A little help here....

[Admiral Mukavich]

Yes, i'm a noob, and a bit ambitious, as the n64 will be my first project, but the appeal is enormous, and i have a couple questions...

First of all, i have a later model n64 (with the plastic chips) here....
(you can also see this on http://www.flickr.com/photos/54403928@N00/233750263)
and was wondering, since the heatsink looks relatively unsubstantial, if it's really required...

second, i was also thinking about cutting down the carts themselves, to save space, is this advisable?

last, i was looking at the power input, and was wondering, what does all this mean, i get the voltages, but what wires am i supposed to solder where?...

laugh if you must, thx for your time

[ShockSlayer]

Yes, i'm a noob,-its "Newb", get your terms right! and a bit ambitious, as the n64 will be my first project, but the appeal is enormous, and i have a couple questions...

First of all, i have a later model n64 (with the plastic chips) here....
(you can also see this on http://www.flickr.com/photos/54403928@N00/233750263)
and was wondering, since the heatsink looks relatively unsubstantial, if it's really required... -Its not, but it is a very good idea to replace it, since the original heatsinks cant work alone.

second, i was also thinking about cutting down the carts themselves, to save space, is this advisable? -NO! Not A good idea.

last, i was looking at the power input, and was wondering, what does all this mean, i get the voltages, but what wires am i supposed to solder where?... Well, you need batteries first, then look in the sticky for a diagram

laugh if you must, thx for your time <- This is unneeded

[vskid]

Those little blocks are just to transfer the heat to the metal shielding and that monster heatsink on top. They get pretty hot, you need at least the block for each chip. Running for a while without them would likely kill your N64.
For your power question, check BenWiki (I don't want to think right now).
As for cutting carts, you'll want to take them apart first so that you know how far you can cut, but I think some games use the whole cart, and this has been brought up manny times but I don't think anyone has tried it. It would also make the games hard to sell if you ever sold them. I'd just stick with the regular games, it wouldn't save a ton of space to cut them down.

[ShockSlayer]

For your power question, check BenWiki (I don't want to think right now).

http://benwiki.gptheatre.co.uk/index.ph ... quirements
Thinking for you.

[vskid]

For your power question, check BenWiki (I don't want to think right now).

http://benwiki.gptheatre.co.uk/index.ph ... quirements
Thinking for you.

Now that I want to think, I think you were thinking something different.
I think he meant he wanted the pinouts, which are here.

[daguuy]

N64 was also my 1st portable (successfully completed) so i know a little something about it. for the heatsinks, you need more than those little metal blocks. they don't dissipate much heat so you need some heatsinks. here's how big my heatsinks are and they work fine (they're outlined in yellow):

those heatsinks are about 1cm deep. i also gave them a little quite fan to circulate the air around them to help.
the power pinout's pretty easy. there's 6 pins, labeled 1-6. connect ground to pin 1, 4, or 5. connect 3.3v to pin 2 or 3. connect 7.2v (on the motherboard it says 12v but it doesn't matter) to pin 6.