Worklog Ginger's Wii Portable Worklog

My screen is always white. From power on, to input in, it's always white. Not even the no input screen changes. Any suggestions??
 
So pulling it out and putting it back in?
 
It was a short between composite and ground. Fixed it, it white screens, flashes black when it normally picks up video, and the goes right back to white. Is it dead?

EDIT: The Wii is fine. Hooked it up to my TV and got video. Is there any chance of saving the screen? It would appear that my contest entry it not going to make it, which pisses me off because it was done. Completely finished.

EDIT2: White screens on every input, not just composite.

EDIT 3: Well, I had it working this morning. Only problem was that my vdown button wasn't properly alligned and that I didn't like the amount of pressure on the back of my case. Something went wrong after that. I just ran tests and my portable is fully functional other than the screen.
Screenshot_2017-07-28-20-56-07.png
Screenshot_2017-07-28-20-56-02.png
if this counts as a submission I'll give it a proper write-up. If not, the oh well. It looks like an FFC problem.
 
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All righty, well it's time for an update.

I really couldn't make any progress until last week when my screen arrived. Operation "Revive Dead Screen" was unsuccessful. One of the critical GPIO pins got shorted somewhere or a component to regulate said line failed, and nothing gets past the white screen. I noticed that one of the pins on my FFC cable was gone dull and figured that maybe it had gotten bent too much and snapped part of the pin off. Ordered a new cable, and got to watch that same pad melt. So a new cable did not solve my problem. Went ahead and dropped $30 on a new screen and it has worked like a charm. A HUGE thanks to @Shank for troubleshooting my screen with me at 1AM his time, helping me trace the pins on the IC with the datasheet, offering ideas, and advising me on a new screen.

I'm sure some of you are wondering how I overcame my biggest case dilemma: no screw posts to hold it together. I decided that screw posts are too hard and that I could just hot glue it all shut! Just kidding. I later found out that my method is actually super similar to how Downing puts small screw posts into his portables.

(I definitely had pictures of this process, but I dunno what happened to them)
Essentially I went to Lowe's, bought $3 worth of screws and nuts, and then spun five nuts onto each screw. I applied a coat of epoxy around the screws, but was careful not to get any on the screw. This gave me my screw posts. From there, I epoxied them to the front of my case, and once that dried I smothered more epoxy around them, which was probably overkill but they ain't moving. This ended up being a really good solution, but I won't ever use it again because I'm going to design screw posts into my cases from here on out. If I ever have to frankencase (perish the thought) then I could definitely see myself using this method again.

My internals had to be tweaked a little bit to accommodate the new screen. The screen was the exact same size, but the drive board had to sit directly on top of the screen. This just meant that I needed to move my PCB to the other side of my case, which wasn't too difficult. The lack of an eight inch ribbon cable also means that my case could have been thinner with this new screen.

Putting it all back together has gone pretty smoothly. Had a couple of hiccups with some parts of my controls, but it took me like 20 minutes to get everything ironed out and working again there. Sound is having issues, but I just need to take some more time to sit down and troubleshoot it. Other than that, its fully functional!

The back of my case shrunk, so I'm getting a new one printed. Hopefully I'll be able to close it up and never have to take it apart again next week.

I also want to thank all of you for your help, and especially the other 2017 contestants. Even though it was a contest, I know for a fact that I received lots of help and advice from each contestant even though we were competing. Thank you all for your help!
 
So I'm getting at least one funky resistance on my Wii motherboard right now. I'm measuring 70 ohms of resistance between 1.15v and GND, but every single other time I've measured I've gotten 30 ohms. What could be causing this? I'm not sure if my other resistances might be changed, because those have caps around them, and I've only really checked to make sure that they weren't continuous with GND. I haven't powered the board at all since the resistance changed. Thanks!

EDIT: Nevermind, my multimeter is acting wonky. It thinks there are 70 ohms of resistance even when the leads are touching. h m m
 
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Nope. Maybe 1/3 times I turn it on that happens. But the good news is that just about everything works! I just need to fix my L, Dup, and X buttons, which is proving more difficult than I had anticipated.
 
