SS - Thanks! Assuming the N64 works after slice and rewire, I plan on doing the same on the PSone screen board, some of the board can be trimmed off anyway (grounds) and the rest should be able to be cut and sliced too as with the N64 board; however I don't plan on doing this unless I succeed with the N64 board - N64 boards are very cheap, PSone screens are not!
BTW, really pleased I invested in a GameBit a while back, I can open an N64, remove the shielding, screws, heatsink blocks and remove the board in 6 minutes flat!
Although I spent literally 2 days on wiring the board and now starting again, at least I proved to myself that I could solder successfully to such small connections, to me, that is quite something.
Issue I know I will get is when folding back small mobo sections, that imposes on what is behind, so the way around that is to keep the thicker round cells I am using as they only cover about 60% of the width of the screen and about 75% of the height; so there would be space for the board remainders to fit alongside; as well as the controller board (hopefully). Would be nice to use the slim Li-pos Skyone suggested, however until I have everything in place I don't know if I can or use Li-ions for the reason mentioned above (plus of course they are effectively free as I already have them).
Yes, could be on line for another 30 page WIP, you lucky thing!
(or just a couple more pages only, if the N64 board doesn't want to go "slimming" and the project dies.
themadhacker - Good advice. I used my compressed air can as I normally do, however it would be extremely easy for particles to get wedged in between the chips pins and I might not be able to see them or remove them either. I haven't had the electrical buzz before (BTW, came from the speakers on the PSone screen, even though I didn't wire audio up), so your advice is probably right. I normally also use a craft knife to slice the edges from a section I have cut a board section out from (learnt from my TurboGrafx project recently); didn't do on this occasion, although I should have.
When I slice the board this time I will cover the pins on the chips with electrical tape so they can't accumulate any metal dust. Thanks.
thewise1 - I wanted to use one of my many so-so game carts for testing, as I was feeding 3.3v and 12v directly to the cart; if anything went wrong with the cart it wouldn't be so bad.
Board is working, not fried, however I originally planned to remove the top then also slice the board, however I didn't think first that I would get a similar end result by just slicing. I therefore have masses of intricate wiring for no reason, and will make slice and rewiring the other section far too hard.
Mentioned "final attempt" because I think I only have a couple of N64's left, don't see them really cheap so much these days. Thinking about it, I have the board from my Multi-system I can cannabalise, so I probably have two N64 boards I can spare! In my N64 graveyard, I have the original one I fried with too many volts, the NTSC one (needs to be binned), two I failed with trying an expansion pack relocation a few months ago, and now the one I successfully did above, but is now no use to me (and has the electical buzzing).
By cutting along the line I shown above, it looks like I will only have to wire probably about 5 wires from the cart slot pins as all the other traces will be intact - I just wire a game cart directly to the pins as normal. the wires I will have to do will only be two audio wires and the three to the PIF chip (which has nice large pins). The bit behind the cart pins can be trimmed, the bit below the expansion pack can be trimmed. I could end up with an N64 board 112 x 102mm potentially; the PSone screen itself is 117 x 94mm. Hey, that means if I rotate the N64 board, it will mean perfect size.
This is the size I am aiming at - just the size of the PSone screen itself (metal tabs removed) - as you notice, just enough room for an N64 game cart (internal) and cart slot with crammed wiring. This is why if I succeeded, this would be the smallest N64 portable in the world, although it would be a bit chunky - however thinking about it, having it about 60-70mm thick wouldn't be a bad thing, as it gives space to comfortably use a d-pad, joystick and A + B buttons.
I never would have thought! Wow, incredible. Amazing. Astounding. Superior.
and it's e-u-r-d-d-r-u-e a palindrome/hijack
