my portable n64.. work in progress

[wwwyzzerdd]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the site, but not so new to mods, fabrication, and that sort of stuff. I built an snes portable back in 07, but it was poorly put together and had a few issues, so it ended up breaking.. and I was tired of messing with it.

Both the snes and n64 were a HUGE part of my childhood, so I decided I would build a portable. I'm pretty confident that I can manage to make a decent one this time, considering that I barely knew what I was doing building the portable snes.

I'm just gonna jump into this, and hope for support on the project, that's my main reason for posting it here, to help keep me motivated to work on it.

Anyway, I got to looking around and found a 64 motherboard that I had sitting in a box.. and in the same box, was an old portable dvd player with composite input, how convenient.

Here's what I'm looking at..


I'm hoping to squeeze all that, plus a bare minimum controller(no d-pad), into this.. (there is nothing wrong with having a stuffed puppy on the couch)


The screen may require this board to function, I might be able to get around it, I hope...

It looks like I might be able to mod the screen setup to work without it, but if it does end up being needed, then i will throw out the idea to use this screen, as I have another screen setup without all the dvd crap, of the same size, that accepts composite, and requires a lot less circuitry, the only reason I'm not using it to begin with, is because it is being used in one of my other projects, and I'd hate to have to rip it apart.. but I will if need be.

I am aware that I have to provide some sort of heatsink for the chips, I just dont know what yet. Also not sure about how I'm gonna fit the expansion pack or battery into it yet. I'm going to trim the boards down as much as I can without cutting traces. The whole thing seems close to impossible as far as space is concerned, but I really like how it would go together, I think I might be able to make it fit, if I really cram it in there, perhaps the people here can give me some ideas?

This is all just thrown on the table right now, If I can't manage to squeeze all this into the case, then I will find another case. I am going to build a portable n64.

Thanks in advance for any input on the project.

[wwwyzzerdd]

Well I spent most of the day cutting, and trimming down boards. I found a place for everything, and it all fits into the case, but there is still much work to be done, so I cant really say it will all fit nicely in the end, but I think I can make it work somehow

here's what I've done so far..



I ended up having to use the board from the dvd, I was able to get a picture from the screen without it, but I couldn't get sound, I was able to cut a corner out of it and keep it working, so it fits now


Here's my controller, I cut the d-pad out, and removed the memory card slot



let me know what you think

[Muniosi]

Very neat cutting job on the controller. How did you do it?

[wwwyzzerdd]

Thanks, it was just a cutting disc. I made a mistake somewhere, because this motherboard no longer works, it might have been broken already, but I did play mariokart on it a few months ago, guess that's what I get for not testing it before cutting it, and relocating the cart slot ... oh well, nothing I can do about it now... I have 3 more n64 systems I can hack up, though I really, really don't want to fry another, that would upset me a little. I kinda thought that I might fry one, being my first n64 portable, might as well be my very first portable. I will just have to be more careful this time around, practice makes perfect right?

Anyways, other than the blown motherboard, I made some revisions to the case design, to allow a little more room, its still essentially the same, I will post more about that tomorrow, right now, its almost 4 am, and I haven't gone to sleep yet, lol

[wwwyzzerdd]

Cartridge slot is relocated, and working, right now I am working on powering it with batterys.

The battery pack im using is from the dvd player, it says it puts out 7.4v 3400mA. There are 4 cells, each one putting out 3.7v, so all 4 equal up to 14.8v, 2 of them equal 7.4v so im not sure what im gonna do here...

I totally changed the case, it is now made of thin-ish wood, but still has the same layout basically, it's just about an inch taller, and about a centimeter thicker to make room. I realized that if I was gonna use the other case then it would be much more difficult to squeeze everything in there, lol

Anyway, I have a pth08080wah and a superpad 64 coming in the mail, Idk when the regulator will show but it should be soon, I ordered it today and got the tracking info. The controller should be here tomorrow, I ordered it a few days ago, got it for 4 bucks because the joystick was jammed, replacing it anyways, lol

Yes I ruined an official n64 controller because of my ignorance, didn't know that it couldn't be modded to take a gamecube stick ...original joystick was bad anyway