starting a gamecube project. Frankencube

[rokubungi]

so I'm starting an actual portable project I'm starting out with a revision c gamecube, a wiikey, thinkpad 380 heatsink that I've eventually ground that plus shaped extension off the bottom of, a third party gamecube controller, and a intec ps2 screen (I'm going to run everything off of 11.1v dc liIon or a 12v dc power adaptor

so far I've got the motherboard stripped of ports gamecube solder has a very high melting temperature my desoldering iron couldn't even melt it I had to heat up the iron even more on a gas range to desolder the ports I just ripped the non- essential ports off..

and then I used arctic alumina adhesive to glue the flattened thinkpad heatsink to the main chips.

so far the MB still works.

next step will be soldering ide cable to the motherboard and then wait for a breakout board for the wiikey.

wires connected to CG motherboard. waiting for breakout board to hook it up to the wiikey.


I'm looking for a wavebird with a burnt out chip to use as part of the case wire up these controls to the third party controller's mainboard. I want a wavebird because it will be acting as the right and left sides of the portable and it is pretty square so it will integrate into a frankencase better I'm sure I 'll be using a lot of sheet styrene and bondo on this project


going to use an older leapfrog as the base cut the front off use sheet styrene and plastic epoxy to make it flat to attach most of the psone screen bezel

update: 6/30/2011

got the breakout board soldered up and was desoldering the controller ribbon connector and pulled up 2 traces arrggghhh!!!!! I thought the part let go but it just barely held on. anyone know of a smd leg,hole through or pad further away than a 1/2" from the connector the reset and battery can attach to?

[rokubungi]

bump for help

I screwed up a bit and lifted some traces I really need a good close up of the motherboard on a DOL-101 around the controller ribbon connector so I can find an alternate solder point
actually it was a double screw up because I was counting left to right but I noticed on some of the pictures on here I had the front of the motherboard torward me so everything was soldered in reverse order.... the thing is I thought.... "oh, I just pulled up +5 and GND no big deal..." so I covered it with hot glue because the other connections were pretty fragile and I really didn't want them undone. I start to connect the 2 leads to a gnd and +5 and the power light lights..... this is when I realize my mistake.

[uesleiporto]

What batteries you want to use ?

i'm finishing my project, but is too hard to find a method to power these gamecubes.
i want 2 hours or 1:30 more or less

[rokubungi]

hmmm I can't get anything to load from my wiikey.. I press the pin 29-ground disconnect and the blue light flashes on the wiikey and onscreen it says it's not a valid disk ..
if I remove the card it gives me the must restart error.

I tested continuity and have it from each pin and double checked the pinouts.. and everything looks right. is there a different pinout for the disk drive on a dol-101? could my wires be too long? (I screwed up the original ribbon cable and my new one is about 6" long so it's about 10" of wire between the board and the wiikey.) could the fan I have be causing problems being right next to the disk drive pins on the GC? or do I need some kind of software loaded to my SD card.. (I haven't seen this mentioned in other threads so I just put the iso(s) on the card using WBFS 4.0 right?


if all else fails is there anyone who can build a cable if I send in my old gamecube disk drive board (the one with the cn101 connector ) so I don't have any risk of messing up the motherboard when desoldering


update:

turns out the wiikey was sent without the dip set correctly and without instructions I figured that they shouldn't be messed with (hey I might erase the firmware or something) found a different guide on modretro with a complete diagram including dip settings.. so now I have it up and running. works fine my soldering was good afterall.

[uesleiporto]

hmmm I can't get anything to load from my wiikey.. I press the pin 29-ground disconnect and the blue light flashes on the wiikey and onscreen it says it's not a valid disk ..
if I remove the card it gives me the must restart error.

I tested continuity and have it from each pin and double checked the pinouts.. and everything looks right. is there a different pinout for the disk drive on a dol-101? could my wires be too long? (I screwed up the original ribbon cable and my new one is about 6" long so it's about 10" of wire between the board and the wiikey.) could the fan I have be causing problems being right next to the disk drive pins on the GC? or do I need some kind of software loaded to my SD card.. (I haven't seen this mentioned in other threads so I just put the iso(s) on the card using WBFS 4.0 right?


if all else fails is there anyone who can build a cable if I send in my old gamecube disk drive board (the one with the cn101 connector ) so I don't have any risk of messing up the motherboard when desoldering


update:

turns out the wiikey was sent without the dip set correctly and without instructions I figured that they shouldn't be messed with (hey I might erase the firmware or something) found a different guide on modretro with a complete diagram including dip settings.. so now I have it up and running. works fine my soldering was good afterall.

Oww good relief !! where's the guide that you found on modretro?
maybe i'll need this guide because i bought one wiikey fusion and i want to use in my new project
is how your project? you are trimming the board?

[rokubungi]

the important bit is that dip switch #1 is down toward the number the rest stay up. and they taped over it like it's not supposed to be messed with or something.

I'm undecided if I'm going to trim the GC motherboard. I'll have to wait till my datamax comes in. I will trim the left side of the PSOne screen as it is where a bit of the controller board will go. good thing about the original Nintendo controllers is the chip isn't one of those gloptops so if you really wanted to you could remove the chip and get rid of 75% of the board