+ soon
• Rewired usb and audio to have slightly longer wires and to be much neater looking. (May do the same to bluetooth in a bit)
• Got a new table and was able to expand my workstation substantially! (Thanks to my wife!)
• Wired up a RGB LED that turns red when the console is off and the batteries can be charged, and green when the console is getting power (Not sure if the LED is going to sap too much power from the batteries or not, I may rethink this)

What I still need to do:

• Rewire video better and more flexibly
• Get my heatsink and fan figured out and set up
• Wire up my GC+
• Figure out the best way to make a battery level indicator, or at least a low battery indicator (Any suggestions?)
• Possibly rewire my power switch setup slightly to allow for a charge AND play config
• Figure out what I want my case to look like at all (I've been waiting till I have everything figured out hardware wise before digging too deep into the case)
• Keep learning more CAD to actually design a case
• Find someone or someplace where I can get the case 3D printed for a reasonable price, I know my university has some so I'll look into that (I really really want to get a 3D printer, but I can't justify the money for a decent printer quite yet)
• Print the case and assemble everything
• Play!

I am hoping to get this all done before school starts back up the end of this month. I'm going into my Jr. year in my CS degree and things are going to get busy.

Heres a bunch of pictures of my current position:

-Close up of my custom reg board

-Batteries/charging/LED on/off indicator

-Trimmed board closeup

-General idea of scale of each component

-A really really general idea of the screen/button layout. At the moment I am planning to use the GC buttons and maybe Dpad with 3DS sliders. I've got the buttons all hooked up to some perfboard with the ends I need to connect to soldered onto their own pads, that way I can wire it up easily and hopefully keep it a little cleaner.

Anyways, there's my work thus far. Feel free to give me any feedback or suggestions!

Thanks again to everyone being so helpful around here, I've wanted to do a portable ever since I saw a portable n64 guide back around 2010 but I'd never be able to get this far without this community! I'm excited to finish this one up and continue with updates then get started on some other projects as well.

 

[jefflongo]

Looks good! You should trim off the extra ends of that perfboard. I like your reg board though. Looks much cleaner than when I tried a similar set up. Looking forward to seeing more progress!

 

[cheese]

That screens a big'n, it's gonna look real nice if you wire up component or VGA

Looks good so far!

 

[link270]

Looks good! You should trim off the extra ends of that perfboard. I like your reg board though. Looks much cleaner than when I tried a similar set up. Looking forward to seeing more progress!

I will most defiantly be trimming up that perfboard. I wanted to make sure I liked how it turned out before trimming it.

That screens a big'n, it's gonna look real nice if you wire up component or VGA

Looks good so far!

It's the L7009 from the BOM, I had it wired up to component when I tested it the other day. (That what that black wire behind the CPU is for, connecting 3.3V to mode) It looked like it was working decently. Does anyone know if it's okay to run this screen just from my 7.4V source? It calls for 12V, but It looked like it was working off 7.4V when I tested it. I don't really want to add another cell if I'm not going to get more capacity.

 

[Notjohnny]

Does anyone know if it's okay to run this screen just from my 7.4V source? It calls for 12V, but It looked like it was working off 7.4V when I tested it. I don't really want to add another cell if I'm not going to get more capacity.

It should work, you can follow the power circuit of the screen driver board and see if you can bypass a regulator to get it working from 5v, or even 3.3 who knows

 

[Stitches]

I will most defiantly be trimming up that perfboard. I wanted to make sure I liked how it turned out before trimming it.



It's the L7009 from the BOM, I had it wired up to component when I tested it the other day. (That what that black wire behind the CPU is for, connecting 3.3V to mode) It looked like it was working decently. Does anyone know if it's okay to run this screen just from my 7.4V source? It calls for 12V, but It looked like it was working off 7.4V when I tested it. I don't really want to add another cell if I'm not going to get more capacity.

If it works, there's no need to add extra cells. You'll want to check that it still runs when the 7.4v pack is low, though.

