Worklog The Briick - ABANDONED

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Stitches

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Hello, I'm Stitches. I've been lurking ModRetro for a while and just found this site yesterday, thought I'd join in the fun!

I plan to build a Wii portable to replace this ugly monstrosity.


I call it the CinderBlock Fusion 5. It weighs 1.6kg and the 12.6v battery runs for 2.5 hours. It's just as clunky to use as it looks. Wish I hadn't murdered that ASCII controller to build it, the Wii would have fit inside so perfectly and I could have used my L7009 :(

My current plan for the as-of-yet unnamed portable is as follows:

Updated as of May 11th
  • The case will be two ABS instrument cases fused together via the dance.
  • Untrimmed mobo. BT and wifi left attached and functional
  • 4 (maybe 8) Panasonic 3400mAh 18650 cells in 14.8v config to power the Wii and screen.
  • Shockslayer's "Charge and Play" DPDT switch config, since true charge and play isn't feasible
  • Screen will be a 7 inch L7009 because fuck it. Only screen I've bought in the last year that actually works as intended.
  • GC+ with original sticks, buttons and triggers..
  • PAM8803 3w amp with digital volume control connected to 2w 8ohm speakers and switching headphone jack.
  • Memory card slots relocated
  • Low battery light
  • Shitton of buttons because fuck it.
  • Fans. Lots.
  • Painted colour: Blue. Abadeeabadye.
I'll add to this list as I think of things, but I think that's pretty much it.
Currently waiting on: Misc parts.
 
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Noah

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  1. Has anyone properly measured the power consumption difference between the 4 layer Wii onboard regs, and the custom regs? I know the 8080s give better battery life, but how much extra time would they provide?
  2. How would I go about making the Wii turn on with a DPDT switch rather than the inbuilt tact switch? Just grounding the wire sounds like it'd be dodgy, would I need some transistor trickery perhaps?
Not sure about the first question but for the second you just have to supply voltage to the points labeled in the OMGWTF trimming guide. If you're not trimming and going to use stock regs just supply 12v to the input voltage points of the stock regulators and bypass the power switch circuitry altogether.
 

Doom

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I love that giant one. Looks like a giant robot that's ready to demolish a whole city. Large and In Charge.
 

Stitches

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I love that giant one. Looks like a giant robot that's ready to demolish a whole city. Large and In Charge.
Sadly, it's more likely to break your wrists from the strain of holding it up.
 

Stitches

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Update/list of changes:
  • I've decided not to use the very oddly shaped cassette player shell. Instead, I'm going to use the Wii's shell.
  • Screen has changed to an at050tn43v.1. It's a 5 inch, 16:9, 800x480 LCD screen that uses this driver board and supports component in for glorious 480p. I also ordered a super cheapo 5 inch reverse camera screen to harvest the plastic bezel from, just for looks and ease of mounting.
  • I will now be using PortablizeMii, because it's a lot better than I thought it'd be. Am just waiting for my new Shank Approved™ USB drive to arrive.
  • I'm ditching the external AV and controller functions due to lack of need, and chastisement from my friends. Apparently the project is a stupid waste of time, so no need to put any effort into multiplayer for them.
  • No IR LEDs. There's no way in hell I'd be able to decently control pointer type games, and PortablizeMii comes with a system settings manager. Besides, the point of this is to make a closed unit that doesn't require additional peripherals.
  • I found a 5 way tact switch that I plan to use for the screen and volume controls. It's like a tiny digital joystick with a center press. I plan to have the center press be the screen menu button, up/down will be the screen's up and down controls for brightness and such, and left/right will be volume down/up. This will reduce the number of ugly holes I need to drill.
I also discovered that the batteries I bought are actually those master race Panasonic 3400mAh cells. Which is nice.

Main post updated as well, not sure if this one is needed.
 
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Stitches

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I AM ABSOLUTELY LIVID! I've spent nearly $200 and 3 months on screens that don't work properly and I've had enough of this shit. Even the one from the BOM doesn't work properly. Unless there's suddenly an announcement for a complete VGA solution for the Wii, I'm just going to use my L7009, fuse two of these together and make a wide load Briick (ya c what ah did ther?) and be done with it. While I'm at it I might add in 4 more batteries and make this thing worth the effort.

Original post updated as well.
 
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What were your problems with your screens? Would be good to know which ones to avoid.
 

Stitches

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They don't accept composite video properly. 50i displays fine quality wise, except the bottom 20% of the screen is just cut off regardless of what settings you use. 60i is a flickering blurry mess and is unusable. The BOM list screen is supposed to be good for VGA, but I expected composite to work too >.>
 

Doom

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Shii's a Briick & I'm moddiing slowly

(off the coast & I'm headed nowhere)
 

ShockSlayer

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Unless there's suddenly an announcement for a complete VGA solution for the Wii
Currently, one does not exist. However, we have a few things in development at the moment because this has plagued me for quite some time. I'm also writing this post for other discussions to be directed to. So, let me pose a few things:

A complete VGA solution for portablizing would imply/require a constant, stable 480p signal. This is based on a little of what I've heard as well as what I've personally experienced. When the Wii outputs 240p, 480i, etc...basically anything that isn't 480p, the vast majority of screens I've used will not display video, only "No Support/Out of Range" or some variant. This is because most VGA monitors are expecting at least 480p or above.

How video is displayed is determined by whatever software it's running. For example, almost all homebrew supports 480p natively, as well as Wii games, VC games, etc...but not GameCube. This is why "Forcing Progressive" is such a big issue, and why one of the first changes we made to stock postLoader was adding the option to Force Progressive via args when booting games with Nintendont. This sometimes isn't as easy as flipping a switch, and while most games appear to support it, there are a few that don't. My personal favorite is MegaMan X Collection; which upon booting one of its games, always reverts video back to 240p, making it unplayable over VGA.

