Worklog WiirdFlex

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
I've started work this weekend on a design for a flexible PCB (actually two most likely) intended to act as an electrical interface between a trimmed Wii and the rest of a portable or mini build. Adhering to the ways of the ancients, I have given it a stupid punny name with two i's. By basing it on a recent meme, I have also guaranteed the name will age as badly as possible, for ultimate cringe.

Anyway, all that aside, some details. The project is hosted at https://github.com/mokus0/WiirdFlex, and is designed in Altium (I normally use KiCad for my open stuff, but this one is a lot more mechanically intricate and I can do it much faster in Altium).

This is my first worklog on BitBuilt, so bear with me while I figure out how to post images, the best way to organize it, etc.

As an introduction, here's my first fit and alignment check, and an alignment check test fixture I just ordered:
IMG_0946.jpg.jpeg WiirdFlex Top Alignment rev0.png
It fits quite well, perfect up to the limits of my crappy inkjet printer's accuracy and my own skill with an X-Acto.

What I've done so far:

I started on Friday by digging through the RVK-01 Compendium, surveying it to develop a general plan (what signals I need, where to get them, etc). Next was to measure the size and location of the mounting holes, main ICs and their bulk capacitors, using a combination of calipers and cross-checking with the Compendium. From those measurements I created footprints for the mounting holes and capacitors, and keep-outs for the ICs and the impedance controlled areas around them (I'll use that space if I need to, but prefer not to). I also added another pad for the 3x3 array of vias on the 1.8v net. At this stage, the goal is to get accurate measurements of where everything is on the Wii, not necessarily to put the design down for actually making those connections.

At this point, it looked like this awful photo of my screen:
IMG_0932.JPG.jpeg

Arbitrarily, I selected an origin: the bottom left mounting hole (in Compendium orientation). All footprints are using this point as their origin, so once the footprints themselves incorporate proper alignment, the PCB layout for these parts is as simple as setting them all to the same X/Y coordinates.

On Saturday (yesterday), I continued with some more measurements, more footprints for more stuff, etc. Along the way, my copy of the compendium gained a lot of extra layers including a bunch of measurement reference marks and a copy of someone's trim outline graphic (edited to just the cut lines so it can overlay everything). It seems the copper layers are quite well scaled and rectified, so over time I gained the confidence to spend less time measuring the Wii itself and relied more on the GIMP measuring tools, just spot-checking here and there.

Eventually I got to the point where I needed to fine-tune things more aggressively, so I set up an output job from Altium to produce a 1:1 scale PDF of the design. From that, it's a little tedious but I can export from altium, import as a layer to GIMP (600 dpi to match the Compendium), select all white pixels and delete, drag-select a rectangle around the board image, crop the layer, then move the layer into place (using the mounting holes as a visual alignment reference).

After a few dozen iterations of that, tweaking part placement and board edges along the way, I printed the board out, sat down with an X-acto and a microscope, and produced a paper Wii Gasket that looked like the one I posted above. From a distance, anyway. I discovered that "measure twice, cut once" does not extend to all even numbers - in particular, it doesn't scale down to "measure zero times, cut once".

What is this, a WiiFlex for ants?
UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_33ad.jpg

After re-checking that, yes, my Altium output really was 1:1, I decided to print again using a different program. Apparently FireFox's built-in PDF viewer doesn't care too much about printing things at the size indicated in the document. Back to GIMP, back to the microscope, and back to work. Finally, the payoff:
IMG_0946.jpg.jpeg
This is the same image as at the top again. I had to manually widen the holes for the capacitors and add a couple more cutouts by eye (the areas around U5 and C4), which I then incorporated into the Altium design.

The black pen marks you can see in the image might be worth explaining a bit too. Using the X-acto blade as a straightedge, I added those marks to create crosshairs centered on each of the target pads and vias. Then I cut out the area around those vias, leaving the outer parts of the crosshairs. Finally, after placing the board down I then used the X-acto again to check that the lines crossed the things they were supposed to cross. For example:
20200418195452.JPG20200418202115.JPG20200418202650.JPG

At this point, I now have pretty great confidence in the workflow, which is good because the bottom is going to be a lot trickier. To everyone who worked on the Compendium: THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH, it has been a fantastic reference.

The next step was to take the design and convert it to something I could test-fit more accurately. My printer is crap, my pen has a fine tip but is still pretty big compared to the accuracy I'm trying to measure, and paper is flexible and even stretchy when cut up so much, so although this method of measurement gives me _some_ confidence, I want more. So I took the crosshair concept and applied it to alternate versions of the footprints on the board. This involved creating cut-outs around the target pads and vias, and small drilled holes all around them. These holes are aligned so that thin wire drawn through them should cross at exactly the point where I believe the target pad _should_ be. Here's a close-up of the concept (the thin pink lines show where the wire would go):
Alignment check concept.jpg
For larger pads like the capacitors, the wire should end up outlining the pad. For smaller ones like the SD pads and USB vias, the wire should end up crossing at exactly where I want the flex board to attach. For the bluetooth traces, the wires should end up aligned exactly to the traces.

And finally, that brings us up to date. This morning I looked around at board houses, picked one (Seeed Fusion for this board), made some small adjustments to meet the board house's design rules, and ordered ten of these (again, same photo as top):
WiirdFlex Top Alignment rev0.png

Next I'll probably start work on the bottom side initial layout, and hopefully when I do get the top side alignment board back there aren't too many surprises. And hopefully the order doesn't get delayed too badly due to COVID-19.

I think that's all for now. Here are a few more random photos:
20200418202141.JPG 20200418202156.JPG 20200418202216.JPG flex compendium alignment.png
 
Last edited:

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
I realize I forgot to mention another one of the things I did this weekend. I don't have any pictures because it was a bit tedious and I didn't think of it at the time, but I measured the length of all of the SD traces - both to my intended attachment points and to the SD socket itself, using the measurements to back-calculate an effective internal pin length for each of the high-speed traces, which is now stored in the Altium footprint's metadata. This was all under the assumption that Nintendo correctly calculated that in the first place. It's probably pointless, because I don't believe they are actually driving it fast enough for that to matter, but it was an interesting exercise.

Overall length of the traces was right around 190 to 195 mm, depending on the trace. It was surprising, but one of the pins (I forget which, and I sadly seem to have misplaced my detailed notes) was a full ~4mm different from the rest, which were mostly the same.

I also superglued a header to the top of the SD card holder. The idea is to solder wire from the pins to that holder so I can easily attach a logic analyzer to check the actual frequency they are running - which will give a better idea of how important length matching actually is. Based on the era, I suspect they aren't running it fast enough to be too critical, but we'll see. Has anyone wired up a trimmed Wii with SD? If so, did they have any issues?

And yes, I know the SD isn't needed. I just figure it won't be that hard to add with this design approach, assuming the concept works at all. That, and I'm a bit of a completionist.
 

cheese

the tallest memer in town
Staff member
.
.
.
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
2,758
Likes
2,422
Location
Florida
The SD slot runs at extremely slow speeds, so the lengths don't have to be matched very well. Not sure if many people wired SD to actually trimmed wiis, because we were working on PM at the same time as the trimming guide, so we generally expected people would use that, which only uses USB. You may find useful information digging through Gman's original Wii portable worklog that we kinda used as a development thread :P
 

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
Back at it this weekend. I'm just getting started on the back side, so not a lot to report yet. As a teaser, here's a screenshot of my workflow for capturing keep-out areas for board components:
Keepout drawing workflow.jpg
In the GIMP I have my copy of the Compendium with a lot of random extra markings and layers, including a recent export of the PCB layout. Another added layer is a coordinate axis, which I'm using as a measuring reference to find the corners of each area that I want to capture in Altium. For now I'm capturing all the components, even ones I plan to remove, because that will allow me to make fit test printouts (or, later, PCBs) and test fit it all without having to mod anything on the board yet.

Update: didn't get as much time as I would have liked to work on this, but I got a lot of the component areas on the back mapped out, and started placing a few interface points. At this point, I have some attachment points (not necessarily the final ones) mapped out for GC controllers, GC memory cards (mostly because I think these test points will make a convenient mechanical mounting point), MX/U10, Reset, and WiFi, and I've barely started on A/V stuff. I've also added mechanical layers showing a few board trim outlines I've found on bitbuilt as references.
bottom latest.png
 
Last edited:

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
My top-side aligment test board arrived from China today! It took longer than I had hoped for them to start production, but once they did it was pretty quick.
UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_3405.jpg IMG_1030.jpg
The mounting holes are just a tiny bit too large, so there's a bit more play than I'd like in aligning the board to the Wii, so I found a couple machine screws that are just a *tiny* bit too large for the Wii's mounting holes, and forced them in from the bottom side to create some alignment posts. Then wrapped them in a layer of Kapton tape to make them even a little bigger (I tried heat-shrink tubing first but it was a bit too thick. Eventually, I got the board all neatly aligned to the mounting holes:
IMG_1035.jpg IMG_1037.jpg20200501120052.JPG
I then took close-up photos of each area to check, and added lines connecting the relevant alignment holes (I may go back on some of them and use wire like I had originally planned, but this is probably good enough):
1.8v island alignment.jpg bt data trace alignment.jpg bt sense via alignment.jpgC17 alignment.jpgC143 alignment.jpgC180 alignment.jpgsd pad alignment.jpgusb via alignment.jpg
Next, I'll go in and adjust the design files to fix the areas I missed (surprisingly, there weren't many), finish up my bottom-side footprints, and start on a bottom-side alignment test board. Hopefully I can get that one ordered this weekend, and then start on an actual production design for the top side flex PCB.

Update: I've updated a few positions on the top side. The only things that needed adjustment were things that I couldn't reliably measure at the compendium's 600dpi - basically, the Bluetooth traces and mounting hole diameters. Also, pretty much all of the connection points I'm interested in are now mapped out (and some I'm not, too) on both sides. As long as I haven't missed any, that is. Now it's time to start laying out a test PCB for the bottom side, and some ideas for a final PCB for the top side.
Wiird Flex mockup - bottom.jpg
 
Last edited:

Shank

Moderator
Staff member
.
.
Joined
Jan 31, 2016
Messages
1,286
Likes
2,723
Portables
6
Goddam, this is intense. This looks awesome, seems like it could be useful for both general purpose use AND highly integrated portables. Really excited to see what you do with it all, and very happy to see yet another great project come from the work put into the compendium.
 

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
Thanks, I'm hoping to keep momentum going on this but if nothing else it's all in the open so that even if I do lose steam others can still benefit from some validated measurements. At some point I'll probably try to convert the altium libraries to KiCad, to make them even more accessible. My initial goal is to make something for a specific build, so that the build will be _almost_ 100% wire-free for a really clean look. At the same time, though, I'm hoping to keep it generic enough that it could be useful for others if there's interest, and if I can I'd really like to be able to make it easier to include more relocated hardware without _too_ much more work - like SD and WiFi.

It'll still be a challenging assembly, I think, but I've got some ideas I need to experiment with to make the actual soldering-it-on part as easy as it can be.
 

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
Didn't work a ton on it today, but I did push things along a bit more. Here's a mockup of my next PCB order: an alignment test board for the bottom side.
Wiird Flex mockup - bottom 2.jpg

The plan for now is to check it over tomorrow and order if it looks good. This one uses the same alignment check strategy as before for pads, but for vias I'm trying something simpler - just put a via where I think it should go, but make it bigger than the Wii vias. That way I can just look through them on the microscope and I should be able to see the intended one below.

I also intentionally left out a couple cutout areas for components I can remove - the fan drive circuit and the ESD protection for the memory card. Maybe I'll add them tomorrow after sleeping on it, but for now I'm thinking the fan one in particular is going to be one I want to remove anyway to allow routing more stuff through that space.

Update: tomorrow has come, and I did a little more cleanup. Ended up deciding to put in the other cutouts, added several ground connection points, changed some of the holes to plated holes of various sizes so I can experiment with soldering techniques, added ground pours and silkscreen, and ordered the board. When it comes, it should look something like this:
WiirdFlex Bottom Alignment rev0.jpg
This one is much more demanding on the milling with lots of intricate board cutouts, and I may find that I have to adjust some before the fab will be willing to produce it at the price level I selected (cheapest available, of course!) and/or manually file out some extra stuff. But I went ahead with it as-is anyway because I want to see how much I can push them for $4.90 (Seeed Fusion for those that don't recognize the number).
 
Last edited:

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
Minor update - apparently this board's milling is complex enough that Seeed wanted an extra $16 to fabricate it. So now I guess I know their limits on outline complexity for the $4.90 option are somewhere between these two boards.
 

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
It's time now to start more detailed planning for the actual flex boards, starting with the top. I've been working with @jefflongo on integrating this into a portable he's been designing for a while, and it's getting to the point where we need to decide on specific connectors, which signal goes where, etc., so he can integrate it into his overall design. The power connections are first up, so I need to find out how much power needs to flow through the connector.