 

[BocuD]

I will most defiantly be trimming up that perfboard. I wanted to make sure I liked how it turned out before trimming it.



It's the L7009 from the BOM, I had it wired up to component when I tested it the other day. (That what that black wire behind the CPU is for, connecting 3.3V to mode) It looked like it was working decently. Does anyone know if it's okay to run this screen just from my 7.4V source? It calls for 12V, but It looked like it was working off 7.4V when I tested it. I don't really want to add another cell if I'm not going to get more capacity.

The l7009 has a 5v regulator just behind the 12v input source. If you wire 5v from usb to the output, you can just run it off that. This is the pinout of the regulator:

And this is where the reg is located on the driver board:

 

[link270]

The l7009 has a 5v regulator just behind the 12v input source. If you wire 5v from usb to the output, you can just run it off that. This is the pinout of the regulator:

And this is where the reg is located on the driver board:
View attachment 3827

Oh awesome thanks for that! On that note, does anyone have a data sheet or anything for L7009 driver board? I looked around for it but either I'm not looking for the right things, or I'm just not good at finding data sheets yet. I wanted to attempt to get my audio connecting to the board in a way that I can use the display's volume buttons to control the volume from the system itself? I was going to mess around with it, but It would be a lot easier if I actually knew what did what and where everything is.

 

[GingerOfOz]

You don't need a datasheet for that. I'm guessing that your screen has buttons for input, power, menu, and an up and down for navigating the menu. If the menu isn't open, then the up and down buttons normally do nothing. You could solder a wire to connect the volume up pad to the up button on the screen, and do the same for down. You should double check that both your screen and amp use common ground buttons, but that would work fine. The only issue is that messing with screen settings would probably turn your volume up and down, but you could set it back after exiting the menu.

 

[link270]

You don't need a datasheet for that. I'm guessing that your screen has buttons for input, power, menu, and an up and down for navigating the menu. If the menu isn't open, then the up and down buttons normally do nothing. You could solder a wire to connect the volume up pad to the up button on the screen, and do the same for down. You should double check that both your screen and amp use common ground buttons, but that would work fine. The only issue is that messing with screen settings would probably turn your volume up and down, but you could set it back after exiting the menu.

So there are actual volume up/down buttons on the display controls, and there is an Audio in and I assume somewhere there should be an audio out as well. (The screens case has speaker holes but no speakers) I already did what you suggested and ran wires from the Vup and Vdown pads on the amp directly onto the volume buttons the screen. It works just fine like this, but it also shows a volume level on the display which is, or course, inaccurate, but it made me think there should be a way to integrate the audio into the driver board. It's not a very big deal if I can't do this, but I thought it'd be nice to be able to have a visual volume indication via the display if it is possible.

 

[GingerOfOz]

I thought it'd be nice to be able to have a visual volume indication via the display if it is possible.

It's called WiiHUD.

As for controlling it through the screen, I'm not sure.

 

[link270]

It's called WiiHUD.

As for controlling it through the screen, I'm not sure.

Yes WiiHUD is something I would love to have! One day..

Anyways, that’s why I was curious for a data sheet, to see if I could figure something out in the menetime.

 

[Stitches]

So there are actual volume up/down buttons on the display controls, and there is an Audio in and I assume somewhere there should be an audio out as well. (The screens case has speaker holes but no speakers) I already did what you suggested and ran wires from the Vup and Vdown pads on the amp directly onto the volume buttons the screen. It works just fine like this, but it also shows a volume level on the display which is, or course, inaccurate, but it made me think there should be a way to integrate the audio into the driver board. It's not a very big deal if I can't do this, but I thought it'd be nice to be able to have a visual volume indication via the display if it is possible.

It does have a jack for audio in, the case even has two spots for speakers on the back. However, I'm pretty certain that the spot directly right of the 3.5mm jack is where the audio amp IC should be, and it's absent. I'm searching mine for where the LR from the jack connects to, but I don't think they're connected to anything. If it is that empty spot and we could find out what IC is supposed to be in that spot, we could potentially replace it ourselves and get the functionality back.