So I've got a bit of a bummer update. My controller issues were pretty much all fixed when all of the sudden my GC+ started thinking that my Dpad was always pushed up. Which is a really big issue in Postloader, because it constantly refreshes the GameCube and Wii pages, making it impossible to use a GC controller for anything. And I haven't been able to get it to stop without disconnecting my GC+. Here's a really long list of all the things I've tried:
  • Disconnecting the Dpad data line from the GC+ altogether, this didn't change anything.
  • Checked for shorts between the pad and 3.3v, GND, and the nearby pads. Didn't find anything out of the ordinary.
  • Ensured that it really was the Dpad by going into the GC controller test with a Wiimote and then turning on my controller.
  • Detached, cleaned all the solder off, and scrubbed with IPA. Twice.
  • Swapped the pull-up resistor on that particular line and made sure it was properly connected. No change.
  • Tried booting up in safe mode.
  • Tried booting up into stick reset mode.
  • Tried flashing a new firmware to the GC+.
I'm out of ideas and @Aurelio has offered all the suggestions he can without holding it himself (Thanks Aurelio!). The last thing I could try is detaching the main IC from the PCB and resoldering it, but I need to pick up a hot air station before I can try that. Odds are that I screwed myself over six months ago when I brutally mauled my GC+. If any of you have ideas I'd be happy to try them, but I've resigned myself to waiting until Noah restocks some in the store.

I dunno how long that is going to take, but I plan on starting on my next project while I wait. Fear not, the WaluWiigi will be finished, but portablizing has become a drug really fun thing that I spend a lot of time and money on. I've got some great ideas and some great inspiration from the recent finished projects and ongoing ones as well. Stay tuned!
 
GingerOfOz said:
So I've got a bit of a bummer update. My controller issues were pretty much all fixed when all of the sudden my GC+ started thinking that my Dpad was always pushed up. Which is a really big issue in Postloader, because it constantly refreshes the GameCube and Wii pages, making it impossible to use a GC controller for anything. And I haven't been able to get it to stop without disconnecting my GC+. Here's a really long list of all the things I've tried:
  • Disconnecting the Dpad data line from the GC+ altogether, this didn't change anything.
  • Checked for shorts between the pad and 3.3v, GND, and the nearby pads. Didn't find anything out of the ordinary.
  • Ensured that it really was the Dpad by going into the GC controller test with a Wiimote and then turning on my controller.
  • Detached, cleaned all the solder off, and scrubbed with IPA. Twice.
  • Swapped the pull-up resistor on that particular line and made sure it was properly connected. No change.
  • Tried booting up in safe mode.
  • Tried booting up into stick reset mode.
  • Tried flashing a new firmware to the GC+.
I'm out of ideas and @Aurelio has offered all the suggestions he can without holding it himself (Thanks Aurelio!). The last thing I could try is detaching the main IC from the PCB and resoldering it, but I need to pick up a hot air station before I can try that. Odds are that I screwed myself over six months ago when I brutally mauled my GC+. If any of you have ideas I'd be happy to try them, but I've resigned myself to waiting until Noah restocks some in the store.

I dunno how long that is going to take, but I plan on starting on my next project while I wait. Fear not, the WaluWiigi will be finished, but portablizing has become a drug really fun thing that I spend a lot of time and money on. I've got some great ideas and some great inspiration from the recent finished projects and ongoing ones as well. Stay tuned!
Click to expand...
Since the beginning I've wondered which one of us will finish our portable first. For awhile I was certain it would be me, but recently I was certain it was you. Now I'm beginning to think it's a toss up. ;)
 
jefflongo said:
Since the beginning I've wondered which one of us will finish our portable first. For awhile I was certain it would be me, but recently I was certain it was you. Now I'm beginning to think it's a toss up. ;)
Click to expand...

I think the trick is to never get your hopes up. Every single time, as soon as I think I'm close to finishing my project says "Nope lol have this random problem".
 
GingerOfOz said:
I think the trick is to never get your hopes up. Every single time, as soon as I think I'm close to finishing my project says "Nope lol have this random problem".
Click to expand...


Right before I check something, I Always go "Time for a reality check."
 
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