Worklog Booshman's N64 portable

[cheese]

but I'm deliberating on making it a secont controller port. If I make a 3.5mm jack to controller converter I could play with a second player when not in docked mode.

I'd honestly suggest this, a second controller port through a 3.5mm jack is super easy.

 

[Booshman]

Second player audio jack to N64 port done.

 

[cheese]

That looks really professional, nice touch using the second player port as well

 

[Nold]

uh, i love that second player port.. might steel that idea, if i can fit it into my current built..

 

[Booshman]

That looks really professional, nice touch using the second player port as well

Thanks! It was handy I had a set of controller ports left from the first N64 that I killed. I had to remove a lot of plastic to get everything to fit. I take it having the data line from controller 2 to both the headphone jack at the top and the HDMI port leading to the dock is fine as long as they're both not plugged in at the same time.

uh, i love that second player port.. might steel that idea, if i can fit it into my current built..

 

[Booshman]

I was originally going to go with an EVA piece for the unit to rest on when docked, but I ended up designing a piece in fusion and printing it.

I also made a couple of bits to tidy up the buttons that will push when docked. The HDMI connection means that the connection points sit a little high on the wheels of the dock, so these parts will ensure a good contact.

I have decided to change the Wii-U speakers out for some old laptop ones I had. To accomodate them I had to mod the case a bit to take the 3D printed grills I made, I added screw mounts to the inside too. I don't have any more grey to finish it up but you can see how it will look.

 

[Downing]

Love the case internals. Reminds me of the old days!

 

[Booshman]

Hi again all, back from another break on this. I finally bit the bullet and trimmed my second motherboard. This time it came off a treat, working as expected.

I've hit a bit of a snag though with the expansion pack. I went to bend it as per the instructions by Bacman from way back when, I cut through most of the way and bent it with equal pressure. It looked fine and I reattached ground on the back as well as connecting the pins to the rear of c7 and c8. After being plugged in it didn't work and in the process of trying to troubleshoot I removed and inserted the board several times resulting in the thing snapping. In my reluctance to by another expansion pack I spent the day tring to manually wire the thing back together, I used my phone as a magnifier and all the connection looked good but no joy.

Am I missing something when it comes to wiring the expansion?

 

[Somewaffles]

It looks like you bridged pins 1 and 2 on the ram stick. One should be GND and the other should be VCC at least according to this schematic.

 

[Booshman]

Thanks for having a look. I bridged the 2 pins as it looked to me like they went to the same contact. Is that not the case?

 

[Somewaffles]

TLDR:connect pin 1 of the RDRAM to pin 4 of the expansion pak board and pin 2 should be connected to ground( pin 1 of the expansion pak board should work).

When I tested it with a multimeter pin 1 of the RDRAM (far left) went to pin 4 of the expansion board and pin 2 of the RDRAM was connected to all the blue. The blue pins should all be ground and the red should be VCC(3.3v) with pin 3 of the expansion pak board being the result of vterm after a voltage divider looking thing. The green pins 8 and 28 of the expansion pak board should be a signal straight from vterm.

 

[Booshman]

TLDR:connect pin 1 of the RDRAM to pin 4 of the expansion pak board and pin 2 should be connected to ground( pin 1 of the expansion pak board should work).

When I tested it with a multimeter pin 1 of the RDRAM (far left) went to pin 4 of the expansion board and pin 2 of the RDRAM was connected to all the blue. The blue pins should all be ground and the red should be VCC(3.3v) with pin 3 of the expansion pak board being the result of vterm after a voltage divider looking thing. The green pins 8 and 28 of the expansion pak board should be a signal straight from vterm.

Thanks again for your assisance with this. Based on your notes would this be an accurate diagram of the wiring? I want to make sure I know what I'm doing before I put a bunch of time of something that might not be correct. Also, I marked 2 pins on the chip in yellow that I'm not sure what they connect to, any ideas there?

 

[Somewaffles]

Thanks again for your assisance with this. Based on your notes would this be an accurate diagram of the wiring? I want to make sure I know what I'm doing before I put a bunch of time of something that might not be correct. Also, I marked 2 pins on the chip in yellow that I'm not sure what they connect to, any ideas there?

Looks like you are talking about pin 6 and 31 of the SDRAM. Pin 6 I believe is NC(not connected) to anything and 31 is GND along with pin 30 so those can be bridged. I want to say that is an accurate drawing you did minus two things. Your first green line needs to go more to the left at the top( I drew a black line) Your other two green lines need to connect to the back of the board on the area that I noted. That should get everything wire back up correctly.I do know that others have talked about wire impedance and how the wire that connects the jumper/expansion pak needs to be a certain length but I don't know how long or whether that applies to this situation. Have fun wiring that up

 

[Booshman]

Looks like you are talking about pin 6 and 31 of the SDRAM. Pin 6 I believe is NC(not connected) to anything and 31 is GND along with pin 30 so those can be bridged. I want to say that is an accurate drawing you did minus two things. Your first green line needs to go more to the left at the top( I drew a black line) Your other two green lines need to connect to the back of the board on the area that I noted. That should get everything wire back up correctly.I do know that others have talked about wire impedance and how the wire that connects the jumper/expansion pak needs to be a certain length but I don't know how long or whether that applies to this situation. Have fun wiring that up

Cool thanks so much for the clear instructions and images. I'll give it a go, it's going to take me hours but I have to give it a go. Could you tell me one last thing, the wire I'm using is super thin, should it be ok for the 3.3v connections? I'll try to keep everything as short as possible, man I hate tinning magnet wire!

 

[Somewaffles]

No problem! I spend the past week going over the n64 motherboard schematic so it’s pretty fresh for me. Mmm I want to say yes the magnet wire should be fine. AFAIK you shouldn’t use magnet wire for things like wiring your batteries to the PMS/PMS to the n64 board or anything else with a relatively high current draw. Although I got to say watching magnet wire get red hot is pretty satisfying Yeah, tinning magnet wire is not very fun.

 

[Booshman]

Well I got it done, checked the continuity as I went, looked all good. Didn't bloody work. Looks like I'm buying a new one

 

[Somewaffles]

Well rip. One last thing you can check check is if have continuity between pins 3 and 17 of the pak board.... if you do, then rip. If not you can try connecting them and seeing if that works.

 

[Booshman]

Well rip. One last thing you can check check is if have continuity between pins 3 and 17 of the pak board.... if you do, then rip. If not you can try connecting them and seeing if that works.

Unfortunately the process of removing the pak from the motherboard dislodged a lot of the wires. I haven't got the inclination to try a sort that mess out on the chance there could be one more wire I need to connect. It took me about 5 hours to wire all that up and trying to solder around stuff that's already there will be another level of frustration. The other option is to start again and work from one end to the other, so I can stay out of my own way, but I really can't be bothered to do it when the outcome could be another bust. I'm off to bed.

 

[Somewaffles]

Dang dude that’s rough. Sorry it didn’t work out.

 

[Booshman]

Dang dude that’s rough. Sorry it didn’t work out.

No worries, I'll just add it to the list of things I've broken.

It's been a couple of days with ups and downs. I decided to tackle the cartridge slot and it worked. I hard wired the everdrive and it was fine, I was very happy with myself after all the fruitless messing with the expansion.

I did a test fit and the mobo was slightly too big for my case so I trimmed off some more. I sanded the edges smooth again and gave everything a rinse with IPA. Now it's not working, I have continuity between 3.3v and ground but I have no idea where the short is. I've been all over the thing with a magnifier and a toothbrush, and all around the edges with 1000 grit paper with no joy.

Here are some pictures.