A @Wesk and Yveltal collaboration!
Last summer, while Wesk was developing the Final Destination OMEGA, he and I discussed creating a Wii micro build even smaller than the GC Nano.
The first build to ever FULLY utilize the OMEGA trim. The smallest functional Wii ever made, barely larger than the outline of the OMEGA trim itself. A literal keychain Wii!
Back then, I was imagining a more traditional form factor, with a fan, 5mm heatsink, controller ports, and micro-HDMI out. Here are some of my early CAD mockups.
A few weeks later, I had the idea to replace the plastic shell and heatsink with a machined metal unibody. Also, I replaced the controller, A/V and power ports with magnetic pogo pin connectors, shrinking it even further. Wesk did some sweet renders of this design.
As you can see, the regulators were still off-board at this point in time (on that triangular sub-PCB). This was all pre-undervolting and pre-Thundervolt! But just a few short weeks later, Wesk and Drew had cracked the code on Wii undervolting, and we started talking about passively cooling the Kawaii.
Somehow nearly a year passed as I worked on Wii U trim development, and then Thundervolt development. Wesk and I realized that putting Thundervolt in Kawaii was a no-brainer, even if it meant we couldn't use an FD Omega and the unit had to grow a tiny bit, from 57x57mm to 60x60mm.
Wesk took over MCAD duties and reworked the shell with new organic fins, and soon after a single magnetic pogo-pin connector.
He also designed a dock! Originally, I anticipated using a bunch of octopus adapter cables to connect everything to the unit. But this dock will keep the Kawaii vertically oriented for optimal heat convection through the fins, and means we don't need to lug around adapters for GC controllers.
That brings us to today! The final Kawaii shell will be machined from aluminum and anodized in a variety of gorgeous colors. The back will be laser-etched with the project logo and dope-looking fake compliance markings.
Planned specs:
- 60x60x16mm CNC'd aluminum chassis (passively-cooled) with laser etched artwork
- Undervolted OMEGA trim with Thundervolt
- 12-pin magnetic pogo pin connector (MagSafe-like)
- Internal breakout PCB for SD-USB, input protection, and video muxing
- Internal Bluetooth module for Wiimotes (range likely degraded due to metal case)
- Dock with USB-C power input, x4 GCC controller ports, composite/component video output, & stereo audio output
- Six acrylic windows with RGB LEDs for peak aesthetics
- IR LEDs behind the acrylic windows for sensor bar functionality
- Keychain loop
Sexy renders courtesy of Wesk:
Just in case the 60x60x16mm size wasn't registering, here's how Kawaii compares to the GC Nano and Short Stack:
One more thing: like the GC Nano and Short Stack, Kawaii will be fully open source once it's complete!
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