Question Beginner here. i am completely lost and have so many questions

[GreaterMichiganModding]

Hello, I am Greater Michigan Modding, and i am from, well Michigan USA. I am 14 & completely new to the wii scene, as i only got a wii in may. I have been really bored recently and decided tha i want to build a wii portable, but i have too many questions. i know basic electronics, and have messed with nintendo ds and 2ds a lot. also i know soldering and have built the gameboy macro (the 1 screen ndsl). here my questions

1: What portable do i even build

2: how different is the soldering from a DS Lite to the Wii

3: Is making a handheld wii even a good project for beginners

(i really can’t even remember any other questions i’ve had but there are the most importance to me)

PS: Sorry if its worded badly its 9 PM here right now, and i am really nervioso

 

[cy]

For your first question, the Ashida is a good starting project for getting into building portables.

For your third question, if you're new to soldering, I would at least get comfortable and reasonably adept at soldering since micro soldering is required in order to build a portable Wii. Personally, I got by without any problems having a Wii as my first soldering project, but not everyone does. It's very easy to destroy stuff and put yourself at risk if you don't know what you're doing, so I'm not sure I'd recommend making a Wii if you're not real familiar with soldering.

Some other general advice I'd give you is to read the definitive Wii trimming guide, look through the G-Boy guide, and read some worklogs on the forums. There's a ton you can learn by reading through other people's worklogs. I would also recommend checking out my Wii micro soldering guide where I cover all the basic micro soldering you'll need to be able to do to put together a Wii portable.

An old community member of ours once said something along the lines of "Portablizing is 80% reading, 15% troubleshooting, and 5% making cool projects". You'll need to do a lot of reading, have the right equipment and have a good skillset if you want to make even the easiest of portables functional.

 

[GreaterMichiganModding]

For your first question, the Ashida is a good starting project for getting into building portables.

For your third question, if you're new to soldering, I would at least get comfortable and reasonably adept at soldering since micro soldering is required in order to build a portable Wii. Personally, I got by without any problems having a Wii as my first soldering project, but not everyone does. It's very easy to destroy stuff and put yourself at risk if you don't know what you're doing, so I'm not sure I'd recommend making a Wii if you're not real familiar with soldering.

Some other general advice I'd give you is to read the definitive Wii trimming guide, look through the G-Boy guide, and read some worklogs on the forums. There's a ton you can learn by reading through other people's worklogs. I would also recommend checking out my Wii micro soldering guide where I cover all the basic micro soldering you'll need to be able to do to put together a Wii portable.

An old community member of ours once said something along the lines of "Portablizing is 80% reading, 15% troubleshooting, and 5% making cool projects". You'll need to do a lot of reading, have the right equipment and have a good skillset if you want to make even the easiest of portables functional.

Thank you very much! i have already read through the trimming guide.when you say micro soldering do you mean like Smd?

 

[cy]

Thank you very much! i have already read through the trimming guide.when you say micro soldering do you mean like Smd?

Well in the case of the Wii, micro soldering usually refers to soldering to vias. There are two other instances of micro soldering on the Wii though, there's two traces 0.1mm traces you have to solder to if you decide to add bluetooth support (for Wii remotes), and there's the H & V sync lines on the AVE for switching from Composite to VGA video. Micro soldering can also refer to soldering to SMDs but we usually find ourselves soldering wires to one of these SMDs or to a via somewhere rather than soldering the SMD itself onto the board. For more information, I would highly recommend checking out my Wii micro soldering guide here. It covers via wiring as well as soldering to the pins of the AVE.

In short, yeah you do solder to some SMDs on the Wii, but it's not quite the same as soldering the SMD itself to a board, instead, we usually find ourselves soldering a wire to a component on the SMD such as the H & V sync pins on the AVE chip.

 

[GreaterMichiganModding]

Well in the case of the Wii, micro soldering usually refers to soldering to vias. There are two other instances of micro soldering on the Wii though, there's two traces 0.1mm traces you have to solder to if you decide to add bluetooth support (for Wii remotes), and there's the H & V sync lines on the AVE for switching from Composite to VGA video. Micro soldering can also refer to soldering to SMDs but we usually find ourselves soldering wires to one of these SMDs or to a via somewhere rather than soldering the SMD itself onto the board. For more information, I would highly recommend checking out my Wii micro soldering guide here. It covers via wiring as well as soldering to the pins of the AVE.

In short, yeah you do solder to some SMDs on the Wii, but it's not quite the same as soldering the SMD itself to a board, instead, we usually find ourselves soldering a wire to a component on the SMD such as the H & V sync pins on the AVE chip.

ah. looks wasaaay easier than i thought i am not gonna lie still looks hard even for me so i am gonna get the soldering iron you recommended and use my xbox 360 as a test dummy

 

[cy]

To be clear, there are much better soldering irons out there. My iron is decent though and hits the decent middle ground between price and performance. I can't promise that there aren't better irons out there for the same price as my iron, but you could do a lot worse than the Weller WE1010NA.

That said, my flux recommendation is a heavy hitter in the community with some of the most skilled users swearing by it! Definitely invest in some Chipquik SMD291 if you don't already have some outstanding flux.

Last thing I'll mention here that I'll also update my guide to include is that I like to solder at 622°F. This isn't an exact science, and you might find that higher or lower temps work for better you. This is just what works best for me.