Gamecube voltage... NO WAY does it ACTUALLY need 12V...

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:50 am

Okay, I don't expect many of you to know this... but I'm sure the nice handful of pros can help me out.

I'm thinking about building a GC laptop, but I refuse to just shove 12V into it and waste money on two extra Li-Ion cells. It's like feeding an N64 a full 12V... doesn't need it. It just bumps down to 5V/3.3V anyway.

I know it doesn't really need 12V, but I don't yet have a Gamecube to take apart and test what ACTUALLY needs 12V myself. I plan to re-build the entire PSU (if necessary) to bump the minimum voltage down. I know the fan needs 12V... that can be replaced with a 5V fan. What else is there? Doesn't the PSU just convert down to 5V/3.3V for everything else? Thanks in advance... I know you guys can advise.

lifeisbetterwithketchup · Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:01 am

I believe that while Ben was messing with a GC, he said that the sound required the 12v.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:08 am

lifeisbetterwithketchup wrote:I believe that while Ben was messing with a GC, he said that the sound required the 12v.

So if thats right and only sound needs 12v, you could get an upconverter for the sound stuff.
The batteries won't last as long as if you had two to get 14.8v, 1 7.2v pack with 3000mAh won't last as long as 2 7.2v packs with 3000mAh in series, the 2 packs have higher wattage.

Post by **Gamelver** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 11:53 am

I believe it was when I was messing around with the Gamecube I said it needs 12V for sound

....

at least I did first

. Anyway, the N64 does just run on 5V, because it uses the 7805 regulator. The Gamecube may or may not convert the 12V to a lower voltage.....if you can trace the motherboard to find out where the 12V goes to, then great, but it looks like you'll need at least 12V for the sound...

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 1:57 pm

Okay, the sound... I see. That can't possibly take much, so what I might be able to do is probe the PSU connector to find out which terminal is 12V, and then try to put a mAh meter between it. If it's only taking 100mAh or something, then I could just use a step-up regulator.

Bah... now I wish I had a Gamecube to experiment on...

I want to use two 3.7V 11,000mAh (not a typo) Li-Ion batteries to power my GC laptop for ULTRA long SSBM sessions.

Buuuut... these things are $50 a piece, so I'd just as soon NOT have to use 4. Plus I'll be using a 9.2" 480p LCD screen that's going to cost me $170, and I'll have to buy a GC component video cable... there's another $50... built-in WaveBird receiver along with the WaveBird itself... $20 minimum used at EB... not to mention the GC itself, $60 at EB used. So... I need to conserve money. Dunno what makes me think I'll ever have enough money to build this thing to begin with... but... maybe after a few birthdays and Christmases... >.>

I estimate this thing will probably cost me about $500... But the good news is that I'll make it so that I can re-use the screen and batteries (bulk of the cost) for future portables.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 6:22 pm

Is there a reason you can't make the component cable?

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 6:45 pm

Yeah... the "super-ultra-special-decoder-chip" (actually called the "CMPV-DOL" chip) is the reason for that...

Read more here.

Edit: Gamey... I was just reading your GC sticky... you seem to know a lot about its PSU. From what I read... I understand you were able to run the Gamecube with ONLY the 4 voltage wires (ridiculous...) and ground... is this correct? I need to confirm this, because if that's true, then I can build a new PSU from scratch and solve all my problems. But if the PSU has some other sort of "data" line or something running to the motherboard as well... that will make things a bit more difficult.

So, basically what I'm asking is, is the PSU board JUST a PSU? Can I recreate it with a handful of switching regulators?

Edit 2: Hey... just wondering... if I produced some nice GC PSUs that only required 7.2V... would any of you guys buy them?

sgtpepper · Post by **sgtpepper** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:46 pm

Electric Rain wrote:Dunno what makes me think I'll ever have enough money to build this thing to begin with... but... maybe after a few birthdays and Christmases... >.>

I estimate this thing will probably cost me about $500... But the good news is that I'll make it so that I can re-use the screen and batteries (bulk of the cost) for future portables.

Why not use a Wii instead? You could probably save some money...

Post by **Gamelver** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 10:29 pm

the GC is a bit smaller, in terms of the length and height.....the Wii is taller/longer, but much thinner overall.

Anyway, yeah, there are only 4 voltages, 3.4V, 1.9V, 5V, and 12V. You could use a step-up regulator, though honestly I don't know how much that save, if it does at all. Depends on the regulators you use and the batteries and all that.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:50 am

Okay, thanks man... soooo.... this is probably too much to ask... much just in case one of you would be generous enough to do so... could anyone test each GC PSU voltage to see how much mAh each line sucks up? I know... probably not... but... please? Maybe?

atari2600a · Post by **atari2600a** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:33 am

I too say the Wii would be a better system for you to use. The drive already auto-ejects, it's probably less power-hungry, plus it'll stay modern for the next 5 years! (the GCN is already a dead system market-wise.)

Plus, if you replace the heatsink & know what you're doing, you can get the drive & mobo down to probably under 1.5" in height.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:10 am

putting a switching regulators on all these lines might be a bit of a risk, if your plan is really to bypass the entire "power board". i havent studied it in detail but id have to guess that theres a bunch of power stabilization circuitry on there - compare to the noisy output of a switching regulator. people had problems with just one dc-dc in their n64

an what you want is mA, not mAh. unless you actually want people to add up the total current over an hour

ShockSlayer · Post by **ShockSlayer** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:45 am

Electric Rain wrote:Edit 2: Hey... just wondering... if I produced some nice GC PSUs that only required 7.2V... would any of you guys buy them?

Yes.

SS

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:56 pm

timmeh87 wrote:an what you want is mA, not mAh. unless you actually want people to add up the total current over an hour

Wouldn't that be the same?

I think the Wii uses more power, Ben said you can run the GC off AAs, but not the Wii.

Metroid fan · Post by **Metroid fan** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 6:09 pm

ShockSlayer wrote:
Electric Rain wrote:Edit 2: Hey... just wondering... if I produced some nice GC PSUs that only required 7.2V... would any of you guys buy them?
Yes.

SS

Double yes.