Using this thread as a starting point, I'd like to get a decent estimate of the _maximum_ current each rail sees in normal use. Shank filled in some blanks about where the numbers came from and provided a few more from ShockSlayer, covering various different idle states. I don't have a Wii that I've trimmed yet, or a supply that can give me all 4 voltages needed at once, but I want to try to work out more of a worst-case situation. So I set up a Wii (RVK-CPU-01) to run from a bench power supply feeding 12V to the stock power connector, and measured it under similar conditions.

To feed it, I cut the 12V cord from a Wii power brick and spliced in some PowerPole connectors so I can continue to use it as-is or connect it to another source (I have a decent amount of stuff already using this connector from one of my other hobbies, amateur radio). The Nintendo power supply seems quite nicely made, overall, and the cord is no exception. It's a pretty high quality coaxial power cord.
IMG_1069.jpeg IMG_1070.jpg

This bit coming up is a little tedious, but I'm recording it for anyone that wants to follow along (even better if someone spots some errors - I don't expect free debugging but I sure don't mind if someone does decide to!). Since I'm measuring power in a very different way but I want to extrapolate a bit using insight from the measurements in that thread, I'm cross-checking some things along the way. That way I can make sure I'm really on the same page and seeing figures that make sense. What I found:
  • idle, system menu - Composite video and BT module connected but no fan, WiFi, USB or sensor bar: 618mA at 12V (7.42W).
  • connecting and disconnecting various things, I found the contribution from various other parts (measured by their impact on current draw from the 12V input):
    • fan ~8mA (0.10W)
    • USB ~19mA (0.23W)
    • sensor bar ~90mA (1.08W) - wow, those IR LEDs must be bright!
    • switching to component at 480p: too little to measure
  • idle at postloader menu with same configuration as above but USB and fan added: 653mA (7.84W). Subtracting baseline (7.42W) and added peripherals (0.33W), postloader appears to consume only about 0.1W more than the system menu, which is in line with a corresponding figure that can be derived from ShockSlayer's numbers (about 45mA of the increase in the first column from S to pL can be attributed to USB, based on the Homebrew test and similar behavior of the 1.8V rail - leaving 46mA additional increase, or about 0.15W).
This means the idle configuration used around 1.7W more at the 12V rail than is accounted for by the measurements on that thread. That's going to include things like the audio preamp, power loss in the main regulators, and any other fixed power sinks that eventually get trimmed off in a portable Wii. To keep things simple, I'm going to assume this overhead is the same regardless of system load (which should be close enough here).

Minor side note about USB: I measured power to the USB drive, and the observed system load increase is almost entirely on the Wii side. The total draw at the system level minus that used by the USB drive itself was about 0.22W. The excess draw accounted for on the 3.3V rail in ShockSlayer's data is 0.15W. This makes sense; a large part of the draw in a typical USB implementation will be the interface circuitry which runs at 3.3V. The rest will be in additional internal logic which will run at the core voltage of the system, in this case 1.0V in the GPU.

I then set up for playing actual games and let my daughter play it for a while while I watched the power supply.
IMG_1073.jpg

The highest total system current draw I saw was about 780mA (again, at 12V), or 9.36W. Subtracting our idle baseline (7.42W) and the peripherals we added (0.10 + 0.23 + 1.08 = 1.41W), this is only 0.53W over the system menu. It looks like overall the Wii just doesn't do much dynamic power management, which isn't surprising for a system that was never meant to be portable. That, or I'm not testing the right games, which is possible, but I tried a few different ones.

In any case, that tells me pretty much what I need to know: the Wii doesn't draw *much* more, even in the worst case, than the figures in that thread. Now, some straightforward calculations to decide how much current to expect on each rail. To be conservative, I'm going to assume for each rail that all 0.5W of extra power are on that rail, and add the corresponding current to the values from that thread. For GND, I'll assume the worst-case where all of that extra 0.5W is at 1V. This is overkill but until I'm set up to measure a system directly under peak load, it's what I'm comfortable with.

