Worklog Finally stealing the Louii once and for all

[Colemak]

After getting hooked on the ideas of portables at the very end of 2019 and early 2020, I eventually dove head first into the process and fried a PMS, somehow broke a Wii as Pickles couldn't fix it, and as I just recently found out, fried a PMS-2 but we'll get to that later.

What are my goals with this project?

• Right now, it's basically just to make a Louii that survives the hands of the unintentional blood god that is me
• As for relocations, I want to do an MX relocation and a Bluetooth relocation on my own and possibly later down the line get some help with a WiFi relocation for Mario Kart WiimFi
• I'm not set on the design, however I do have some Louii style switch buttons from Madmorda so I'll likely do something Blue, although I don't know about material or artwork as of now

My progress so far:

About two days ago, I disassembled a Wii, had a very shoddy trim, and prayed that I didn't botch it this early on

Right now there are two problems, but one is much more obvious than the other. That being the last picture. Fortunately for me, I would lose nothing if I just went crazy sanding it so that's what I did

Now as for the other problem, that one was much less obvious to me but INSTANTLY caught the eyes of other modders in the discord, the Nand lines, unfortunately, I severed two of the traces from the Nand so I had to find their corresponding Vias which didn't go too poorly even though I thought I was completely screwed.

(I'm aware the picture isn't great and it looks like I've bridged two pins, however I checked and they are fortunately not bridged)

After all that I wired everything up to my PMS-2 with an 18650 battery and... no video output and HOLY SHIT THE PMS IS HOT AS HELL

yes the blue wire on ground is meant to be there, I just ran out of black wire, and the picture was taken after disconnecting the battery

Thankfully, Gunnar helped me identify that the BQ IC was fried so I've now ordered a replacement, and I'm really hopeful that there are no other issues with the PMS besides that one chip, because then I'll actually be able to know if my Wii works


My short term plans and some questions:
So when my BQ IC comes in, in about a day or two, I'm going to put that on and try that out, but also I'm realizing I probably need to restock/get new materials to continue this project. As previously mentioned I need more black wire to signify ground, and I likely need to just completely restock everything going on with soldering. I've realized that I need a secondary color of magnet wire so I can twist them together, especially since I need to have an actually shielded connection for my composite out next time, and the only flux I have is like some paste thing? It's some old rosin flux and everyone else seems to use a liquid version which is almost certainly better. I think I have enough solder to survive the whole project but besides that I wouldn't be opposed to getting new of everything. And finally, I'm not sure if I really need to replace this but I only have the default tip for my Hakko FX-888d so I'm not sure if having a big wedge is ideal for a project like this but so far I've survived but if you guys recommend anything else I'm all ears.

All that to say, what do you guys recommend? That would probably set me straight much better than me picking my own materials so if you have any recommendations that would be appreciated, also any advice regarding the portable is very much appreciated.

 

[Stitches]

I have a small spade tip on my 888D that's my favourite tip for this kind of work, I think it's a 1 or 1.5mm tip. It's the same basic dimensions as a standard conical tip, but with two flat faces. Makes soldering to vias and IC legs much nicer. I got it in a cheap multi pack of generic tips on amazon for a handful of dollarydoos.

Since your BQ got nuked, can you show the battery arrangement that you're using?

 

[Colemak]

Not at my station right now, however I can tell you that it's just a single 18650, with wires soldered directly to each end, I triple checked to make sure the negative was on negative and positive on positive, I think I must have messed it up back in I think 2021 when I last used it, that's my only theory.

 

[Stitches]

Using a single cell probably wouldn't have killed the BQ, but several people have had issues getting their Wii to boot reliably when using only 1 cell. When it comes time to test the PMS and try booting the Wii, I recommend using 2 fully charged cells in parallel (not series, putting cells in series will kill the PMS again).

 

[Colemak]

Alright, will do! If you or anyone else has any more advice, I'm all ears.

 

[Colemak]

The Wii still won't boot...
(Writing from phone so sorry for formatting)

I installed the new bq ic, rewired the composite signal, verified every connection was good, tried soldering another battery and... Accidentally let a positive wire touch around the middle of the board and spark for an instant, and while we could say that's the culprit, it was already refusing to boot after I installed the new bq ic and I did the other stuff just to make sure everything else was good.

