After months of planning, collecting information, asking stupid questions and ordering shiploads of stuff from China and US, I'm finally on my way to built my first N64 Portable.
To satisfy my slight OCD I am trying to make it as clean as possible, which means I will try to take benefit of a lot of custom PCB designs this great community has to offer. Big shoutout already to @Teatimetim who provided me with his RCP breakout flex, I promised I will post pictures
.
Project goals
Step 1 - Mainboard preparation & trim








First thing I did was obviously testing the board. Turned out the sound wasn‘t working, so I desoldered the AMP-NUS and bridged the pins 4 & 7 as well as 8 & 12 to check if the board was fine. The amp will be cut away anyway so I was delighted to find out the sound was working fine after bridging.
Then I desoldered all the unnecessary parts and components that would disrupt the trim and marked the trim line (on both sides). I kept the brackets for the heat sink though because I'm using the bolted on aluminium rail as a mount for the vice while trimming (hence marking the line on the backside).
For the trim I used a Dremel 3000 which worked surprisingly well and then smoothened the edges with a double grinder. It almost got the best of me and I almost grinded too much from the upper left corner where the traces between CPU and RCP are running, but I managed to stop just in time and continuity seems good.
Step 2 - Custom PCBs








I ordered all PCBs on JLCPCB, except for the RCP breakout flexes, which I got from @Teatimetim (thanks again!). Tim suggests to use PCBWay to order those flexes due to better tolerances on the cascaded edges, there a kinda expensive though. The button contact PCBs should be enig gold plated for better contact and corrosion resistance.
I ordered the parts on Digikey, which took a while because I had to collect all the parts from the various BOMs, search the ones which weren't on BOMs and finally make sure to order the right quantities. I also had to order them in several shipments due to European customs regulations (you pay 20% extra customs if your order is above 150€, on top of the 19% VAT). Still made a mistake in the end and had to reorder some few components which came with an expensive 18€ shipping cost on top. Probably all of this is much less of an issue for US citizens.
A friend provided me with stencils - he was able to combine them all onto one stencil, instead of ordering each individual which would have been massive in terms of shipments costs due to weight. Those were quite a help especially for the N64 Amp which really is a tiny as hell. I soldered with a combo of hot plate, hot air and classic soldering iron. All in all much less of a headache than I thought, even though the 0402 resis and caps gave me some hard time in the beginning.
That's it for now, I will update the worklog as I'm progessing with the build. I will now start to order the missing components, such as LCD, Batteries, printed shell etc., which will probably take some time. I'm waiting with the RAM swap until I know that the board trim is working, just to avoid having to remove them again if I messed something up. I will probably post some more questions as well but most likely in a separate thread to keep things clear.
I'll also post my BOM at one point which will hopefully make things easier for future builds. I just have to clear it up a little and add some missing stuff.
To be continued...
To satisfy my slight OCD I am trying to make it as clean as possible, which means I will try to take benefit of a lot of custom PCB designs this great community has to offer. Big shoutout already to @Teatimetim who provided me with his RCP breakout flex, I promised I will post pictures

Project goals
- N64HH design, 3D printed with SLS Nylon in black, maybe painted...
- NUS-CPU-03 mainboard with advanced trim
- 5" 4:3 LCD
- Expansion pack as RAM swap
- N64 PMS by @Gman
- N64 Controller PCB by @Gman with Ram chip (Save pack)
- PIF breakout PCB by @Gman
- N64 Amp PCB
- RCP breakout flex by @Teatimetim and original cartridge slot
- Gold plated Controller input PCBs by @Nicholas298
- OSD+Volume controller PCB
- N64 Stick Converter PCB
Step 1 - Mainboard preparation & trim








First thing I did was obviously testing the board. Turned out the sound wasn‘t working, so I desoldered the AMP-NUS and bridged the pins 4 & 7 as well as 8 & 12 to check if the board was fine. The amp will be cut away anyway so I was delighted to find out the sound was working fine after bridging.
Then I desoldered all the unnecessary parts and components that would disrupt the trim and marked the trim line (on both sides). I kept the brackets for the heat sink though because I'm using the bolted on aluminium rail as a mount for the vice while trimming (hence marking the line on the backside).
For the trim I used a Dremel 3000 which worked surprisingly well and then smoothened the edges with a double grinder. It almost got the best of me and I almost grinded too much from the upper left corner where the traces between CPU and RCP are running, but I managed to stop just in time and continuity seems good.
Step 2 - Custom PCBs








I ordered all PCBs on JLCPCB, except for the RCP breakout flexes, which I got from @Teatimetim (thanks again!). Tim suggests to use PCBWay to order those flexes due to better tolerances on the cascaded edges, there a kinda expensive though. The button contact PCBs should be enig gold plated for better contact and corrosion resistance.
I ordered the parts on Digikey, which took a while because I had to collect all the parts from the various BOMs, search the ones which weren't on BOMs and finally make sure to order the right quantities. I also had to order them in several shipments due to European customs regulations (you pay 20% extra customs if your order is above 150€, on top of the 19% VAT). Still made a mistake in the end and had to reorder some few components which came with an expensive 18€ shipping cost on top. Probably all of this is much less of an issue for US citizens.
A friend provided me with stencils - he was able to combine them all onto one stencil, instead of ordering each individual which would have been massive in terms of shipments costs due to weight. Those were quite a help especially for the N64 Amp which really is a tiny as hell. I soldered with a combo of hot plate, hot air and classic soldering iron. All in all much less of a headache than I thought, even though the 0402 resis and caps gave me some hard time in the beginning.
That's it for now, I will update the worklog as I'm progessing with the build. I will now start to order the missing components, such as LCD, Batteries, printed shell etc., which will probably take some time. I'm waiting with the RAM swap until I know that the board trim is working, just to avoid having to remove them again if I messed something up. I will probably post some more questions as well but most likely in a separate thread to keep things clear.
I'll also post my BOM at one point which will hopefully make things easier for future builds. I just have to clear it up a little and add some missing stuff.
To be continued...
Last edited: