Worklog Wii-C

[thedrew]

After finishing the PS2P, the case felt pretty comfortable compared to all the other small portables I have built. I decided to use the same case and modify the internals for a Wii instead. I am calling this the Wii-C (C standing for Comfort).

The goal of this portable was to not go all crazy with custom boards and whatnot, even though I have a few custom boards made for this portable, but to use parts that I've had laying around.

Specs as of now:

- 5" 640x480 LCD via VGA
- 10,000 mah lipos
- PMS V1 with 9V PD Trigger
- Bluetooth Audio
- Dual Z Buttons
- Dual rumble motors
- 3D printed case
- Removeable Micro SD Card
- OMEGA like trim
- Relocated AVE via Custom Board
- GC+ 2.0
- Large copper heatsink

Case test print as of now however I think I will change from DS Lite buttons to the usual Gamecube Style layout since I'm used to that.

Another goal of this portable is to keep the system a cool as possible. I don't like having sweaty hands and just want peace of mind (since there are lipos inside after all). Since the case has plenty of room, I utilized as much space as possible for a fat copper heatsink. Heatsink dimensions are 48mm x 89mm x 5.6mm.

I welded the copper heatsinks on a copper plate via solder paste and hot air which I do for all my portables now. It's a bit heavy to be honest but should stay pretty cool. The blower fan in the middle will blow air through both sides as I will have fan exhaust holes on the bottom and top of the case.

Another reason for the large heatsink is so I can also weld the PMS to it as well. I scratched off the silkscreen on the bottom to expose the ground layer of copper on the PMS and welded that via solder paste to the heatsink as well. Verified it still works as well. This benefited with cooling but also saves space since I don't have screw posts for the PMS on the left or right side of the case allowing for bigger batteries and a thinner portable.

I wanted to use VGA but this trim cuts off the AVE. I used the AVE flex by @YveltalGriffin during testing and worked great but since it's right under the hottest chip on the motherboard, the CPU, I found that little AVE gets too hot for my comfort. I wanted to route the AVE away from the heat, so I created a custom board to help dissipate the heat and so I can use an FFC cable to connect it for cleaner wiring.

There are 2 FFC breakout boards: 1 for the AVE and the other for various connections so be able to detach/attach both halves of the portable soley on FFC cables.

Please excuse the mess, was one of those late modding nights...

I have done a lot of bluetooth testing and can conclude that this board is the best. Reason being is the audio transmitted is clean compared to the other one in this test. This board version is 1.2 (which is silkscreened on the back).

The bluetooth board I don't advise you to get is this one. It's a newer chip, but has a static buzz that doesn't seem to go away and is distracting. I have tested all 5 that I ordered with the same results with these. This board version is 1.4 (also silkscreened on the back).

Both bluetooth boards require an antenna installed via the little antenna plug near the crystal, (which can be conveniently taken from the Wii's Wifi) otherwise you'll have choppy audio since the built in antenna is not very strong.

Anyway, everything seems to fit pretty nicely, just have to adjust a few things and maybe create 1 or 2 more custom boards for a couple extra features.

It's pretty closed to finished, but that's all for now.

 

[Shank]

This is nuts. Looks amazing so far. Love the ffc breakout cable for the ave data lines. Few questions:
1: How heavy is that copper heatsink?
2: How well does it work?
3: How did you insulate the other electronics and pads on the PMS board from shorting on the copper heatsink?

 

[Stitches]

After finishing the PS2P, the case felt pretty comfortable compared to all the other small portables I have built. I decided to use the same case and modify the internals for a Wii instead. I am calling this the Wii-C (C standing for Comfort).

The goal of this portable was to not go all crazy with custom boards and whatnot, even though I have a few custom boards made for this portable, but to use parts that I've had laying around.

Specs as of now:

- 5" 640x480 LCD via VGA
- 10,000 mah lipos
- PMS V1 with 9V PD Trigger
- Bluetooth Audio
- Dual Z Buttons
- Dual rumble motors
- 3D printed case
- Removeable Micro SD Card
- OMEGA like trim
- Relocated AVE via Custom Board
- GC+ 2.0
- Large copper heatsink

Case test print as of now however I think I will change from DS Lite buttons to the usual Gamecube Style layout since I'm used to that.
View attachment 21396

Another goal of this portable is to keep the system a cool as possible. I don't like having sweaty hands and just want peace of mind (since there are lipos inside after all). Since the case has plenty of room, I utilized as much space as possible for a fat copper heatsink. Heatsink dimensions are 48mm x 89mm x 5.6mm.
View attachment 21397

I welded the copper heatsinks on a copper plate via solder paste and hot air which I do for all my portables now. It's a bit heavy to be honest but should stay pretty cool. The blower fan in the middle will blow air through both sides as I will have fan exhaust holes on the bottom and top of the case.

