I also wanted to use the expansion pack in this one without taking up a whole lot of space depth wise, so that was the first thing I set out to do. It took about 2 days work to wire the pack straight to the board and make a bracket for it. Probably would have taken less if I hadn't missed one of the connections the first time through

It's a little dark, but you can probably get the idea still. I also cleaned up the cartridge slot area and put longer wires on it, but that only took a couple of hours to do.
Next was figuring out a way to hold the heatsinks in place, which turned out to be the most time consuming part so far. In the process of making a bracket for the heatsinks, I also decided I would try to mount the controller, screen, and power supply all on the same one to make a single unit. After a few days (plus painting and drying time) I had one bracket to hold the N64, screen, and power supply together, and two smaller brackets to hold the cartridge slot in place.


The bracket is made out of thin sheet steel, and painted to prevent rusting.

Top view of the board. The controller is screwed down to a piece of sheet copper, which was soldered down to one of the mounts that sticks up off the board.

Back view of the board with brackets in place. Both are made out of the aluminum panels that come with project boxes as an alternate cover.

Side view with everything in place. The board in the center is the DC-DC converter (PTH08080 from TI) and a 7805 to power a 30mm fan.
Overall the entire unit is just under 2.5" thick. I'm planning to have the controls below and to the sides of the screen, and the battery (6-cell RC pack) above the cartridge slot (which points down). So far I've spent a little over a week doing everything, and all that's left now is to hook up all the wires and make a case for it.
edit: rehosted images on imageshack, stupid geocities




