Worklog The LIGHTNiiNG - BLOCKED

[RedEnergy]

I second the idea for using some sort of hotplate. The PCB itself can bake at those temperatures for a while and worst case the soldermask might start to discolour. One of the benefits of using the hot plate is that all of your ground pours are completely at temperature and should only take a little bit of a kick with a heatgun to get over the solder melting temperature.

It might be worth to design some sort of chip alignment tool to make sure each of the balls mate with their correct pad. I've done some cowboy rework on smaller BGA grids and it was fairly easy to short out a single ball. You could do something like a PETG 3D print coated in foil or I've seen 3D printed jigs that use old PCBs as the bit that actually touches the chip since it'll resist the heat.

Unfortunate you don't happen to have an X-ray machine laying around to validate the solder job before power on

Unfortunately I don't have that kind of advanced tecnology machines . I have to find another way to check the solder joints

He could make a board to train with BGA soldering before trying with the chip itself, in the worklog I talked about it.

Thats what I wanted to do, since i have 6 PBCs avaliable, i can use some of them to practise

 

[Mister M]

Thats what I wanted to do, since i have 6 PBCs avaliable, i can use some of them to practise

https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/an-attempt-to-recreate-the-ps2-pcb.4786/page-2

Here I talk about my idea for this.

 

[Dugways]

Unfortunately I don't have that kind of advanced tecnology machines . I have to find another way to check the solder joints

I guess the biggest issues would be connecting VCC/GND together or backwards, which you could test with just a multimeter on the power rails. If you cross data lines, it should just not work instead of blowing up the chip

 

[RedEnergy]

I guess the biggest issues would be connecting VCC/GND together or backwards, which you could test with just a multimeter on the power rails. If you cross data lines, it should just not work instead of blowing up the chip

Sorry if I ask but I don't know what VCC is

 

[Dugways]

Oh sorry, VCC is just a generic term for the positive voltage rail/rails. I'm not sure if the Wii runs off 3.3V or 1.8V on the CPU

 

[RedEnergy]

Oh ok, thank you. So If i remember well the CPU is the one at the bottom and it runs completely off 1.15V, while the GPU runs off all the different voltages (3.3V, 1.8V, 1V and 1.15V). To connect them together I have basically copied the original Wii layers, so I just hope everything runs properly.

 

[SparkleBear]

Wow Red! Great work mate!!! Im really excited to see how the rest of assembly goes.

Are you planning to relocate the u10 relocation for the final PCB? You don't necessarily need to follow the u5 pad location like the guide suggests. If you're planning on integrating the mx chip too you will likely just want to run traces to the vias?

IIRC, it is the NAND and GPU that are tied to one another with keys. So if you end up needing more CPU or RAM because of mistake you could harvest from another. I could be wrong about that though... Hopefully no mistakes though. Maybe a good idea to make a backup of nand with BootMii before tearing down the untrimmed wii... Keep all the options open for solutions down the road.

The grid on that GPU is so big with sooo many points. Wow, good technique will be in order. I look forward to honing those skills too... and tooling up for that sort of job. Between Liightning and Vegas a riivo

Man this is so cool!

 

[RedEnergy]

So, these days I was trying to figure out what the dimensions of the final PCB might be, and it seems to me that it might be a little too big. So i was thinking about a solution in order to not take up too much space in width with the components.
So I thought about the motherboard of the most recent iPhones, and I remembered that their PCBs are made up of several boards stuck on top of each other.

Since the missing components (such as those of the G.C +, or the U-Amp 2) are very thin, I could use the Iphone method, but instead of having small pads like the ones of a CPU, i could create some circuit boards whit castellated holes. Basically I would be using the same method I used to relocate the Bluetooth chip on the test board.

I'm thinking about using this method because I'm worried that by putting every component on a sigle PCB (included the ones from the screen driver board) I would end up by having a large circuit board. I Also thought about keeping the screen driver board as it is, but it would take away quite a lot of space in height. This are just some options that I've been thinking to, but I won't be able to take a decision untill I got all the components.

 

[Chickacruh]

Wouldn't stacking boards like that end up making it thicker? I thought you were trying to make this portable as thin as possible

 

[RedEnergy]

Wouldn't stacking boards like that end up making it thicker? I thought you were trying to make this portable as thin as possible

Of course, but let me make an example. Down here you can see that if I use 18650 battery cells, there would still be quite a lot of space between the PCB and the back side of the portable. So I asked myself "Why not use it?"

I also thought that if I use this method, it would't be difficult to make the circuit boards less high than the battery, so in that case I could also use a flat Lipo battery, wich can be even half the thikness of a 18650 battery cell.
Now I'm just making some assumptions. This is not my final idea

 

[Viilmo]

For the screen you could just implement a RVL-DD from @Aurelio when it becomes available which
also means you can just remove the AVE.

 

[RedEnergy]

For the screen you could just implement a RVL-DD from @Aurelio when i becomes available what also means you can just remove the AVE.

That would be even better, I could save so much space by using it, but the problem is where can I get one and when would it still be available?

 

[Chickacruh]

you could also save space by doing a nand relocation. GO full on omega style

 

[Viilmo]

That would be even better, I could save so much space by using it, but the problem is where can I get one and when would it still be available?

Well thats the problem. The RVL-DD is supposed to get on the 4layertech site but due to the chip shortage they aren't available. They were sold for a brief time on the BB Store. Only place you can get it atm is from another user.

 

[RedEnergy]

Finally I got everything I need. I started by trying to wire up all the 4layertech PCBs so I can check that everything works. I’m having some problems with the video output, but for now is the only problem i have.

 

[Mister M]

Finally I got everything I need. I started by trying to wire up all the 4layertech PCBs so I can check that everything works. I’m having some problems with the video output, but for now is the only problem i have.View attachment 22422View attachment 22421View attachment 22420

Looking forward to your project. Do you have the link of the place you bought the screen driver, can you send it to me?

 

[RedEnergy]

Looking forward to your project. Do you have the link of the place you bought the screen driver, can you send it to me?

Here it is
Kit driver LCD 5" Kit HD 800*480

33.12US $ 31% OFF|5 inch DIY HD projector + LCD driver board kit 800*480 HD driver board Kit|Tablet LCDs & Panels| - AliExpress

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

a.aliexpress.com

I’m also uploading the image where you can se the components that I’ve removed to run it off 3,3V

SOLVED VGA PROBLEM:https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/no-vga-signal.4980/

 

[sequetuveu]

@RedEnergy
I don't know if you resolved your problem of hotplate if not
this is a cheap alternative https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/4001260602109.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2fra
it's used in this video


but as you can see you should always keep an eye on the board
but if you can spend a little bit more (15€ ) on this pid controler https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/32975122837.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.4dbe45a3Z2adiA&algo_pvid=e445894e-1666-41d3-9ba0-9a3a1a641c50&algo_exp_id=e445894e-1666-41d3-9ba0-9a3a1a641c50-0&pdp_ext_f={"sku_id":"12000021774353119"}&pdp_npi=2@dis!EUR!!15.44!!!!!@2100bddd16522109983602249eca26!12000021774353119!sea
you'll be able to set the temperature without worrying about burning you're board

 

[RedEnergy]

Here is a short video of the Wii power up;

 

[RedEnergy]

So, I basically got all the material I was missing, and in the next days I plan to start relocating all the components on my PCB. I'll also try to take as many pictures as possible (maybe a video would be even better) in order to show you how I'm going to reball the CPU, GPU and RAM.