Another reason for the large heatsink is so I can also weld the PMS to it as well. I scratched off the silkscreen on the bottom to expose the ground layer of copper on the PMS and welded that via solder paste to the heatsink as well. Verified it still works as well. This benefited with cooling but also saves space since I don't have screw posts for the PMS on the left or right side of the case allowing for bigger batteries and a thinner portable.
View attachment 21398

I wanted to use VGA but this trim cuts off the AVE. I used the AVE flex by @YveltalGriffin during testing and worked great but since it's right under the hottest chip on the motherboard, the CPU, I found that little AVE gets too hot for my comfort. I wanted to route the AVE away from the heat, so I created a custom board to help dissipate the heat and so I can use an FFC cable to connect it for cleaner wiring.
View attachment 21403

There are 2 FFC breakout boards: 1 for the AVE and the other for various connections so be able to detach/attach both halves of the portable soley on FFC cables.
View attachment 21404

Please excuse the mess, was one of those late modding nights...
View attachment 21405

I have done a lot of bluetooth testing and can conclude that this board is the best. Reason being is the audio transmitted is clean compared to the other one in this test. This board version is 1.2 (which is silkscreened on the back).
View attachment 21406

The bluetooth board I don't advise you to get is this one. It's a newer chip, but has a static buzz that doesn't seem to go away and is distracting. I have tested all 5 that I ordered with the same results with these. This board version is 1.4 (also silkscreened on the back).
View attachment 21407

Both bluetooth boards require an antenna installed via the little antenna plug near the crystal, (which can be conveniently taken from the Wii's Wifi) otherwise you'll have choppy audio since the built in antenna is not very strong.

Anyway, everything seems to fit pretty nicely, just have to adjust a few things and maybe create 1 or 2 more custom boards for a couple extra features.
View attachment 21408

It's pretty closed to finished, but that's all for now.

 

[thedrew]

This is nuts. Looks amazing so far. Love the ffc breakout cable for the ave data lines. Few questions:
1: How heavy is that copper heatsink?
2: How well does it work?
3: How did you insulate the other electronics and pads on the PMS board from shorting on the copper heatsink?

Thank you!

- At the moment, I still have some testing to do since the heatsink is a kind of "in theory" idea where it should work well given how large and dense it is.
- I plan on wiring the PMS V2 paired with the RVL-NTC that I have and run some temp tests to give me an idea of how efficient it is. I'll update this worklog with the results.
- As for insulating the PMS V1 board, I only had to insulate the programming header pads on the bottom and I did so with just some kapton tape and it worked just fine. I used low melt solder paste so I didn't have to heat the board up to much to weld to to the copper plate which didn't seem to bother the kapton tape.
-I don't have a way to weigh the heatsink, but if I had to compare it to something that weighs similar I would say it was about as much as 3 or 4 18650s. So kinda hefty haha.

 

[thedrew]

Everything is wired and confirmed working just fine except vibration and the original Micro SD to USB adapter.

- My micro SD to USB drive stopped working somehow after trimming the ground off to get it to fit in the case.. piece of junk. So now I have the Kingston wired in for testing.

- Since I don't want to make a whole new case just for the USB (and since everything is already wired and working for the most part), I'll probably just make a custom board of the same dimensions to fit in the spot of the non working USB drive or somehow fit the Kingston in its place.

- Case was originally 24mm thick, but didn't compensate for the FFC connector boards on top of the Wii, adding about another 3mm. I think the FFCs are worth the added mm so I increased the total thickness to now 27mm.

Bottom half complete other than USB:

The FFC idea worked out really nicely actually, however may have to get a shielded FFC (which I just found out exists) for the AVE since there seems to be such slight noise that is only noticeable on a black screen.

Here is the top half with some messy wiring near the GC+. Had some troubleshooting to go through and still do... (ps I always use an enclosed speaker design as it makes the speakers sound more rich, so there is foam on the underside of the white PLA squares at the bottom and then screwed in).

At first I wasn't getting any video but bluetooth audio was connecting fine and everything was getting warm as it should. I found my rookie mistake however and had the FFC cable flipped on the Wii AVE board unfortunately and was sending voltage to the video data signals. RIP AVE. I just replaced it with another one and success!

For the LCD/speakers/vibration motors, I used this single sided 0.5mm foam tape to help fit things better and have a little bit of cushion and it really works great. High quality stuff it seems.

