Wii Micro

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Are those really small buttons next to the usb port for sync and reset? Where did you get those?

Edit: on your latest generation, the buttons I'm asking about are next to the power rocker switch.
 
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Give that I just finished my first Wii Laptop (first portable/modded system), I am completely baffled at how you are able to fit the wii in that tiny housing! All the cutting of that board, I would be terrified! I had to trim about 1/4" off the back of the board (where the eject button is) and that worried me by itself due to all the layers that can potentially short out if not done right. Amazing work!
 
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Give that I just finished my first Wii Laptop (first portable/modded system), I am completely baffled at how you are able to fit the wii in that tiny housing! All the cutting of that board, I would be terrified! I had to trim about 1/4" off the back of the board (where the eject button is) and that worried me by itself due to all the layers that can potentially short out if not done right. Amazing work!
It's not too hard, I've trimmed two boards already, I broke one to being impatient and using the wrong tools because I was lazy to go get proper sandpaper.
Reading the guides, over and over, looking at work logs, gives alot of info for you to do your own Trim, and To make a smaller wii portable than a laptop(Aurelio is fitting one in a case the size of a gameboy advanced)
 
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Gman, do you have any advice on desoldering the Gamecube ports from a Wii board? I have a dead board I was planning on salvaging the ports from and implanting them onto a newer, horizontal model to give it Gamecube compatibility again. My desoldering iron doesn't quite remove all of the solder from the Gamecube ports and Memory card slots in order to safely remove them from the board. I also tried a heat gun but that just melts the plastic for the ports. Do you use any special equipment to make this easier?
 

Noah

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Gman, do you have any advice on desoldering the Gamecube ports from a Wii board? I have a dead board I was planning on salvaging the ports from and implanting them onto a newer, horizontal model to give it Gamecube compatibility again. My desoldering iron doesn't quite remove all of the solder from the Gamecube ports and Memory card slots in order to safely remove them from the board. I also tried a heat gun but that just melts the plastic for the ports. Do you use any special equipment to make this easier?
There are two ways I'd recommend removing them.

You could use a hot air station, such as this. Or you could use some desoldering braid to remove the excess solder and it should come out.
 
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There are two ways I'd recommend removing them.

You could use a hot air station, such as this. Or you could use some desoldering braid to remove the excess solder and it should come out.
Thanks for the recommendation, I've seen these used to remove surface mounted components.

I haven't used a hot air station before, I'm assuming it is more focused and surgical than a heat gun? When I used a heat gun, I tried kapton taping off the plastic bits so they wouldn't melt but the heat found a way in and started melting the plastic way before the solder became malleable.
 

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The issue with heatguns is they usually only have two settings being low and high. They also usually extrude heat over a much larger radius than hot air stations do, so it's much harder to control where the heat goes.

Hot air stations, on the other hand, have a wide range of speeds and temperatures they operate at. They also usually include a few different tips so you can change how much air gets through. I find it much harder to melt plastic with a hot air station as long as you're careful.
 

Gman

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Desoldering the gamecube ports is really difficult so I just trim the pcb around them
 

jefflongo

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This really belongs in its own thread but just to chime in you should just cut the board around the ports. Doing this you can preserve the ground connections. You can also preserve the 5v and 3.3v connections if you trim back far enough (reference the Wii compendium to see where the voltage layer is) which means less wire needed.
 
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The issue with heatguns is they usually only have two settings being low and high. They also usually extrude heat over a much larger radius than hot air stations do, so it's much harder to control where the heat goes.

Hot air stations, on the other hand, have a wide range of speeds and temperatures they operate at. They also usually include a few different tips so you can change how much air gets through. I find it much harder to melt plastic with a hot air station as long as you're careful.
I have a variable temperature heat gun, but it does only shoot out at either high or low speeds. I agree, the hot air station looks like it can be more controlled, again, thanks for the recommendation. I'll give this a shot.

---Post Merged---

Desoldering the gamecube ports is really difficult so I just trim the pcb around them
This really belongs in its own thread but just to chime in you should just cut the board around the ports. Doing this you can preserve the ground connections. You can also preserve the 5v and 3.3v connections if you trim back far enough (reference the Wii compendium to see where the voltage layer is) which means less wire needed.
Thanks for the responses, I have a late-model Wii that I soft-modded sometime ago and it doesn't have Gamecube ports natively. I was looking at opportunities to add Gamecube support to it and the best I could find is the only thing preventing this was the removal of those ports. Cutting the PCB may be fine for some of the custom projects on this forum but I need to desolder and remove the ports with all the legs intact to transplant them to the other board that is lacking them. I'll give the hot air station a shot as desoldering the ports was not panning out to be an easy task.
 

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I have a variable temperature heat gun, but it does only shoot out at either high or low speeds. I agree, the hot air station looks like it can be more controlled, again, thanks for the recommendation. I'll give this a shot.

