Worklog Worklog - Behiimoth

[The_Dankest]

Hello, this is my first time creating a thread so please forgive any mistakes.
This will be my first portable, and I've started thinking about the design a while ago. As the name suggests, the plan is a large portable with an even larger battery life. Below I have a mockup of what the front panel may look like.

The current planned screen is a 15.4" laptop panel. Unfortunately it uses a ccfl backlight so I'll have to run it off 12v.

Doesn't really matter though because the battery contains an enormous 19,800mAh, so I think I'm set. Seriously, it took a couple days to charge this with a 20w bms.

Anyways I've already relocated u10 on this board and I think its ready to be trimmed. I modified the omgwtf trim to include the av and USB ports, to give myself an easier time down the road.

I would appreciate all your thoughts and feedback you have on this odd thing so far.
The name is a work in progress so if you have any ideas let me know
Yes I know the battery looks like a bomb lol.

 

[Stitches]

I'm much more worried about those Mumble ass chinesium regulators you're using. Those things can and have caught fire under sustained load, and often are unable to supply enough current to run a Wii in a stable fashion even when they don't combust.

 

[The_Dankest]

I've trimmed the board now, and I think I did a decent job. Time to get to sanding

 

[The_Dankest]

I'm done sanding and West said my resistances are ok! Initially I thought my 3v3 resistances were low though.

 

[The_Dankest]

I'm much more worried about those Mumble ass chinesium regulators you're using. Those things can and have caught fire under sustained load, and often are unable to supply enough current to run a Wii in a stable fashion even when they don't combust.

Yeah the chinesium regs are on their way out. I'll probably get a pms cause I don't want to deal with setting the voltage on pth08080s

 

[Chickacruh]

A whopping 9 battery cells. I'm impressed

 

[The_Dankest]

Yesterday I tried to boot the board using the mp1584en regs, and big suprise, it didn't boot. I went ahead and checked the voltages on each rail and sure enough the voltages were dropping more than an acceptable amount (I think the 3v3 rail was giving 2.9v). I could probably crank up the regs until they reach desired voltages under load but then I risk burning my trim.
Tldr: cheap regs suck, I ordered a five pack of pth08080s.

 

[The_Dankest]

So I have finally wired up all of the regulators, and the trim works! I actually wasn't sure if it would work granted it's my first trim.

Before I got it to boot it wouldn't do anything besides heat up, so I checked the voltages and the 1v15 line was at 0v9. Turns out the voltage set pin of the reg had separated from the reg itself. after fixing that and adding a couple of ground wires (the yellow crocodile clip), it booted.

The best part about this custom trim is that I don't have to relocate USB, and it retains the fan connector.

 

[The_Dankest]

Unfortunately while trying to get rvloader work something goofed and now my 1v15 reg is outputting 0v85 (obviously it's not booting anymore).
It's a pth regs so I shouldn't ever give less than 0v9 anyways

 

[Stitches]

Got photos of the regs? If you're lucky, it might be something visually obvious

 

[The_Dankest]

I cleaned up all my regs and managed to fix one of pth08080wah regs I messed up. They work now and the wii should boot after I wire it

 

[AFE123]

How are you powering the regs?

 

[The_Dankest]

How are you powering the regs?

In the end they'll be supplied from the 5v usb port of a power bank board. For testing I'm using a usb wall adapter

 

[AFE123]

In the end they'll be supplied from the 5v usb port of a power bank board. For testing I'm using a usb wall adapter

Interesting, what Powerbank board are you using?

 

[The_Dankest]

Interesting, what Powerbank board are you using?

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/2255800321000473.html

 

[The_Dankest]

I am ready to pick up this project again after almost two years of deep introspective... And the PSU-Plus from CrazyGadget (thank you for making these bro.)

This will be much more enjoyable to work with then my old regs:

Nothing wrong with PTH regs, I just worked with them poorly.
I will be using every voltage line from the PSU-Plus now. No janky power solutions like wiring the 5v usb line from the bms to the Wii.
The other proprietary board I'm using is an older GC+ 2.0 from Aurelio (you have my gratitude)

Does this count as new old stock? Its never been used.
Originally I was set on using this small heatsink I had laying around but it doesn't cover everything:

Will this work (along with a fan,) or should I trim a stock heatsink?
For audio and video I am still using the 15.4" lcd (ccfl backlight) with an appropriate driver. I'm using small Vizio tv speakers driven directly from the driver (built in amp and headers)

I'm using a boost converter to give the driver ~11v because the ccfl transformer wont work with anything lower. Its possible I could run the transformer separate from the lcd driver but I feel it could interfere with brightness adjustment via the driver boards osd. Shouldn't be a huge problem considering I'm still using the same nine 2.2Ah 18650's, however, these cells are old and almost definitely don't live up to their rated capacity.

failed solder joints need to be fixed. If I really want to I can replace these with four 5Ah 21700s (or 26650s for freak appeal) and end up with a lighter product with longer battery life.
speaking of: I also want to include a digital voltmeter in the Behiimoth to indicate battery life. I will have a switch for it so its not annoying all the time.

either one will work, but it would be cool to see the current draw. the wiring for that could be more annoying than not and its bulkier than the small one which would be really easy to physically and electrically integrate. which one should I choose?
I am also going to integrate GameCube controller ports, bluetooth, mx, and probably wifi in the Behiimoth.
The reasons for this portables size are:
1. When I started this project I wanted to spend as little money as possible and that led me to using an old laptop lcd and battery.
2. I rarely play video games by myself so the LCD, GameCube ports, battery, and speakers (features that contribute to its size) make it easy and enjoyable to play multiplayer.

 

[The_Dankest]

As far as cad goes, I designed the majority of the case a while ago in tinkercad. Ive since learned fusion and have ceased using tinkercad.

Tinkercad is a big slow mess when it comes to things like this. Recreating this properly in fusion shouldn't take too long.

 

[The_Dankest]

I've wired up the Wii and the processors get warm, but no signal is given. I'm thinking the single atx psu derived ground wire could be limiting current. Power is being supplied from an original Wii power brick. I'm testing video through composite and I've tried my miniature Tianma LCD as well as a crt but neither receive video, although the crt does flicker when power is given to the regs. I'm also going to check resistances again and give a good sanding to the edges regardless. The resistances present before can be found earlier in the thread. This board has booted before so it should boot again.

 

[Shank]

Hard to tell from the photo, but did you wire up the U10 Via? Are you connecting a properly formatted USB drive, and powering said drive with 5v?

 

[The_Dankest]

Hard to tell from the photo, but did you wire up the U10 Via? Are you connecting a properly formatted USB drive, and powering said drive with 5v?

There's an extremely thin wire connecting u10 but I'll check it. There is no 5v or USB connected. USB isn't needed for boot right? I'll wire it anyways.