Here are some pictures, hope a wizard can see what I don't

Once again, sorry for formatting

 

[Colemak]

Not getting anything from the PMS, there's no output voltage on its own

 

[Colemak]

Here are some pictures of the bq ic

 

[E64]

I see some spots on the right side and bottom side that seems like there's no connections to the pads do a touch up with your soldering iron with a good tip and use some flux
Touch up on all the sides just to make sure they're connected

 

[Colemak]

Thanks for your advice, unfortunately I tried that, then tried again, then again, and each time it still wouldn't work, thinking about throwing in the towel...well on the PMS at least, no matter how shitty my portable ends up, or how much blood is on my hands, I'm not giving up the entire project again

 

[Thomas Agastin]

Hi, check this link, it may help.

https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/pms-to-psu-mod.3781/

 

[Customledmods]

For the past 2 weeks I’ve been helping @Avery fix his pms so I’ve replaced the BQ chip and still having same issues the fan spins for a couple seconds then shuts off. During that seconds I can measure all the voltages and they are all correct. When I plug in charger nothing happens.

I’ve also replaced this chip here because there was and still having same issues i mentioned above.

Is it possible I have a bad BQ chip ? Because I recently received a TLV62130RGTR from DigiKey and it was bad

Does anyone have any suggestions or is the board completely dead ?

 

[Colemak]

OK a lot has happened...

For one, I shipped out both the PMS 2 and PMS Lite that I shorted to @Customledmods (thank you btw) and he managed to fix the PMS lite and made sure both the current trim detailed in this worklog, and my old one worked. I also invested in a battery holder so I stop shorting every PMS I get my hands on

After getting everything back, I hooked up the wii that was in this worklog, and despite @Customledmods verifying it working, I just could not get it to work, I redid every joint, and got no results, so I decided to switch to my old trim, almost hoping it wouldn't work because that would mean I'm just missing something obvious, however, It did boot! Which was very exciting since I've never gotten one to boot before, however that also means I have no idea what was happening with the other trim.

This trim is old and was on BBLoader (kinda surprised since I know I initially installed portablizemii on it) so I wired up my PMS PD to it and... everything was great, it updated very quickly and there were no issues.

However, that didn't last long because for some reason when I try to boot now that I have RVLoader installed, it goes to the splash screen and then spits out an error:

.... Ok wtf, I was going to take a new picture that was less blurry than this one and it just randomly worked? Literally nothing changed since the last boot... I guess you take what you can get though, if anyone knows why this might have happened please still let me know, here are some pictures of the original joints (which I redid and had no change on but now after like 5 reboots and reformatting of the sd card it works...) Edit: now I can't repeat that, I have no clue what's happening

I swear after further tightening the wires and redoing the joints nothing changed but for some reason It just agreed with me this time, no idea why...

Well I guess I'll just keep going lol


My plans to continue this project:

1. I'm going to continue testing everything like in Ginger's guide and attempt to relocate the MX Chip and potentially the Bluetooth Module. I do have ambitions for a portable that uses the WiFi flex board, but I really don't want to do anything to crazy on my first portable, especially since It seems like something that wouldn't be the end of the world to add on after I've already completed the build. But when I do, I'll be chasing that 9999vr on McDonald's WiFi every day

2. I'm going to get a case printed from my school's 3d printers since even at its peak, my ender 3 still had some little issues with the print which I don't want on a final product, and right now I simply can't get a level print despite installing a touch probe which makes no sense to me.

3. Once I have the case, I should have received my package from @GingerOfOz who graciously provided me some louii pcbs for free, and resin cast me some buttons (and most importantly the elusive Dpad) and I'll try to fully assemble the build

4. Once I'm finished and I have an actually functional wii... I'm gonna do it all over again because god damn the Ashida is hot, maybe in that one we'll put a WiFi flex in


P.S. I have one extra question which is do I need separate thermal pads? I have the cooling kit from BB Store but that doesn't come with any and I'm not sure if I should order some or what

Edit: I could not replicate the wii fully booting into RVLoader, and twisted the wires even more, using a drill, and still had no luck, no clue what's happening, if you have any clue what's happening, PLEASE help

Thank you for all your help, even if you weren't mentioned, I'm very grateful to anyone who has provided any insight on the process and helped me fix errors

 

[Colemak]

Alright, time for an update half a year later

For the most part I basically didn't work on the project because I was waiting for my friend to spray paint the case which they offered to do, and then after that I didn't really have the motivation to work on it, and when I did, I had to go to college which was a whole other ordeal. But now we're here, still at college, but I have my stuff again, and I have my Louii case with a scuffed paint job (but you'll see that when I'm done) which honestly I thought gave it more personality than redoing it but you'll have to stay tuned to judge that.

First thing I did was try to get my known working Wii trim to boot again, which it did, successfully, and I played a level of Mario Galaxy on it for funsies.

