collinE's N64p W.I.P.

collinE · Post by **collinE** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 4:02 pm

I've gotten enough done on my N64 to finally make a post about it. I was waiting until I had something to show as opposed to putting up the catchy name I thought of or my best artwork of my case concept. Up until recently the only tool I had to work with was a puny cordless powerdrill and a file. It has taken forever.

I've got the screen modded and cut down to size...

our good friend, the zenith

I didn't have a dremel at the time, so I nail polished the leads of the LED to keep them from touching the metal frame. Then I found a file in an old tool box and filed the frame down.

Never soldered before so these first few tries were fun... and ugly.

4 LED's wired

soldering improved very quickly

up and running! no video yet, but at least the LED mod worked. I saw lovablechevy cut the plastic so she'd still have the screw posts to work with so I kindly stole it and made it my own.

I have a controller tore up and ready to be bondo-ed in, have every part I need, I have my vac-former made, and am working on a mold. I'm making it out of plaster because I have no wood-working tools and my clay molds crack and fall apart.

I realize this now puts pressure on me to give updates frequently and make quicker progress

, so hopefully I can do that for you guys. like I said, I have a dremel now so that should speed things up 10 fold. and of course, tips and criticisms are welcome.

GoldenfrankO · Post by **GoldenfrankO** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 4:26 pm

it's a good start.

collinE · Post by **collinE** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 5:43 pm

It all runs off the battery fine. I used the polaroid BT41.

I don't think I'm going to wire the controller until I can mount the pieces on the case. Too many wires going all over the place kinda makes me crazy

To try out the game, I just reconnected a controller port.

I gotta couple questions. Seems like a lot of bulk here... is there anything I can remove from the screen's power jack circuit board?

I imagine I don't need anything except the jack itself and just wire directly to it, but just wanted some one to confirm it.

Also, on the back of the screen

can I remove that black capacitor thingy in the upper left? or the one down at the bottom? I've never seen any of the PSone screens with the one near the bottom so I was surprised to see it.

thanks!

Valium · Post by **Valium** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 6:21 pm

The one on the bottom right can be removed, top left cannot. (top left isn't a cap anyway, inductor I believe)

collinE · Post by **collinE** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 7:17 pm

good. The one on the bottom bothered me more anyway. GONE!

eurddrue · Post by **eurddrue** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 7:22 pm

*sigh* I need to start my portable, you must have a lot of motivation collin.

you sir have inspired me to make my portable. but wait hold on isn't there gonna be another competition soon? I think I may wait until that starts, humph *goes back to procrastination*

SonyPortableizer · Post by **SonyPortableizer** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 7:40 pm

Cool, the screen shot of JB makes it look so much cooler!
And there is another competition?-Heard nothing about it

hailrazer · Post by **hailrazer** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 8:19 pm

You can remove the capacitor but you will then get interference lines in the screen when you put the screen near the N64 motherboard with no shielding.

Believe me I know. I tried 4 screens and 3 N64 motherboards before I realized the cap helped and then adding metal shielding between the two helped more.

Just extend it and move it out of the way.

collinE · Post by **collinE** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 8:37 pm

Right after I wrote that post, I went and ripped it off all defiantly.

what? competition? uh, then sorry guys. I'm... uh... not working on a portable yet.

*end of thread*

eurddrue · Post by **eurddrue** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 9:39 pm

I looked it up and here it is:

grossafe wrote:
lovablechevy wrote:
palmertech wrote: Maybe a full fledged portable contest once a year, and some random mod contest twice, late fall, early spring. One with a theme (Say, controllers), and one with no theme at all, just any random mod. Also, we could make them much shorter, say, 4 weeks.

It would get peoples butt in gear and stop procrastinating!

as long as you're only referring to the 2 random mods. any less time than 6 weeks for the full fledged portable will not be good. a lot of us had to drop out due to 6 weeks being too short.

If its an annual thing, I think we could let the full-on portable contest a full two months since it won't be spur of the moment like this one was.

I was mistaken, there isn't gonna be a contest every 2 months, it's once every year.
you can keep working on your portable, sorry I got worked up.

evilteddy · Post by **evilteddy** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 10:43 pm

That board that you want to get rid of looks like a board to drop the voltage down to the screen level. What voltage is going into the jack. If it is 7.2V then you don't need the little board except for the protection it probably offers. If you plugpack for the screen outputs 12V find a 7.2V power source and wire it straight onto the screen.

Sorry if this is obvious stuff to you.

collinE · Post by **collinE** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 11:55 pm

Ok, thread open again.

evilteddy wrote:Sorry if this is obvious stuff to you.

No, that's good to hear. Everybody needs to hear obvious stuff every once in a while. Anyway, what I know about electronics I learned from here, sooo not much.

The input is 12v, I believe. Yes, 12v and 3A. But this is the Polaroid charger for the battery. I'm pretty sure that means that this guy...

takes the voltage down to a safe level already and then my screen and 64 power come from that.

Whatever though, I'll have extra room in my case for it. I'm gonna make it big so I don't have to worry for my first time.

collinE · Post by **collinE** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:52 am

mother effer. I was hoping to have already been done or close to done with my plaster mold, but apparently plaster has to dry for a while.

I took a small carboard box and cut it down to a manageable height, but it wasn't long enough, so I cut it in half and taped in a strip between the two halves to make it longer. It wasn't pretty, but it got the job done. Poured in the plaster, waited two hours for it to set, and pulled the thing out.

The bucket told me that I could let it dry for 24 hours or microwave it for about 15 minutes, so I microwave it and it was then just hot and wet. Not dry. I let it dry for 24 hours and it was still just as wet. Come to find out, the instructions were for those little plaster things you put on a christmas tree. So it has taken about three days now and its dry. I have to cut it down and sand it up to start vac forming the case. *sigh*

my wife and son, just got back into town so I don't know when I'll get a moment to sit down and do it.

Edit: the fatty picture should be the normal size shortly, my bad.

collinE · Post by **collinE** » Sat Oct 11, 2008 11:01 pm

TRIPLE!

I gotta bunch of pictures, but you guys don't want to see those. You want to see this one

I'd post more WIP pictures, but I just got done with work and I'm terrrd. Maybe tomorrow.

ShockSlayer · Post by **ShockSlayer** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 9:08 am

Wow, that looks sweet!

Good luck!

SS