LUMP_PUMP's G-Boy worklog (first portable)

[LUMP PUMP]

Now that the semester is officially over, BBLoader is out, and my G-Boy kit has arrived, it's the perfect time to start working on my G-Boy. Since this is my first portable, I've decided to start a worklog thread so hopefully more experienced members of the forums will stop me from doing anything too stupid. As of right now, I've just disassembled my wii after getting BBLoader up and running (see pics), and I hope to prepare the board and trim within the next couple days.

 

[LUMP PUMP]

Finished trimming the motherboard, and I wanted to share my trim here before I do anything else with it, to make sure it isn't too scuffed up. In the meantime, I'll be wiring the power and usb pcb.

 

[Stitches]

Finished trimming the motherboard, and I wanted to share my trim here before I do anything else with it, to make sure it isn't too scuffed up. In the meantime, I'll be wiring the power and usb pcb.

Can you provide a closeup of the long edge by the NAND chip? You might have trimmed into the NAND traces and I can't see properly from the provided pictures

 

[LUMP PUMP]

Can you provide a closeup of the long edge by the NAND chip? You might have trimmed into the NAND traces and I can't see properly from the provided pictures

Here's a closer picture

 

[Stitches]

no the other side of the board, that's the RAM chip

 

[LUMP PUMP]

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with the components of the motherboard. Here's the other side

 

[Nicholas298]

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with the components of the motherboard. Here's the other side

Awe dang I think you did cut into the nand traces ;-; you may need to use magnet wire to manually reconnect the severed traces

first, check pins 6 and 7 on the nand for continuity on the vias you see on the left

 

[LUMP PUMP]

Awe dang I think you did cut into the nand traces ;-; you may need to use magnet wire to manually reconnect the severed traces

first, check pins 6 and 7 on the nand for continuity on the vias you see on the left

It doesn't look like pin 6 doesn't seem to be working, but pin 7 looks fine. At least I'm not gonna need a new motherboard but still, :{

 

[Nicholas298]

It doesn't look like pin 6 doesn't seem to be working, but pin 7 looks fine. At least I'm not gonna need a new motherboard but still, :{

Good point, all you gotta do is reconnect pin 6 using magnet wire, it’ll be tough but not that hard!

 

[LUMP PUMP]

Wii trim officially finished! hopefully bridging those pins on the nand is okay, or else I'm in trouble lol. Other than that (thanks nicholas298 and stitches) everything else went smoothly, so i should be ready to work on the G-boy proper from here on out.

 

[LUMP PUMP]

Finished wiring the power button and power to usb pd! soldering the 22awg wires is a bit of a pain and i scuffed up the case a bit, but I'm starting to get the hang of soldering in such a compact space. Luckily, the fan works when turned on too. On to wiring the LCD!

 

[LUMP PUMP]

The wiring for the LED indicator is finished, (I opted to wire this first since I hit a snag wiring LCD power). I made a post in the G-Boy questions section about this already, but both of the pads that the LCD ground wire are soldered to on the guide are already being used on my build (I've been following the wiring of the guide as closely as I can). I'm considering rewiring the fan ground to the pad just right of the fan voltage, to free up the ground pad to use for the LCD.

 

[LUMP PUMP]

After rewiring the ground wire for the fan to the pad just to the right of the voltage wire, I tested it and realized it didn't work. I took another look at the guide, and it seems like the ground for the usb-c board is wired just above the voltage for that board in later pictures in the guide, so I'll have to resolder that wire before I can continue with the LCD.

 

[CrazyGadget]

In regards to the major bridge on the NAND where you had to restore pin 6 previously, you should definitely clean this up before turning the Wii on. I don't think it's okay for them to be shorted together like that.

 

[LUMP PUMP]

I finished up wiring the wii to the rest of the components, but it failed the trim test. (I also tried changing the source on the LCD) I tried cleaning up the nand before soldering it, but some of the solder wouldn't come out from it. I tried testing for continuity between the legs with solder in them and it failed the test which prompted me to keep working going. Other than that I can't think of any possible problems with my trim.

 

[CrazyGadget]

Did you sand the mobo after the trim? It might just be the way I'm seeing it, but some of those edges look a little rough to me.

Did you check your resistances between your voltage lines on the wii before wiring it up to the pms? If not, definitely do so and make sure there are no shorts. Make sure you disconnect the wii from the pms before doing this. Guide: https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/wii-trim-resistances.2602/

 

[LUMP PUMP]

Okay, so this project is still alive. I measured the resistances on my motheboard, and they were lower across the board compared to charts in the guide thread. I've decided to get another board since I seemed to have messed up the trim so I'd rather start again and learn from my mistakes. I get paid next week, so I'll order it then.

 

[CrazyGadget]

A couple of tips to hopefully make your next trim go a little smoother:

1. Draw out your trim on the backside of the board, as a lot of the cutting lines are sensitive to components and traces on that side.

2. When trimming the board, trim in the direction such that the cutting wheel wants to pull down into the board, rather than jump up and nick the surface of the board. I made a quick paint sketch to demonstrate. Forgive me, I am not an artist:

3. I see you used Wesk's method of grinding down the LDO with the dremel before removing it with an iron. It looks like you went down too far and went through multiple layers of the board. This, along with some of the other dremel jumps that went through multiple layers of the board, can cause shorting between the layers, which can really screw things up. I have found that dremeling the LDO is not necessary if you have a good soldering iron. Personally, I carefully clip the legs with a pair of wire cutters, remove them with the iron, then blob a ton of solder on the large pad of the LDO with my iron cranked to ~700F / 370C. If your iron has good heat transfer, this shouldn't be too hard.

4. Most of the solder joints on your boards look pretty cold. Make sure that your iron is a good temperature (I typically keep mine at around 650F / 340C, and use plenty of flux! Make sure to clean any excess residue after every joint to reduce the chance of any phantom shorts. A lot of people recommend Kester 951 liquid flux, and I can attest to its greatness.

I think the most important thing to take away here is the the dremel part. Try this out on one of the unused parts of the board to get a hang of it. You really want to make sure you don't have any slips with the dremel that cut through multiple layers on top of the board, as those are very hard to get rid of without chopping that part of the board off.

Let us know how it goes! Hopefully some of this is helpful to you.