GAMECUBE PORTABLE WORKLOG!!!!! WITH PICS!!!!!

[Triton]

Also, next time PLEASE do not put your GC Mobo on the carpet.

listen to HDC for once! carpet can and will fry things if your not careful!

[andrewdorsey]

Well I got my gamecube today and bad news. Everything worked fine when I recieved it. I took it apart and it still worked fne, I cut the board and it still worked, I removed the three bottom ports and thats when everything went downhill. After I removed the ports, then hooked everything up and turned it on, the led light would turn on for a second and then turn off and nothing would be on the screen.

Can anyone help me?

Did I fry my board?

[eurddrue]

Well I got my gamecube today and bad news. Everything worked fine when I recieved it. I took it apart and it still worked fne, I cut the board and it still worked, I removed the three bottom ports and thats when everything went downhill. After I removed the ports, then hooked everything up and turned it on, the led light would turn on for a second and then turn off and nothing would be on the screen.

Can anyone help me?

Did I fry my board?

Is your power source giving enough amps to power it? It may only be able to put out enough to light the LED for 1 second then crap out.

[andrewdorsey]

Well I don't have one of those multimeter things to check. But the regulator board heats up wile the power button is pressed down and the fan turns on, so I dont know what to do. I'll probably buy a new gamecube motherboard for fifteen bucks on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0388659266

[eurddrue]

Well I don't have one of those multimeter things to check. But the regulator board heats up wile the power button is pressed down and the fan turns on, so I dont know what to do. I'll probably buy a new gamecube motherboard for fifteen bucks on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0388659266

I actually think that it's your power, because if it was fried, the LED wouldn't light up.

[Basement_Modder]

Same thing happened to me on my GC
(still a WIP, by the way, but my mom won't let
me work on it until summer.
said it interfered with my education )

Turned out it was a short on the board.
I used a can of compressed air to clear the board
of any loose metal parts. Make sure to check for soldier spills.
After that, I waited a 4 days, and it worked again.

[64M320N3]

Turned out it was a short on the board.

It's probably the same case here.
When you removed the ports you could have ripped the traces or perhaps some of the pins actually got connected (when they shouldn't be) when you were removing the ports.
Check all of your traces. Double check all of your traces. If you haven't already, clean the holes that previously contained the ports, or it could have been some mischevious little piece of metal shorting something out, like Basement_Modder said. I wouldn't give up on the board now.

[andrewdorsey]

Sorry guys, the progress has been so slow lately. Plus I am only fourteen and I am limited to an hour of electronics a day. So an hour isn't much...
Anyway, I dont have my camera with me, so I can't post pictures for a little bit.
I know, EVERYBODY loves to see pictures of the progress of any project. Oh well.
I was also grounded for two weeks so that's another reason why the progress is so slow...


Anyway, I do have some updates and questions.
I wired the LED light, that little save settings battery, and the controller today.

My questions are...

I wired the regulator board with five wires (thanks to Kasar!! ) and only the video works.
The sound is not working. Can anyone help me get the sound working? I wired the regulator board the exact way that Kasar wired it and I tripple checked and the sound still wont work.

Also (this is a big problem) the gamecube disk drive wont work.
The gamecube would power on and work when the disk drive is disconnected but when I connect the disk drive, the gamecube wont power on. Strange?

Also, when I turn the gamecube on, after about 10 seconds, the gamecube says ERROR and says to power of the gamecube and look in the gamecube booklet for further instructions.

Any Help???
Please???

[ShockSlayer]

Check w/ a multimeter to see if 12v is getting to the right places. Oh, and for the DD, check to see if any pics on the gc mobo are bridged, y'know, the ones on the plug.

[kasar]

andrewdorsey

pleased to help ^^.

glad to know at least part of my guide worked for 1 guy

btw you should give credits to gamevelver, I just used his schematics for my guide/pics.

about your sound/DD problem, I fully agree with SS solution

no sounds and no DD = something wrong with the 12v line, cause both elements get power from the 12v line pins.

get a multimeter and check the 12v line, if your regulatorboard is not outputing 12v, try replace it or get the 12v line from another power source.

[andrewdorsey]

Good news, the project is up and running again.

I had some money, so I bought a ps1 screen and another gamecube motherboard, and this one has an integrated power board so I dont have to worry about sound or the power.

My screen should get here in about a week or two.

And my gamecube should get here in about 3 or 4 days.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[andrewdorsey]

Yay!!!! My first portable almost done!!! I am about 75% done.

Random pics of project!









Well, thats all for now!


I still have to do a bunch of wiring, especially on the controller, but this project is not going to include batteries

There are two reasons for that, 1. I can't affort them right now, 2. After wiring everything and put it in the case, there is no room for batteries!

hahahahahaha!!!

[kasar]

awesome work mate,its looking good , really good

I like the case

hehe, I saw you also attached the led, battery, reset and other stuff directly to the front pins of the cube

WTF??? no batteries???

noooooo!!!, please!!!, include batteries!!!, everything named portable should run on batteries

if you are short of space, consider buy small li-on batteries, and or consider mod the case to get more internal space (thats why my gamecube project case is as big as a entire house ^^), if you still are unable you can consider adding "external" batteries outside the casing, li-on batteries are a bit expensive, btw :
making portable gamecube = toons of work and money xD

[XCVG]

The problem being that any battery that doesn't cost a fortune won't power a GC for more than an hour. It'd be a pretty epic hour though, lol.

[kasar]

The problem being that any battery that doesn't cost a fortune won't power a GC for more than an hour. It'd be a pretty epic hour though, lol.

yep, thats true.

GC= power hungry
btw, there are good alternatives at low cost.

I bought a 18v 6600mah battery pack from a acer laptop for only 78€.

looking packs with same mah and voltage at batteryspace.com,was arround 2x expensive

I think laptops batteries arent a bad idea at all to do those projects, everything is done due most of them have good quality li-on cells with the PCB all built in, all you need is reallocate the cells to fit at your case, and solder the + and - to your system and charger jack, if you also use a good laptop charger 3A or greather you also can play meanwhile you play, want more?

Im using a acer tm 240 battery 18v 6600 mah, and a 22v, 3,20 A and my gcp works fine, all I need is install the low battery circuit, I saw the diagram arround those forums and it seems very simple to do, I also saw something about variable resistor, so I probably will be able to adjust the circuit to my custom battery.