Question Building an Ashida.

[Archer]

Hello.
This isn't a worklog as of yet, but I wanted to ask a few questions around building an ashida.
I have no previous soldering experience. However, I am quite knowledgeable when it comes to both homebrew and also the Wii in itself.
I was thinking of making an ashida next year as a school project for my final year at high school that would be marked and assessed. It also has to be fully functional otherwise I could fail.
The main reason I made this a seperate thread was to ask one simple question. Is it worth it to make an Ashida based on cost, time, complexity and current documentation for someone with no soldering skills (As I feel exctied and pretty dead set on this idea.)? I am looking for honest answers and unless its pretty impossible, I will most likely create a worklog next year.

 

[SamIam]

Hey, I just finished my first Build so I can give you some first hand experience! If you have no soldering skills whatsoever, it is strongly recommended to practice soldering on some other things that don't work anymore or you don't mind breaking. Another important thing is to get good tools, especially a temperature controlled soldering iron. Most people here recommend the pinecil, idk if that is still the one to go for, but it's pretty affordable and decent quality. As for the overall price, it's kinda expensive and a large amount of effort if you just want to play your Wii games, but if you are passionate about it it's definitely worth it imho! It took me about 2.5 full days (so about 20h ish) to built it (with some soldering experience in the past), with some slight troubleshooting, but the people here helped a lot!
So the TLDR is if you have the money and are interested in electronics or just love the Wii it's definitely doable and a cool project

 

[Stitches]

Assuming you have sufficient spending money to buy the parts, the required tools and consumables, and have some cash leftover to buy replacements (you will break something), yeah the Ashida is a decent choice. A couple of people have built them for school projects before and did well.

You will definitely want to start practicing soldering as soon as possible though. Practicing on scrap boards pulled from busted electronics is an excellent start.

 

[goopflinger97]

I mean it depends on how smooth you want it to go.

I started mine in a similar position: no soldering experience, minimal hardware knowledge (pc building and controller repair). The project did not end well; I bought one wrong Wii mobo, broke another, and learned soldering the hard way by trial and error on Wii boards and 4layer pcbs. I have had to order multiple parts multiple times.

Since then I've done some robot stuff and my skill foundation is way larger, so I am starting the project again, and everything is a lot easier and moves a lot faster.

If you do start now, I'd recommend buying a pre-trimmed motherboard off ali-express (unless you want to go through the ordeal of trying not to inhale PCB while doing surgery on a Wii), getting really good with an adjustable temp soldering iron, and learning how to use a multimeter.

EDIT: I've also spent upwards of $500 on tools and materials on this project. It has been worth it