Question Wii board trim questions

[SlightlySalty]

Hi all! Been creeping for a while on here and decided to start a project I will have serious difficulty with as I've never done this before.

I do not need to cut the Wii board at all but I still need the board to be thin.
*GC memory card slots are not needed
* Only one USB is needed

I've read the definite Wii trimming guide but am not sure if the steps would be the same as I don't want to trim the board down that small (I will mess it up)
Relocating GC ports, USB, power hookups, and AV port is a must.
If anyone has advice or can point me to right direction would be awesome and appreciated.



If this is not in the right place please move. Thanks!

 

[Wesk]

If you are not trimming the board you don't need to relocate components like u10 which the trimming guide specifies. If you are simply relocating components that is ez mode. Remove the components that are to be relocated while keeping them intact (Don't attack them with a dremel or anything stupid, DESOLDER them) and then run your own set of wires from the original ports to wherever you need the components to be.

 

[Stitches]

Hi all! Been creeping for a while on here and decided to start a project I will have serious difficulty with as I've never done this before.

I do not need to cut the Wii board at all but I still need the board to be thin.
*GC memory card slots are not needed
* Only one USB is needed

I've read the definite Wii trimming guide but am not sure if the steps would be the same as I don't want to trim the board down that small (I will mess it up)
Relocating GC ports, USB, power hookups, and AV port is a must.
If anyone has advice or can point me to right direction would be awesome and appreciated.



If this is not in the right place please move. Thanks!

If you are not trimming the board you don't need to relocate components like u10 which the trimming guide specifies. If you are simply relocating components that is ez mode. Remove the components that are to be relocated while keeping them intact (Don't attack them with a dremel or anything stupid, DESOLDER them) and then run your own set of wires from the original ports to wherever you need the components to be.

To expand on this, you'll need a few things to safely remove some of those ports.

• Firstly, you'll need a good soldering iron. A Hakko FX888-D will do the job nicely, and is kinda the standard nowdays for hobby work.
• Second, you'll need some good flux. Kester 951 is decent for the job, and you can get it cheaply mostly everywhere.
• Thirdly, good leaded solder. Not the cheap shit either, brand name. Digikey's a good place to find decent spools of it. You can even match your solder band a type to your flux for optimum workage.
• Fourthly, you'll need some good quality solder braid and needle nose pliers, or a desoldering pump.
• Finally, and this is optional: A desk magnifier with lamp. It isn't required, but I find it helps a lot for small work.

With what I've listed there, you can remove the ports by either:

• Applying a small amount of solder to the braid, applying flux to the port pins, cranking your iron to 420 degrees Celsius, putting the braid against a pin and pushing your iron against the braid to remove the solder from each individual pin. Use the pliers to check if the pin can move freely in its through hole, if not, more flux and more braid until it can. Or....
• Applying flux to the pins, holding your iron against a pin to melt the solder, then pressing the primed pump nozzle against the melted joint and pushing the button to engage MAD SUCC to suck the solder off the pin and into the pump. With a good pump and some practice, this can be faster than using braid, but it takes some time to learn how to do it effectively due to the iron tip needing to remain in contact with the joint while you're also trying to get the pump nozzle over the joint.

I recommend braid method if you have good flux and good braid, but it's up to you. Just be aware that this is going to take a long while regardless of which method you use. The reason I listed a new iron is because the big soldered anchors the ports use need some serious heat to remove, and they usually come off in stages. It will take you many tries, but you'll get there. I find it helps to dilute the solder on the Wii joints with the leaded solder that you'll buy to lower the melting temperature a bit and make it easier to remove. This is one of the few cases of fighting fire with fire actually being helpful.

After they've been removed, you can do as Wes said and run your own wires from the pins of the ports to the pads on the board where they previously resided. I'd use 30AWG wire for the AV port lines and 22AWG wire for power and ground to the power port (The smaller the AWG number the thinner the wire is, so 22 is much thicker than 30). Good luck.

 

[Wesk]

To expand on this, you'll need a few things to safely remove some of those ports.

• Applying flux to the pins, holding your iron against a pin to melt the solder, then pressing the primed pump nozzle against the melted joint and pushing the button to engage MAD SUCC to suck the solder off the pin and into the pump. With a good pump and some practice, this can be faster than using braid, but it takes some time to learn how to do it effectively due to the iron tip needing to remain in contact with the joint while you're also trying to get the pump nozzle over the joint.

Or get one of these, a little pricey but makes desoldering so much easier:
https://www.banggood.com/S-993A-US-...=2635&p=U627203391019201512Z&cur_warehouse=CN

 

[jefflongo]

The memory card ports are going to be really hard to remove by desoldering them, this is my personal technique:

Get some flush cutters and cut the pieces of metal that connect the metal shield to the board. Once you do that you can bend the shield upward to expose the pins. I then cut all the pins from the inside of the port, leaving them long enough so that I can desolder them later. Once all the pins you can reach are cut, bend and twist the port until it comes off. Then desolder the broken pins out.

 

[SlightlySalty]

I will post an update when I'm done with this. That was pretty much all of my concerns with this. Thanks all!