Next I tried to get my other trim working since this one cuts in toward the AVE which is supposedly required for the Louii

And nothing worked, other members of the Discord said it was likely my nand lines since they were severed and had jumper wires to their corresponding vias, but I highly doubted that since @Customledmods was the one who did it, and I know he's VERY good at what he does.

...And I was completely right! For some reason my LDO was simply not giving out 1.8v? But after reflowing its connections it just started working. Not really sure what happened there since everyone agreed that it looked completely fine, and it didn't wiggle at all etc... but if it works it works!

Unfortunately, I still wasn't getting any video out. So I troubleshoot some more, and eventually identified that my VGA cables didn't have continuity with their pins on the AVE, well that's weird because I triple checked the trimming guide and these are exactly where they should work, right? Well turns out upon closer inspection, the trim cuts off the vias that link it to the front, and wiring from the resistors right next to the AVE worked perfectly!

So now it's time to begin assembling the Louii right? Well, I made a silly mistake and didn't wire to the correct pins on the dual tacts after gluing them in, and absolutely destroyed the right one when I was taking it out, and I only had 2, so I can't work on the back until my other dual tacts show up, which will either be this evening or on Monday (We love college mail systems!!!).

But I decided I might as well work on the front and while there were certainly some hiccups, I think it has eventually all come together pretty well, and while I can't really check if it all works, it looks as though I've done everything I can on the front for now minus the LED but I'll get that done when I get back.

Here's a photo for you guys to judge me on

I'm aware my routing isn't exactly perfect, and I could have cut basically every wire a bit shorter, but honestly I think it's fine so far, and not horrible for a first portable, so as long as this is a fully functional front, I'll take it Although obviously if something looks like it is wrong, feel free to point it out, I've already adjusted the left side ribbon cable, but at the end of the day it has to sit awkwardly because of how the case is.



So what's next?

Well hopefully the next post will be Monday or Tuesday next week, announcing that everything is all closed up, and I have no issues, because I am a master portablizer, and I would never make a silly mistake

Edit: I didn't receive my dual tacts today so I guess I'm gonna have to grind the rest of this out on Monday/Tuesday

But if something goes seriously wrong in that time, I'm not sure, as I leave to go back home on Wednesday, and I'm not sure how I feel about transporting a half done portable on a train ride.


Special thanks to everyone who helped, I'll probably forget some names, but just to name a few, @Customledmods, @YveltalGriffin, @Y2K, and @stuckpixel

 

[RegDogg]

Awesome work! Looks great, and I love the design of the Louii, super cool to see others revising it in their own ways!

 

[Customledmods]

Great job man! it’s good to see you back at it and I’m glad you got it working.

 

[Colemak]

So on Monday/Tuesday evening, I got my dual tacts and started to grind out the rest of the portable!

Things were going pretty well, I was following along with Ginger's start to finish Louii build video and eventually, I had connected everything and there was nothing left to do

Unfortunately that's where the good news ends, as I couldn't get the screen to turn on, but I just decided to connect a wire directly from 3v3 to the screen and that worked.

And then I had a USB error, and the controller wasn't working.

I tried flipping data+ and data- numerous times, to no success. I took out the drive to see if it had corrupted but nope, it was fine. Then I decided to try plugging into the PD-2 directly and it was not letting me access the drive, so I now knew that something was wrong with the PD-2.

I was suggested to rewire the UP pad with thicker wire, so I did that, but nothing has changed, USB still doesn't work, and I don't know what to do as of now.

Sorry the picture isn't great but you can make out enough detail to see each connection (This photo was taken after detaching some wires from the wii so I can actually access the PMS and PD freely again).

No, there is no continuity between any connections besides their designated pads, so nothing is being shorted out to my knowledge

My next problem comes in the fact that my batteries won't charge so I can't even boot the Wii anymore. No one seems to have any idea why this is, and I don't either.
Only relevant thing I can say is that the PMS is receiving ~15.5v and the area around the R16, R18, R26-28 resistors gets warm while plugged in, but besides that I have nothing else to add. Nothing is being shorted so I don't really understand why there would be any issue doing this, and none of the chips look blown, and they were functioning for powering the Wii, so I have no idea what separates charging here.

I'm partially considering just buying parts for an Ashida and trying out swapping in the PMS and PD from those to see what's wrong because I don't even know how to trouble shoot this. I really thought that this was gonna be pretty simple and buying a gift for my secret santa would be the hardest thing I have to do but I guess not lol.

Once the PMS and PD issues are resolved, theoretically it should just be getting the controller working (which I'm pretty sure I can figure out pretty quickly) and then we're done.


Any help or ideas are appreciated, I'm completely lost