 

[link270]

It does have a jack for audio in, the case even has two spots for speakers on the back. However, I'm pretty certain that the spot directly right of the 3.5mm jack is where the audio amp IC should be, and it's absent. I'm searching mine for where the LR from the jack connects to, but I don't think they're connected to anything. If it is that empty spot and we could find out what IC is supposed to be in that spot, we could potentially replace it ourselves and get the functionality back.

If that’s the case then it’s pretty dumb they retained the audio jack and everything but left out the I/C that makes it work. Haha

That would be pretty cool if we were able to regain that functionality though.

 

[Stitches]

If that’s the case then it’s pretty dumb they retained the audio jack and everything but left out the I/C that makes it work. Haha

That would be pretty cool if we were able to regain that functionality though.

It is dumb, and I've traced the jack to the pad where the amp IC should be. I also noticed that the jack is actually marked as an output, and it's mono. L and R are connected to one trace going to the amp pad, and the little grey connector on the other side of the board runs two traces to the amp as well. I don't know if the jack is supposed to be an output and the other plug is for a reversing camera mic, or of the jack is an input and the other plug is supposed to connect to a speaker inside the case. Either way, the amp isn't present, but I'll keep investigating and see if I can find the IC that's meant to go in that spot. If it's stereo, we can bypass the jack and just wire the input/outputs straight to the legs.

 

[Stitches]

Please excuse the double posterino, but I come bearing (potentially) significant news!

I have done some tests with my L7009 board and taken some measurements. I also did an unhealthy amount of googling and datasheet scouring to try to find an IC that fits the footprint and pin functions. The pads on the board would fit a SSOP-24 IC, and the pads are connected internally as follows:

N/A Central tinned grounded pad
1 GND
2 GND
3 +5v in
4 GND
5 GND
6 GND
7 +5v in
8 GND
9 LR mixed input from onboard 3.5mm jack
10 GND
11 +5v in
12 L/R out -
13 GND
14 L/R out +
15 SDN (low=OFF, high=ON: +0.09v at 0 volume, +3.36v at 1 to 100 volume)
16 GND
17 BYPASS (amp internal analog reference)
18 GND
19 +2.58v in (This could be SEMAX, which lowers the maximum volume in headphone mode based on input voltage. Higher = quieter)
20 GND
21 Volume control DC input: +3.08v at 0 volume (Shutdown active), +0.85v at 1 volume, +3.08v at 100 volume (Shutdown not active)
22 GND
23 GND
24 Unknown, not grounded or connected to nearby components

From what I've learned, the amp IC isn't as simple as a PAM8803 that uses two tact switches to change the volume. It uses a variable DC voltage input to determine output volume, so that narrowed it down a lot. The hard part was finding an IC that matched the odd Pin9 channel input, but I think I have two matches:

The Texas Instruments TPA6013A4 fits the bill I've managed to scrounge together. The datasheet also shows that this amp has a headphone mode controlled by high/low logic into Pin22. The pads are connected internally as such that the amp would never leave speaker mode, but simply putting a spot of kapton tape over the pad and wiring the leg to a resistor and switching headphone jack would fix that. Headphone mode also seems to use different input pins to speaker mode, but there's also a common input set for L and R, so I'll work that out later.

There's also the Texas Instruments TPA6012A4. It lacks the headphone mode of the TPA6013A4, has a lower watt output (which doesn't change anything really) and uses only the common LR input pins, but it has the same PCB footprint and pin functions. It'd be a slightly simpler install compared to the TPA6013A4 if you aren't interested in potentially using headphones.

I'm going to keep looking and see if I can turn up another/better match, but I think I might have stumbled on a winner. All that remains is to get my hands on a few and test them.

