Worklog Wii U R&D Thread (WURD)

Nold

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Flex PCB aside, you could just cut out the section of board with the NAND and eMMC. Nintendo provided handy dummy pads for all the data lines on the TSOP NAND, and you can grab the eMMC signals from the nearby series resistors. Either way, the NANDs are like the one thing on the mobo that should be a piece of cake.
That's exactly what i was thinking. once we get this thing booting from custom regs, i will give this a shot!
 

Stitches

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We'll need to find a reliable 1v reg that can output over 10A
 
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Ok my friend moving and getting rid of his Wii U he never uses it anymore so he is going to let me take it. So when i get it ill start messing around with it to try to make it run as a portable!
 
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As of now, On normal FW and current CFWs, the gamepad is required to open any system apps, as well as most games. It is also required for the current CFW setups. During my work repairing a gamepad, I found it will not boot without the following plugged in: Wi-Fi card, Display, Touchscreen input, Display backlight. Controls, speakers, NFC, and the dock connector on the bottom are not required for the gamepad to boot. There are many test points on the gamepad motherboard. I have yet to look at the Grandmotherboard (wii u console mobo) but i'll let y'all know if i see anything of interest when i tear down the console.
 
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Shank

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Luca

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Pretty much what was said in the first and second page of this thread. Doing that would be the first steps
 

YveltalGriffin

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Wii U has been on my back burner since last year, mostly because of the annoying disc drive board requirement and my Dreamcast and SNES projects taking priority.

I did design a Wii U regulator board that uses the stock 15V Wii U power brick and generates all the necessary voltages, but I never ordered the PCBs.
café-reg3.png

It has an on-off switch and power-good LEDs for each of the high-current regulators. BOM cost is about 45USD/board, but most of the regulators are impossible to get anyway due to the chip shortage. If the regs do become available anytime soon, I would be more than happy to assemble a few of these and ship them to anyone who wants to run tests.
 

Stitches

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Wii U has been on my back burner since last year, mostly because of the annoying disc drive board requirement and my Dreamcast and SNES projects taking priority.

I did design a Wii U regulator board that uses the stock 15V Wii U power brick and generates all the necessary voltages, but I never ordered the PCBs.
View attachment 17565
It has an on-off switch and power-good LEDs for each of the high-current regulators. BOM cost is about 45USD/board, but most of the regulators are impossible to get anyway due to the chip shortage. If the regs do become available anytime soon, I would be more than happy to assemble a few of these and ship them to anyone who wants to run tests.
boyfriend U comp.jpg
 
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We should try to make it a gamepad ds shape

We should try to make it a gamepad ds shape
ince last year, ]
It has an on-off switch and power-good LEDs for each of the high-current regulators. BOM cost is about 45USD/board, but most of the regulators are impossible to get anyway due to the chip shortage. If the regs do become available anytime soon, I would be more than happy to assemble a few of these and ship them to anyone who wants to run tests.
[/QUOTE]

All ready found a work around for the power brick
 

monke

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looking into it the wii u gamepad has a res of 854x480 soo if there wasnt a way to homebrew a wii u to try and display 1080 (like it does to a tv) then thered really be no point to a wii u portable other than being able to play newer games i ahve no real electronics knowledge this is all i can really do to help lol
 
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Oh wow, I've been looking for an excuse to push work on the UDS back to work on a slightly easier project, and i think i just found it. This will definitely help with the idea, and i wish i had the skills to help look into this.
 

monke

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not gonna pretend that i know all that much about how this would actually work or be done with my whole 2 electrical projects both being online diy kits but if you had to lay out pros/cons for a wii u portable/reasons to work on it:
cons:
more heat the wii u uses significantly more power than the wii this is already known
lack of any work around for the disk drive:pretty serious issue disk drives are power hungry and even if you get around using it (i think there might be a way to hack a wii and use an sd card for games) but regardless they are large and heavy whgich makes them not ideal for a protable
wii u is more expensive just makes all of the testing requiered riskier as its an 100 gdp ish investment per go rather than a 40 gdp ish one
pros: 1080p fhd displays there are many 5 inch is 1080p displays out there often intended for rasberry pi (some of them even being amoleds which would be nice)
more games: the wii u only has a modest library however its ability to emulate the wii means that you can play wii games too

i think wii u portables would be cool
(correct me if im wrong on anything ive said,i probably am)
 
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