Been looking for thin single sided foam tape like this for a while so thought I'd share the link to anyone who wants some. Is really cheap too.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000833922693.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.0.0.21ef18028qEWnL


Just a few more things to work out:

- ABXY/DPAD buttons do not feel good. I used the same rubber like Gamecube Z button tacts as I did for the Z buttons and the Z buttons themselves feel great, but doesn't work well for the action buttons for some reason. They are not squishy enough and too clicky for my liking. Have to swap those out for something else. Maybe will have to make custom controller boards.

-Micro SD

- Vibration doesn't seem to work even though the motors themselves work, so may be a GC+ issue.

- Want to add a custom board for a different backlight for the lcd with added button combos to control brightness with DPAD.

- Still have to do a temperature test but that will be done last.

 

[Gman]

Make sure you update the GC+ to the version that was released a few weeks ago. I think a rumble bug was fixed.

 

[thedrew]

Make sure you update the GC+ to the version that was released a few weeks ago. I think a rumble bug was fixed.

Yes, I updated it as well and still doesn't work. I replaced the motor drive ic since I have some spares and now I at least get a slight screech noise but still no rumble. I'm sure I can figure it out.

 

[YveltalGriffin]

Really cool portable! I like the unconventional mobo placement. The dual rumble motors, enclosed speakers and FFC boards are all really nice touches too.

What motors are you using? Maybe they're LRAs and you need to solder the GC+ jumper closed.

 

[thedrew]

Really cool portable! I like the unconventional mobo placement. The dual rumble motors, enclosed speakers and FFC boards are all really nice touches too.

What motors are you using? Maybe they're LRAs and you need to solder the GC+ jumper closed.

Thank you! This was supposed to be just a thrown together portable from parts I had laying around, but now I feel I’m investing too much time into it haha.

They're just mini flat styled rotary motors, but I soldered the jumper anyway just to see and it still didn’t work.

So my next thought is maybe two motors is too much for the GC+ to handle or maybe they require too much power for the FFC to handle since the screen is being powered off the same FFC.

I’m going to wire the motors directly to GC+ and bypass the FFC, and if that doesn’t work then I’ll try just 1 motor instead of 2.

Thanks for the help guys

 

[StonedEdge]

The FFC idea worked out really nicely actually, however may have to get a shielded FFC (which I just found out exists) for the AVE since there seems to be such slight noise that is only noticeable on a black screen.

Nice build man!

Check out these FFCs, they are expensive but the Premo Flex product line from Digikey makes nice impedance matched/shielded cables. Might be good for your AVE problem. I had terrible noise and signal integrity issues with my Retro Lite dock and HDMI too.

FFC FPC Cables Connectors | DigiKey

FFC-FPC Cables and Connectors Interactive Guide

www.digikey.jp

 

[Aurelio]

Thank you! This was supposed to be just a thrown together portable from parts I had laying around, but now I feel I’m investing too much time into it haha.

They're just mini flat styled rotary motors, but I soldered the jumper anyway just to see and it still didn’t work.

So my next thought is maybe two motors is too much for the GC+ to handle or maybe they require too much power for the FFC to handle since the screen is being powered off the same FFC.

I’m going to wire the motors directly to GC+ and bypass the FFC, and if that doesn’t work then I’ll try just 1 motor instead of 2.

Thanks for the help guys

GC+ should be able to handle two ERM motors just fine (as long as the load is within the specs). Two LRAs instead can't be handled by GC+ because the driver wouldn't be able to keep them in resonance

 

[thedrew]

GC+ should be able to handle two ERM motors just fine (as long as the load is within the specs). Two LRAs instead can't be handled by GC+ because the driver wouldn't be able to keep them in resonance

Yes I remember we had a chat on discord about this a while back. However the vibration motors just started working randomly, so I won't be asking how or why, I'm just glad they work and feel great haha.

I'm not getting any video now however, so I have more troubleshooting to do...

Nice build man!

Check out these FFCs, they are expensive but the Premo Flex product line from Digikey makes nice impedance matched/shielded cables. Might be good for your AVE problem. I had terrible noise and signal integrity issues with my Retro Lite dock and HDMI too.

FFC FPC Cables Connectors | DigiKey

FFC-FPC Cables and Connectors Interactive Guide

www.digikey.jp

Thanks! I'll definitely take a look. The noise seems to have gone away for the most part once adjusting the brightness setting but may still go with a shielded FFC to avoid issues down the line.

 

[thedrew]

I was getting no video after trying to turn on the portable today even though it was working just the day before. Nothing changed other than it just sitting on the desk.

