Making my own cheap and easy portable wii

[PotatoGaming]

so i want to portabalize my wii and my optical drive is broken, so i want to take it out to free up space and so that it will use less power. after doing some research i found out that if i played a game off usb loader gx without the optical drive it wouldn't work. I also found out that if I just leave in the optical drive motherboard in and it should still work, but i don't know if it will make a power difference. so i was wondering if there was anything to bypass the drive checker, other then RV loader as i still want the original wii menu. also I wanted to power it with a 12 volt power bank and I want to know if it will be enough and how long do you think it will last me. and can someone can tell me if there is a big difference with the drive or without, thank you.

 

[Stitches]

According to Shank's ye olde testing, DD vs no DD is about a 0.3-0.4W difference.

As for your powerbank, if it can provide a sustained full amp of 12v then it'll likely be fine. If the output voltage drops below 10.5v though (I think that's the low cutoff), the Wii will shut off.

 

[PotatoGaming]

hmm seems like a small difference with and without so I think I can leave it in. I think it's better to leave it in than to deal with the pain of having to do all the work to have it working without the drive. for the power supply I was going to use a

TalentCell Rechargeable 72W 100WH 12V/8300mAh 9V/11000mAh 5V/20000mAh DC Output Lithium Ion Battery Pack for LED Strip and CCTV Camera, Portable Li-ion Power Bank, Black

and for the buck converter I was going to use

5Pack LM2596 LM2596S DC-DC Step Down Variable Volt Regulator Input 3.0-40V Output 1.5-35V Adjustable Buck Converter Electronic Voltage Stabilizer Power Supply Module

both of which I found on amazon

but I saw that the buck converter's max was only 3 amps, and on the power supply for the wii it says it needs 3.7a will the 3 amps be enough? i don't really know what I'm doing. ok so the idea was that I get the 12v 6a and run it through the buck converter to stabilize it to a constant 12v 3a so that it wont change when it is powering the wii but I saw on the buck converter that the max output was 3 amps so I don't know if it will work and if any better power options are available let me know thanks.

^^ a rough idea I was going for

 

[Stitches]

The Wii takes 12v in natively, so you don't need a buck regulator. You can just cut a Wii power cable and a standard DC barrel jack cable, solder them together and use the 12v output on the powerbank. The Wii doesn't even draw 1Amp of current under normal circumstances, the official power supply is vastly overspecced for the system's normal power draw. The powerbank will run it perfectly fine.

My big ticket question is why? When are you going to want to use a Wii, while having access to a powered TV, but not have a place to plug the Wii in? Is this for a caravan or the like?

 

[PotatoGaming]

Thanks for your feedback on the power system, I will try that approach if its ok to use 6 amps the bank says it outputs. For the screen, I was going to use an old iPad 2 for the display as a laptop style design with hinges from an old laptop, and hook it up to a driver board and plug in a small HDMI cable into it as I have a Wii to HDMI adapter. to power it I was going to plug it into the same power socket as the Wii in the power bank, because it also uses 12 volts, but needs more than 2 amps so i don't know if it will affect the Wii's power draw if you can let me know that will be great. I am mainly building this so I can play Super Smash bros brawl and Mario Kart Wii on the go, but mainly to test my skills. For the case, I was going to make one out of PVC sheets so it's easy to cut.

 

[Stitches]

The system will only draw as much current as it needs to run at any given moment. Companies overshoot the current output requirements on their power supplies because a bigger supply running at lower capacity produces less heat and won't easily become a fire hazard, and also ensures that low binned supplies have enough wiggle room to fully power the system reliably. There's no way in snowy hell a battery powered ipad screen and basic driver board uses 12v2A, they just tell people to use a supply that big because the average Joe can search those numbers and find a suitable supply almost anywhere.

Your actual total power draw for the Wii + the screen and driver board will be closer to 1.5A of 12v. Well within the bounds of that bank.

 

[PotatoGaming]

Thanks for the clarification. I just came up with a way to have the display driver board and the Wii running on the same cable. I don't know if it will work, but it is a start. Please

let me know if there are any improvements I can make to the design.

 

[Xerxes3rd]

The iPad 2 display itself uses 3.3V (I think, might be 5V) mostly for the backlight. The LVDS interface boards like the one shown generally have a regulator that accepts like 7-12V. I'm running a Dreamcast (without the optical drive), iPad 2 display and a similar board to that picture and can power it with a 1.85A 12V supply without issue. I haven't hooked it up to the bench supply to measure actual draw, but I assume the Wii is similar.

 

[PotatoGaming]

thanks for letting me know that the iPad 2 would work, I wasn't too sure if it would, but you assured me.

 

[Xerxes3rd]

It works pretty well- the only downside I’ve found is that the scaler in those boards adds 1-3 frames of lag going from 640x480 to 1024x768. Otherwise the picture is quite good IMO

 

[PotatoGaming]

Oh thanks for the heads up, does that also happen with Wii to HDMI? because I use that, even though it shouldn't be that much of a problem

 

[PotatoGaming]

So originally I was going to use a Lenovo miix 320 display but I couldn't find any driver boards for it. Is there anything else I can do if I wanted to use that board?

the 2nd one has the serial number for it if anyone can tell me if there is a work around that would be great.

 

[Xerxes3rd]

Yeah, it’s any input- the scaler is the part that adds lag, not the analog to digital.

 

[Stitches]

Cheapo Wii to HDMI adapters will add in some latency on top of the scaler delay due to being cheap and bad. Electron Shepherd's one has basically unnoticeable latency, so I'd use that one personally

 

[PotatoGaming]

Thanks, I'll try with my current Wii to HDMI adapter to test out the latency, and if it's that bad I'll consider the Electron Shepherd's version. I also have a RCA to HDMI Converter if that would also improve, but I think that would be too many wires to fit in. For the case, I will design one to be simple and easy to put together. Any suggestions on the material that I should use? I was going to consider PVC sheets, but I heard that they are hard to stick together, but easy to cut, which was one feature I wanted to have.

 

[Xerxes3rd]

You definitely don't want to use an RCA to HDMI adapter for this, since it will result in a worse picture, probably more lag, and might not work at all as some of the LVDS boards don't support 480i.

Some Wii to HDMI adapters are basically the same thing as the Electron Shepherd version, but some are different. Naturally, they all look the same from the outside so it's luck-of-the-draw

 

[PotatoGaming]

wow, ya I got my adapter a few years ago it's the YOHooLYO one, and I don't notice much lag, but then again, it's the only one I use, so I don't have somthing to go of though it does have a little flicker at the bottom of the screen sometimes but its not that much noticable.