Discussion Ideas, questions, etc, Post em here!

[fibbef]

I thought you meant you actually wanted to start mass producing your own consoles.

I considered the possibility that that's what he meant, but I know squat about building my own console, so I answered the question I wanted to answer.

 

[Matthew]

Also, if I wanted to 3d Print casing, what material should I use for the safest and sturdiest method? Is 3d Printing buttons worth it or not?

If you want to start doing portablizing, then IMO the best way is to learn basic electronic skills like what @fibbef was saying, and also go through the Guide hub and forums. READ EVERYTHING. The more research you do, the less likely you will mess something up. If you are having a problem chances are that someone has already had that problem and figured out how to solve it.

The number one thing in making a portable is research and design. The more you do of both, then the better your portable will be.

On another note, don't worry it's it's not perfect your first time. My motto: make it work, then make it right.

As far as 3d printing goes, I use PLA for basically everything. ABS is a great plastic as well but for building a case, you can end up having lots of issues with warping. PLA is plenty strong and as long as you do your ventilation and cooling right will work fine for everything.

I personally like printing off buttons because you have much more flexibility in both design and aesthetics. If my button doesn't fit just right, I can change the design rather than buying a new controller and gutting it for it's buttons. If you know how to do some post-work on 3d parts, you can basically make great buttons that are just as good as the original (in my opinion)

Welcome to the community!

 

[JayCantPlay]

Quick question, not sure if this is the right place to ask, but would you say this is a good soldering iron? I'm on a limited budget.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Solderin...&qid=1492715061&sr=8-5&keywords=Weller+WLC100

 

[Matthew]

Quick question, not sure if this is the right place to ask, but would you say this is a good soldering iron? I'm on a limited budget.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Solderin...&qid=1492715061&sr=8-5&keywords=Weller+WLC100

While you may be on a limited budget, skimpping out on a soldering iron is not a good idea. Low quality soldering irons will end up costing you more in money and time in the end. They are very likely to have tons of issues. It is a much better idea to go with a pretty good soldering iron and have a tool that will last you for years to come.

This is the soldering iron that many other users have and it's been thoroughly vetted. I personally use it and it has worked great since I got it.

It's also a good idea to get a conical or pencil tip for it because it doesn't come with one.

 

[JayCantPlay]

While you may be on a limited budget, skimpping out on a soldering iron is not a good idea. Low quality soldering irons will end up costing you more in money and time in the end. They are very likely to have tons of issues. It is a much better idea to go with a pretty good soldering iron and have a tool that will last you for years to come.

This is the soldering iron that many other users have and it's been thoroughly vetted. I personally use it and it has worked great since I got it.

It's also a good idea to get a conical or pencil tip for it because it doesn't come with one.

Thank you very much for the swift reply. I did see this option presented, but I couldn't find it on the UK Amazon site. I'll look around for it anyway. Thanks again!

 

[fibbef]

I tried the cheap route. Let's see how well that played out:

Cheapest Radio Shack iron found in the store: $15
Iron holder because the flimsy metal stand that came with the iron was 9/10 going to lead to my house burning down: $10
Replacement tips because the crappy Shack tips oxidized and wore down too fast: $5/tip
Moments of severe frustration and anguish because the tips were too blunt (lol blunt 4/20 oh snap that's today) for any type of precision soldering and the iron was only hot enough to melt the softest of solder but did a great job burning my fingers: can't put a price on memories.

So I easily spent $30 on absolute crap before I upgraded to a hakko iron. I still use the $10 holder, so I guess that wasn't a complete wash. Still, if you can find a small station like the one Chaos linked, you'd be better off.

 

[Madmorda]

This is the soldering iron that many other users have and it's been thoroughly vetted. I personally use it and it has worked great since I got it.

+1 to this. This iron is the one I use and it's amazing. I can do so much more with it than with my old one, and portablizing involves quite a bit of soldering small things.

 

[MasterfulMonkey]

Are there any recommended guides for making a SNES portable? I've looked around, and while I've read that it's easy to do so, I can't find any.

 

[Doom]

Are there any recommended guides for making a SNES portable? I've looked around, and while I've read that it's easy to do so, I can't find any.

For the SNES Mini, the best you're going to find (probably) is the one in benheck's book from a while ago. There's a few errors but they have been noted and changed thru the community. There's a free pdf of it around somewhere. At the very least it's a good start.

 

[MasterfulMonkey]

For the SNES Mini, the best you're going to find (probably) is the one in benheck's book from a while ago. There's a few errors but they have been noted and changed thru the community. There's a free pdf of it around somewhere. At the very least it's a good start.

I have two SNESs (that's a weird thing to type, lol), so I don't want to buy another one.

 

[Doom]

There's nothing that I know of for the bigger SNES. Not a lot of portablizing was done on that one with the smaller version released.

 

[Madmorda]

If you just want it as a fun project, go for it But there are cheap commercially available portables snes consoles that play carts, which is why people don't usually make their own.

 

[GingerOfOz]

Plus a Raspberry Pi can emulate the SNES pretty much perfectly, and has the bonus of being small and has lots of guides and tutorials on it. The amount of effort, time, and money that it would take to build an SNES portable would be pretty overwhelming compared to making a Pi portable. That's just how I feel though, I know some people really like the idea of original hardware.

 

[fibbef]

Are there any recommended guides for making a SNES portable?

The first portable I finished was a SNESp. I found it to be fairly straightforward. But since I ended up working with a couple of different revisions (both large NTSC models), I noticed a couple of differences.

First, some revisions have the audio chips on the motherboard. Some have them on a separate daughterboard. In this image, the daughterboard connector is the black rectangle to the left of the cart slot. I tried wiring the daughterboard directly to the mobo so it would lay flatter, but after doing so, that SNES never worked again. I couldn't find any shorts and that problem always mystified me. So my advice is if you find that one of your systems has the daughterboard, walk away.

Other thing I noticed is that on the daughterboard model the cart slot pops off and leaves a smaller connector pad underneath (compare this pic with the one above). The other model (the one I ultimately used in my portable) had a slot with through-hole pins. It was tedious, but I was able to get it off the board with a Radio Shack desoldering iron pretty easily. If you don't have a good desoldering solution (hot air, desold iron, etc.) then you're going to have a bad time.

Case-wise, I crammed the board untrimmed into a modified N64 shell, so it was NOT a small portable. For other how-tos, I googled the A/V pinout so I knew where to wire up composite and audio. If you still want to do a SNESp and have other questions, let me know if I can help.

 

[cheese]

The 1CHIP or SNES mini are the best for portables since they have a smaller board.

 

[Frog]

I cant find this info anywhere but what is the dimensions of the omgwtf wii trim and if possible the lmao trim as well.
Im currently designing my case and i dont know if i have enough room to stuff 4 battery cells

Preferably in metrics because i am currently in europe and cant find a ruler that use freedom units

 

[Matthew]

freedom units

'Murica

 

[cheese]

I cant find this info anywhere but what is the dimensions of the omgwtf wii trim and if possible the lmao trim as well.
Im currently designing my case and i dont know if i have enough room to stuff 4 battery cells

Preferably in metrics because i am currently in europe and cant find a ruler that use freedom units

https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/wii-micro.481/page-3#post-17588
There are no guides, and therefor no spec on the LMAO trim... You'll have to figure that one out yourself if you're brave enough to do a NAND bend

 

[Frog]

thanks man i think the omgwtf trim will be enough

 

[Davuld86]

On some PCM's there are two solder points labeled P+ and P-. Where do they go and what do they do?