RVLoader would boot in safe mode and show safe mode menu just fine, but otherwise would only have a black screen. I found all of my wiring to be correct, and decided to wire the bluetooth module to see if I can at least get into the Wii Menu. Low and behold we had video!? I disconnected the bluetooth and no video again. Oddly, this motherboard decided it will not operate without a bluetooth module so was forced to find space for it.

Also, as mentioned previously, the micro SD adapter I was using died and the case was designed around it. So just a quick and dirty fix I did was chopped up a Kingston adapter to fit in the small space I had, and wired it up to the micro SD slot on the dead adapter. Essentially using the circuit of the Kingston, but the SD slot of the broken adapter. Worked like a charm.

The chopped up Kingston:

Had to use the microscope for this since the traces were pretty fine pitched.

It's not perfect but is stable and works great, so I'm not complaining.

Everything is now fully working now with no issues thankfully.

All that is left to do is to print some brackets for the screen and screw both halves together and it's done. Hopefully this portable will behave itself until then.

Last, I ran some temperature tests and the results were okay, but slightly disappointed and just doesn't seem right to me...

I ran Smash Melee for 30 minutes with 4 CPUs and concluded max temp at 49.2C.

However the entire unite feels only slightly warm in the middle with the rest of the case cold. My other portable reached a max 47C and has a much smaller heatsink and feels pretty hot to the touch. I'm thinking something is not right..

If those numbers are in fact correct, then my guess would be that the temp says it runs hotter due to the heatsink not only cooling the Wii but also the PMS since I welded it to the heatsink and now having heat come from 2 entities instead of just 1. The PMS alone usually gets pretty warm so maybe that's why the heatsink overall runs hotter. Was really hoping to get below 45C though. Maybe next time.

 

[Gman]

How are you measuring the temperature? I am testing an Ashida with 2 35x35x10mm heatsinks and a 40mm noctua fan and to my delight it was able to keep it at 34C with the fan on near minimum speed. With the fan on full blast it was only 1-2 degrees less so I think it's about the best performance you can get with forced ambient air cooling. This is with the rvl-ntc measuring the temp right between the cpu and gpu. Maybe having the fan in the middle of the heatsink isnt the best position, I see air vents on the top of the case, do you have vents on the bottom side too?

 

[thedrew]

How are you measuring the temperature? I am testing an Ashida with 2 35x35x10mm heatsinks and a 40mm noctua fan and to my delight it was able to keep it at 34C with the fan on near minimum speed. With the fan on full blast it was only 1-2 degrees less so I think it's about the best performance you can get with forced ambient air cooling. This is with the rvl-ntc measuring the temp right between the cpu and gpu. Maybe having the fan in the middle of the heatsink isnt the best position, I see air vents on the top of the case, do you have vents on the bottom side too?

Wow 34C is nice. Wesk mentioned to me the Ashida is gets as hot as 50C-60C so that Noctua fan must work wonders.

I have a blower fan in the middle with vents on the top and the bottom, blowing throw the heatsink fins on the top to cool the motherboard and blowing through the bottom heatsink fins to cool the PMS. I'd prefer not to, but I may up the fan speed just to see what happens.

I'm using the PMSV2 paired with the RVL-NTC for testing the temperature as well.

I'm thinking there may be some gap(s) for the fan to leak air through the portable and is not properly sealed to where it only escapes the vents. Will further test.

 

[Gman]

Wow 34C is nice. Wesk mentioned to me the Ashida is gets as hot as 50C-60C so that Noctua fan must work wonders.

I have a blower fan in the middle with vents on the top and the bottom, blowing throw the heatsink fins on the top to cool the motherboard and blowing through the bottom heatsink fins to cool the PMS. I'd prefer not to, but I may up the fan speed just to see what happens.

I'm using the PMSV2 paired with the RVL-NTC for testing the temperature as well.

I'm thinking there may be some gap(s) for the fan to leak air through the portable and is not properly sealed to where it only escapes the vents. Will further test.

That's a pmsmv1 in the picture?

We are developing a new pmsv2 firmware with completely redesigned temp feedback control and rvloader configurations and with the regular 35mm fan it can keep the ashida around 47C with the fan not on full blast. We're testing the finishing touches so it shouldnt be too much longer until it's released.

 

[thedrew]

That's a pmsmv1 in the picture?

Yes I have an interesting setup. I have the PMS V1 wired up fully inside the portable, and a PMS V2 wired externally just for testing temperature powered off the batteries and with SCL/SDA and T- and GND wired up.

That's awesome you guys are working on the firmware!