Question Ashida Blackscreen

[ColdCut]

Hey all, first post here outside of the welcome board, I am just now finishing up my first ever Wii portable, an Ashida, however I need some help troubleshooting some issues I have had in the last legs of the build. When I finally got everything assembled (PMS Lite, PD3, DD board, RVLamp, trimmed Wii, and interface board), the Wii turned on and loaded into RVLoader. The controls worked, audio worked but wasnt very loud, the screen worked, and I was able to boot into Melee, and Brawl, but it would crash pretty easily. I ended up screwing the case together and trying to boot it once more before trouble shooting, however this time I just got a black screen saying RVLoader was loading, and then it would froze right there, I tried to boot once more, same thing. Then once more, I tried to boot, this time nothing, though the fan turned on, the CPU and GPU both heated up, and after about 10 seconds the screen lite up a bit. I then tried to reroute my SCW and SDW lines away from other wires, and checked my board for shorts, finding none. Still nothing. I then tried rewiring my U10 wire and wired composite to the Wii to check if maybe it was the dd board or screen. Still nothing. I think it might be my PMS-Lite as one of the components on the boards shell has been cracked, and a little bit of the traces have been exposed, in my photos I outlined them in red, though I am not sure as in tests prior to soldering the DD and controller PCBs the Wii would boot into RVLoader just fine, every time. I have attached below some pictures of my wiring and all, any help or advice would be very appreciated.

 

[ColdCut]

EDIT: Through the power of some compressed air, the console now turns on and loads into RVLoader. However, it still crashes very easily, the controls in game are suuuupppper wonky, and the speakers dont get very loud, need to troubleshoot further, though it now turning on and loading into RVLoader is a huge step. I am still open to any advice if anyone has any, but hopefully getting everything else in order shouldn't hard.

 

[cy]

The first thing I noticed when looking at your pictures is that it looks like there's quite a bit of uncleaned flux residue. Most of your soldering looks acceptable especially if this is your first build, but some wires do look like they were tinned or stripped further than they need to be. Here are some examples:

Wires that are tinned much further than they need to be like this can short easily. This is especially concerning when looking at your fan wires since those are power wires that could easily be shorting to ground or the nearby 5v pad which could fry the unit! The flux that you never cleaned is on display in the second attachment I gave and should really be cleaned up with some isopropyl alcohol. Many flux brands say they're "no clean" flux, but that's not true at all! You need to clean the flux regardless!

It sounds like you've got a slew of issues going on with this unit, the most note-worthy one being that games or RVLoader itself are crashing or just won't load. This behavior is a sign that your USB data wires are either insufficiently soldered, too long, or not twisted tightly enough. It's also possible that they are running into interference because the Ashida is a bit of a noisy build, so if shortening the wires and twisting them to be a bit tighter doesn't work out for you, you may try re-routing them. The GameCube data line is also known to have issues with this build being so noisy, and shielding it (twisting it tightly with a ground wire) should solve it randomly disconnecting.

With all of that said, if I were you, I'd clean up all the flux, shorten residual tinned wires so they look more like the bottom wire in your first picture, and clean up some solder joints. If you really need to, it may be best to rip most of the wires and redo it in a cleaner manner. I would also clean up any solder joints that look spiky instead of shiny and round - this can be done by fluxing and reheating said wires.

With all of that said, this is better than a lot of first attempts I've seen at making a portable! Most of your soldering looks pretty decent especially for a first time! Good luck getting this together!

 

[ColdCut]

Thanks for the advice! I have since cleaned up the my boards considerably with some IPA, and redid my fan wires. Originally they were tinned so far because when trying to solder them in the first time, the heat of my soldering iron melted the wire casing, but with some heat shrink tubing I have cut much of that back.

This is in fact my first portable! I have done some other minor moding projects in the past, such as installing a backlit GBA screen and building a PhobGCC, however nothing as ambitious as a portable.

Also by your recommendation I have redone some of the wires that were tinned to far, such as my u10 wire. Things are working much better now, my audio works, my controls work, and when I boot into games things go pretty smoothly. The only issues I am having now is RVLoader will still crash sometimes (albeit much less than before), and when I plug the console into charge, it would appear there is something going on with my SCW and SDW wires, as I get no indication of CPU temp, or battery life, and RVLoader crashes more often. I think this may just be a matter of routing them better, but I still have some wires on the board that are a bit sketch and might be causing an issue, so if rerouting doesn't work I will revisit those. I will also keep an eye on the PMS PD board as that could be causing it too I think. Regardless, I will continue to troubleshoot over the coming week or so whenever I have time, and if all goes well I will be able to finish my first ever portable!

 

[cy]

You may also need to twist the SCW and SDW wires with ground to shield them. I can't promise that will fix the issue, but since the Ashida is a noisy build it might help. As for the issues you're still sometimes having with RVLoader and games crashing, have you tried reformatting the micro SD card to FAT32 with 32kb clusters? It may also be worth sanity testing that card on an unmodded Wii or trying out a different micro SD card entirely to help isolate the issue. If neither of those fix it, then it may still be related to the wire length, solder joints, or excess solder that may still be shorting things.

I'm glad to hear things are working better now! I remember how daunting my first portable was to build. You're doing great especially since this is your first! Knowing how to solder and having the right equipment goes a long way and can save you a lot of money in botched parts.

Good luck!