Yes, one of the mods tried, think it was marshallh? Can't find the thread at the moment, nothing has been posted on it for a while, so no idea if the project was on hold or became too difficult or just failed. Idea is rather than connecting a cart slot to the corresponding pins is to connect the cart slot directly to their corresponding contacts on the chip directly. Same process of work as any other relocation, in principle.nitro2k01 wrote:What's the blue rectangle for? Has anyone ever attempted to do a N64p without cart slot? o_O
Reason I put a blue rectangle and called it "nuts" was that you would need to rewire literally dozens of contacts, most of which go to the cart slot pins, and solder mostly to very small pins on the chips. Can be done, looking at the board now - achievable, but an awful lot of work to save about 20mm off the board.
In regards to making the board slimmer, I think it can be done and I will be trying the technique in my next project.
It has been shown by hailrazer that actually the N64 doesn't need heatsinks and a fan, using the stock metal solid heatsinks and the metal plate you get standard with an N64 is fine, and works ok even when trimmed and put into a portable with no airflow.
My idea is therefore to remove the stock heatsink blocks entirely and stick the gunk from above the chips directly to the metal plate; relocate and remove components (eg reset button, etc), you then end up with quite a low board - about 50% slimmer in fact. You can also use the metal plate to secure the cart slot onto! Happy of course if someone else wants to try this method out before I do, which is why I am sharing it.