---Post Merged---





Thanks for the responses, I have a late-model Wii that I soft-modded sometime ago and it doesn't have Gamecube ports natively. I was looking at opportunities to add Gamecube support to it and the best I could find is the only thing preventing this was the removal of those ports. Cutting the PCB may be fine for some of the custom projects on this forum but I need to desolder and remove the ports with all the legs intact to transplant them to the other board that is lacking them. I'll give the hot air station a shot as desoldering the ports was not panning out to be an easy task.
Do you want/need to put the Wii back into its original shell? If not it will definitely be easier (and will probably end up better) If you just cut the board around the ports and use it that way. It really is so much easier that way. And if you're not putting it back in the original case, might as well go with that right?
edit: If you need to put it into the original case or whatever you can also trim out the section where the ports would go on your late model wii, and use wires to connect a trimmed out part of the other board back to the rest of the wii using the trimming guide. It has diagrams for all connections you need to make.
 
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Do you want/need to put the Wii back into its original shell? If not it will definitely be easier (and will probably end up better) If you just cut the board around the ports and use it that way. It really is so much easier that way. And if you're not putting it back in the original case, might as well go with that right?
edit: If you need to put it into the original case or whatever you can also trim out the section where the ports would go on your late model wii, and use wires to connect a trimmed out part of the other board back to the rest of the wii using the trimming guide. It has diagrams for all connections you need to make.
In this case, it would be going back into it's original shell. Simply put, I'm trying to add the gamecube ports back to one of the late-model Wiis that shipped with those removed as a cost-saving measure; the disc drive still reads gamecube discs and the software still supports them, the only obstacle is the lack of input ports. I agree, cutting that portion of the PCB would be easiest but I would like to just remove the ports from an early model board and solder them onto a late-model board to restore gamecube functionality to it.
 

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In this case, it would be going back into it's original shell. Simply put, I'm trying to add the gamecube ports back to one of the late-model Wiis that shipped with those removed as a cost-saving measure; the disc drive still reads gamecube discs and the software still supports them, the only obstacle is the lack of input ports. I agree, cutting that portion of the PCB would be easiest but I would like to just remove the ports from an early model board and solder them onto a late-model board to restore gamecube functionality to it.
edit: If you need to put it into the original case or whatever you can also trim out the section where the ports would go on your late model wii, and use wires to connect a trimmed out part of the other board back to the rest of the wii using the trimming guide. It has diagrams for all connections you need to make.
I meant it more like this:
upload_2018-7-5_22-4-29.png

Then wire them together. You would have to avoid cutting ANY further then where the ports would be soldered in however, as you could possibly fuck it up if you do. Still way easier then the other methods though.
 
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I have a hot air rework station and one of the tips is pretty small (a little smaller than a pencil width) and you can not only control the temperature but also the air flow. Most any hot air rework station has these features. You can then either wave the hot air pencil back and forth until the whole section of the board heats up enough to melt the solder and remove the ports, or you can heat each solder joint up and use a solder sucker to suck the solder up once it melts. Given the size of the gamecube ports, I would go with the latter option personally.
 
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I meant it more like this:
View attachment 6519
Then wire them together. You would have to avoid cutting ANY further then where the ports would be soldered in however, as you could possibly fuck it up if you do. Still way easier then the other methods though.
That's an interesting idea, I'll take a look at the trimming guides and see how feasible it is to reconnect all the severed traces.

I have a hot air rework station and one of the tips is pretty small (a little smaller than a pencil width) and you can not only control the temperature but also the air flow. Most any hot air rework station has these features. You can then either wave the hot air pencil back and forth until the whole section of the board heats up enough to melt the solder and remove the ports, or you can heat each solder joint up and use a solder sucker to suck the solder up once it melts. Given the size of the gamecube ports, I would go with the latter option personally.
I have a cheap desoldering iron from Radioshak that has the little rubber balloon you squeeze to create suction through the heated tip to suck hot solder through it. I was able to get most of the solder off most legs with this method but not enough to get it to budge. Maybe a combination of this and solder wick is the proper method? I'll try it out and see, still not the easiest of tasks. I even contemplated just buying an older board with the ports intact and installing it in the current shell I have and re-modding it instead of having to transplant the ports.
 

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That's an interesting idea, I'll take a look at the trimming guides and see how feasible it is to reconnect all the severed traces.



I have a cheap desoldering iron from Radioshak that has the little rubber balloon you squeeze to create suction through the heated tip to suck hot solder through it. I was able to get most of the solder off most legs with this method but not enough to get it to budge. Maybe a combination of this and solder wick is the proper method? I'll try it out and see, still not the easiest of tasks. I even contemplated just buying an older board with the ports intact and installing it in the current shell I have and re-modding it instead of having to transplant the ports.
Try looking at the compendium as well. It is a full scan of the wii motherboard that has most relevant traces color coded / labeled.
The desoldering iron might actually be enough to get the ports out btw. It is much better then those solder suckers (ew) and might actually work the first time.
 

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Any 3D printing templates you could publish? This is by far the best Wii Mini/Micro I've ever seen!!!
 
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