This means that in order to have a constant 480p signal, you need what's called a "line doubler." The details aren't overly important, but if you have one of these, it doesn't matter what the Wii is outputting, this'll deinterlace it and render a 480p signal. For Wii/GC, this is only available on GCVideo-DVI...which is HDMI, not VGA. Which brings us to the current status of additional video output options on the Wii.

1. Unseen has already come out with firmware for GCVideo-DVI to support the Wii. This'll at least net you HDMI, provided you can get it working. As someone who's wired it a few times....it's finicky and hard to get stable. Sometimes even when the picture is perfect, the OSD doesn't work correctly. It's not something I would recommend for portablizers at all, and of course, isn't VGA.

2. Then there's the analog GCVideo, the GCVideo-lite. Currently, with modifications to the firmware thanks to @Aurelio, this is the only way to get non-converted VGA(ie not Wii2HDMI or external component to VGA converters.) The signal is pretty okay, but there are quite a few drawbacks. There's some weird native interference, that's visible on some screens and invisible on others, related to how the screen interprets the resolution horizontally, or something like that. It also possesses no space on the FPGA for an OSD or line-doubling feature, meaning that whatever resolution the Wii outputs is whatever you get.

Beyond all of this, there are the additional drawbacks of every idiot and their mother coming out with increasingly shittier board redesigns to try and corner the market without fixing any of the real issues. Granted, these are all for GameCube, where you can get away with being a total fuckup that can take shortcuts, but the Wii never intentionally supported digital out and the data signals are 1.8v instead of 3.3v, which appears to make them more sensitive to shitty board designs. This is also why despite mega having GCVideo boards available, I never released any of the GCVideo stuff I worked on and had previously mentioned in the MerWii Christmas thread. Instead, we've opted to work on our own, proper solution(s).

Anyways, tl:dr you're fucked if you want full compatibility. Otherwise, the most workable solution is CFW GCVideo-lite. Be glad it's not GCVideo-lite for N64, a console which basically has no 480p and requires line doubling. This is what makes the UVGA by @marshallh so damn good though. Hopefully whatever we come up with will be similar to that.
 

Stitches

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Currently, one does not exist. However, we have a few things in development at the moment because this has plagued me for quite some time. I'm also writing this post for other discussions to be directed to. So, let me pose a few things:

A complete VGA solution for portablizing would imply/require a constant, stable 480p signal. This is based on a little of what I've heard as well as what I've personally experienced. When the Wii outputs 240p, 480i, etc...basically anything that isn't 480p, the vast majority of screens I've used will not display video, only "No Support/Out of Range" or some variant. This is because most VGA monitors are expecting at least 480p or above.

How video is displayed is determined by whatever software it's running. For example, almost all homebrew supports 480p natively, as well as Wii games, VC games, etc...but not GameCube. This is why "Forcing Progressive" is such a big issue, and why one of the first changes we made to stock postLoader was adding the option to Force Progressive via args when booting games with Nintendont. This sometimes isn't as easy as flipping a switch, and while most games appear to support it, there are a few that don't. My personal favorite is MegaMan X Collection; which upon booting one of its games, always reverts video back to 240p, making it unplayable over VGA.

This means that in order to have a constant 480p signal, you need what's called a "line doubler." The details aren't overly important, but if you have one of these, it doesn't matter what the Wii is outputting, this'll deinterlace it and render a 480p signal. For Wii/GC, this is only available on GCVideo-DVI...which is HDMI, not VGA. Which brings us to the current status of additional video output options on the Wii.

1. Unseen has already come out with firmware for GCVideo-DVI to support the Wii. This'll at least net you HDMI, provided you can get it working. As someone who's wired it a few times....it's finicky and hard to get stable. Sometimes even when the picture is perfect, the OSD doesn't work correctly. It's not something I would recommend for portablizers at all, and of course, isn't VGA.

2. Then there's the analog GCVideo, the GCVideo-lite. Currently, with modifications to the firmware thanks to @Aurelio, this is the only way to get non-converted VGA(ie not Wii2HDMI or external component to VGA converters.) The signal is pretty okay, but there are quite a few drawbacks. There's some weird native interference, that's visible on some screens and invisible on others, related to how the screen interprets the resolution horizontally, or something like that. It also possesses no space on the FPGA for an OSD or line-doubling feature, meaning that whatever resolution the Wii outputs is whatever you get.

Beyond all of this, there are the additional drawbacks of every idiot and their mother coming out with increasingly shittier board redesigns to try and corner the market without fixing any of the real issues. Granted, these are all for GameCube, where you can get away with being a total fuckup that can take shortcuts, but the Wii never intentionally supported digital out and the data signals are 1.8v instead of 3.3v, which appears to make them more sensitive to shitty board designs. This is also why despite mega having GCVideo boards available, I never released any of the GCVideo stuff I worked on and had previously mentioned in the MerWii Christmas thread. Instead, we've opted to work on our own, proper solution(s).

Anyways, tl:dr you're fucked if you want full compatibility. Otherwise, the most workable solution is CFW GCVideo-lite. Be glad it's not GCVideo-lite for N64, a console which basically has no 480p and requires line doubling. This is what makes the UVGA by @marshallh so damn good though. Hopefully whatever we come up with will be similar to that.
That's mighty informative; I have no further questions. I'll hold out hope for a proper solution in the future, maybe for my next project. Have run out of fucks to give atm though >.>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As of May 20th, this project is hereby abandoned forever.
 
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