1.00V: 1.8A + 0.5W / 1V = 2.3A
1.15V: 1.53A + 0.5W / 1.15V = 2.0A
1.80V: 0.225A + 0.5W / 1.8V = 0.50A
3.30V: 0.664A - 0.225A + 0.5W / 3.3V = 0.59A
GND: 1.8A + 1.53A + 0.664A + 0.5W / 1V = 4.49A

So, these are the numbers I'll probably go with. For a typical 1mm pitch FPC connector, this would mean these many pins for each (at 700mA per pin):

1.00V: 4 pins
1.15V: 3 pins
1.80V: 1 pin
3.30V: 1 pin
GND: 7 pins

For a grand total of 16 power pins. For a typical 0.5mm pitch FPC connector (using 350mA per pin), this would work out to 7+6+2+2+13 = 30 power pins. Either way, less than 1" wide should do it, plus a bit more for any signals that will end up on the same connector.

At this point, I'm tentatively planning to use Amphenol SLW20S-1C7LF as the main power connector, with 20 pins at 1mm pitch: 16 for power, two for USB data, and two for either a thermistor or an I2C integrated temperature sensor (I plan to provide the option to stuff one or the other on the same flex board).

And finally, this has been a pretty long post with very few pictures. So I must pay the cat tax (do we do that around here?). Our beloved Max, who passed recently at almost 20 years old. She doesn't look it, but she went through a LOT, including getting shot by a neighbor with birdshot over 10 years ago. This is what a bad-ass cat looks like, people. SHE HAD TITANIUM INSIDE HER BODY!
IMG_0098.jpg

Oh, and also - that chair might just be the best chair in the history of chairs.

Update to add a bit of follow-up on connector selection:

After digging deeper into the specs for the connector I'm looking at, I found an interesting little chart:
SLW20S-1C7LF current limit.jpg

This seems a little overly restrictive, given that the connector is supposed to have a max 30 mΩ contact resistance. Based on that resistance it shouldn't ever be dissipating more than about 150 mW in the worst case I calculated above. This kicked off a round of searching for other connectors and other ideas. I think this connector is likely fine, but I did find another I like better for a few reasons - 2-1734248-0, from TE. This one has even lower contact resistance, likely thanks to the way it connects to the PCB: through two pads per connector pin. Also, these pads are surface mount, so I can get a lower-resistance connection to the pad itself because the current won't have to squeeze between the pins on any layer except the top.

This one doesn't give any information on de-rating at all, though, so I kicked off a query to the manufacturer. We'll see if I get anything useful back. In the meantime, to mock it up and test its current handling myself, I threw together a couple little PCBs: one that has both these connectors along with a 100-mil header, and a small flex PCB that just ties every adjacent pair of pins together. They both have no intentional thermal management whatsoever, and should provide a nice worst-case scenario for heat dissipation. A short trip to oshpark.com and they're on order now.
fpc connector test.jpg flex test.jpg
 
Last edited:

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
I'm a bit too tired this week to post much, but progress is still progressing. Here's a quick look at the current state of the top flex.
top flex in progress.jpgtop flex power zif tail.jpg
Lots of the latest work is not directly visible - @jefflongo measured some mechanical dimensions for me in Fusion360 where he's designing the overall layout of the system, and from that I worked out the location of the ZIF tail for power, how much it will have to flex, etc. I've also been doing a bit of research for the board layer stack, to make sure it can reliably handle the amount of bending it will need to do. The plan for now is 1.5 oz copper to make sure it can handle all the current _and_ not drop the voltage too much.

With 1.5 oz copper and a total board thickness of somewhere around 0.13 mm, I'm a bit iffy on whether I'll be able to achieve the required impedance for the USB traces. The board house I'm looking at right now claims to be able to make traces down to 0.06mm (2.36mil), and I would need about that for proper impedance control because of the very thin board. But I'm *very* skeptical that they'd be able to actually do that with 1.5oz copper. For now, I've got the traces for that at 0.15mm, and some questions in to the board house about it. This puts the differential impedance at probably around 50-60 ohms, which is too low. Hopefully the board house can propose a stackup with more favorable dimensions for these traces, but even if not, given what I've seen of the way USB2 wires are done in PC cases I'm thinking it's probably fine in practice. I could set up a matching network at each end but it's probably not needed and that'd just be more hassle when assembling the board.

Connection to the Wii power rails will be by removing the Wii's original bulk caps, soldering the flex PCB down to those pads, and then placing the caps back right on top of the flex. There are several vias in each pad, for two reasons: first, conductivity, but second, to allow solder to flow through easily, so we can hopefully get a good quality bond for these connections.