EDIT: Aurelio suggested designing a custom PCB for the amp and just running a wire to the screen board's volume control pin. I'll look into that tomorrow, so let me know what you think @link270 and we can work out if this is something you'd want to include.

 

[link270]

Please excuse the double posterino, but I come bearing (potentially) significant news!

I have done some tests with my L7009 board and taken some measurements. I also did an unhealthy amount of googling and datasheet scouring to try to find an IC that fits the footprint and pin functions. The pads on the board would fit a SSOP-24 IC, and the pads are connected internally as follows:

N/A Central tinned grounded pad
1 GND
2 GND
3 +5v in
4 GND
5 GND
6 GND
7 +5v in
8 GND
9 LR mixed input from onboard 3.5mm jack
10 GND
11 +5v in
12 L/R out -
13 GND
14 L/R out +
15 SDN (low=OFF, high=ON: +0.09v at 0 volume, +3.36v at 1 to 100 volume)
16 GND
17 BYPASS (amp internal analog reference)
18 GND
19 +2.58v in (This could be SEMAX, which lowers the maximum volume in headphone mode based on input voltage. Higher = quieter)
20 GND
21 Volume control DC input: +3.08v at 0 volume (Shutdown active), +0.85v at 1 volume, +3.08v at 100 volume (Shutdown not active)
22 GND
23 GND
24 Unknown, not grounded or connected to nearby components

From what I've learned, the amp IC isn't as simple as a PAM8803 that uses two tact switches to change the volume. It uses a variable DC voltage input to determine output volume, so that narrowed it down a lot. The hard part was finding an IC that matched the odd Pin9 channel input, but I think I have two matches:

The Texas Instruments TPA6013A4 fits the bill I've managed to scrounge together. The datasheet also shows that this amp has a headphone mode controlled by high/low logic into Pin22. The pads are connected internally as such that the amp would never leave speaker mode, but simply putting a spot of kapton tape over the pad and wiring the leg to a resistor and switching headphone jack would fix that. Headphone mode also seems to use different input pins to speaker mode, but there's also a common input set for L and R, so I'll work that out later.

There's also the Texas Instruments TPA6012A4. It lacks the headphone mode of the TPA6013A4, has a lower watt output (which doesn't change anything really) and uses only the common LR input pins, but it has the same PCB footprint and pin functions. It'd be a slightly simpler install compared to the TPA6013A4 if you aren't interested in potentially using headphones.

I'm going to keep looking and see if I can turn up another/better match, but I think I might have stumbled on a winner. All that remains is to get my hands on a few and test them.

EDIT: Aurelio suggested designing a custom PCB for the amp and just running a wire to the screen board's volume control pin. I'll look into that tomorrow, so let me know what you think @link270 and we can work out if this is something you'd want to include.

Wow wonderful work! A lot quicker and more thorough than I’d be able to do. I think it would be pretty cool to include something like that allow it to work. What can I do to help with this?

 

[Stitches]

Wow wonderful work! A lot quicker and more thorough than I’d be able to do. I think it would be pretty cool to include something like that allow it to work. What can I do to help with this?

Not sure. I suppose if you have any space constraints, preferences for shape/colour/orientation, and which IC you'd want to use, letting me know now would save changing the design later. Besides that, all I can ask for is your patience. It'll take a short while to nut out the design and get the parts shipped down here.

 

[link270]

So right now my Wii keeps freezing randomly. I can’t seem to find any pattern except for it only happens during portabilizemii. I can’t find any shorts or anything that is obviously causing the issues. Sometimes it will run for a pretty long time and sometimes it will go for a few second before the sound starts acting funny and it all freezes. What’s most likely causing something like this?

 

[Shank]

So right now my Wii keeps freezing randomly. I can’t seem to find any pattern except for it only happens during portabilizemii. I can’t find any shorts or anything that is obviously causing the issues. Sometimes it will run for a pretty long time and sometimes it will go for a few second before the sound starts acting funny and it all freezes. What’s most likely causing something like this?

Probably USB.