Previously-ordered test boards aren't back yet, but the bottom-side alignment test should be here any day and the flex connector test stuff shouldn't be too far behind it. Connectors for testing are already in.
E4697ECC-80AA-462C-8ED6-A513EDF7C844.jpeg
 
Last edited:

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
Got the last part I needed this weekend to test the ZIF connectors. I now have the connectors themselves along with two test PCBs (one flexible, one rigid) from OSH Park.
IMG_1133.jpgIMG_1140.jpegIMG_0636.jpg

Their flex service only offers one thickness so I added a few layers of "Koptan" tape ("Kapton" is technically a trademark, so I guess that's someone's solution to market a knock-off) to bring it to the required 0.3 mm thickness. The rigid board is their 2 sided, 2 oz copper service, which I also had never ordered before. I made the board a little too quickly and didn't check their design rules for the 2oz boards, so some of the traces ended up merging at one of the connectors, but a bit of time with the Dremel salvaged it easily.
20200605093925.JPG20200605094654.JPG
Luckily, that's not the connector I was planning to use anyway. So anyway, I soldered the TE connector on and got it all mocked up. The flex PCB connects every adjacent pair, and the other connections were made by jumpers on the base board so there's just one single circuit that goes through every pin in series.
IMG_1145.jpg20200526163206.JPG
After measuring resistance as a quick sanity check, I put a power supply across it and gradually increased it to 0.5 A. This would be equivalent to 10A if all 20 pins were in parallel, or 5A if it were powering a Wii (5A in + 5A out - both directions generate heat and voltage drop, so they both have to be counted). I let it run like that for 24 hours, and then did 25 cycles of removing and re-attaching the flex PCB, to make sure it would be reliable. By measuring voltage at various points and doing some math, I was also able to calculate that the connector was providing _at most_ 10 milliohms of resistance per contact. It was not noticeably warm at all. With all that in mind, I gave @jefflongo the go-ahead to order his boards using that connector.
IMG_1147.jpg
Then I decided to crank up the current, because why not? I let it run at 1A for a few hours, which got barely noticeably warm (I don't have a great temp measurement setup right now, but it was probably about 10ºC over ambient). Then I cranked it up to 2A for a few hours, which got it up to around 40ºC over ambient. It was definitely quite toasty, but still worked fine. When it cooled back down, I re-measured resistance and it turned up just about the same as before. Since then, I've been letting it run at 2A while I'm in the room, just to see how much abuse it can take.
IMG_1160.jpg

Next steps: I still need to finish my layout and get the top flex ordered. I've been busy with other stuff and exhausted for a week or two, but I'm trying to get motivated to get back into it here.
 

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
It’s been a while. Progress is progressively progressing. But slowly - life gets full sometimes, and hobby projects are the first to suffer.

I’ve got the top-side design more or less finalized. Once I’ve got the silk screen done and the overall design checked, I’ll be ordering it and moving on to the bottom side design.

Here’s the latest paper mock-up assembled with some boards from @jefflongo’s portable design;

1DCFB18F-7F69-4F43-BBFC-0CA5AE1C299D.jpeg8723D1D9-FB24-4762-9479-73D1385D140A.jpeg
 

mokus

.
Joined
Apr 12, 2020
Messages
23
Likes
76
Got slowed down a bit on this, but things are still moving along. After a couple friends took some time to review the design, I went ahead and ordered them. I would've liked to take more time to polish up the silkscreen but at this point it's more important to get some momentum back.

And now for the big news: I has boards now! Just off the plane from China:
IMG_1817.JPGIMG_1819 2.JPGIMG_1820.JPG

They're pretty much exactly as expected, complete with stiffener to make the connector ends the correct thickness, peel-and-stick adhesive under the temperature sensor, and so on. The only problem I've found so far is that they didn't do one of the cutouts I requested. The marked area in this pic should be cut out to provide access to the bluetooth module communication traces on the Wii. It's not too bad though, there's no metal there so it should be pretty easy to trim it out with a craft knife.
IMG_1819.jpg

And now my mockup using @jefflongo's prototype boards has a real WiirdFlex in it:
IMG_1818.JPGIMG_0066.jpg

I'll be sending some of these to him soon to assemble onto a Wii for more extensive testing. And now on to designing the bottom side! (and hopefully no rev2 of this one)
 
Top