Worklog Melee in a box

[Jaredude]

This project started as a wii micro, I had seen the MachoNacho GCNano video a while ago and I found this site, I did a little looking around but was too intimidated to start anything.
Someone posted the video later in my local smash bros melee discord and asked if it would be possible to make a melee themed wii case redesign.
I thought this sounded like a fun project so I took another look at what I would need to do it and decided to give it a shot.

My plan was to try a simple wii trim and make something like Jefflongo's wii micro, then paint it up to be themed around the local weekly melee tournament. (https://twitter.com/adamsmashseries)
I ordered a PSU-Plus from CrazyGadget (thanks!) and traded an old CRT I wasn't using for a family edition wii.
At the start of this project I wasn't comfortable with soldering on the motherboard so I wanted to do as little of that as possible and keeping the USB and AV out made it much easier.
Size wasn't as much of an issue on this project as it would be for a portable, so the extra room needed wasn't a problem.

While I was waiting for the PSU-Plus to arrive I took my first shot at making an [ASS] theme for RVLoader.
This thing is only ever going to play melee, so I changed the homebrew menu to only have room for two large choices to pick between
Slippi nintendont is a homebrew for playing competitive melee, then I would have regular nintendont as the second option so you could play melee romhacks or UnclePunch's Training Mode.
(I forgot to take a picture of the theme before I trimmed the wii )

The PSU-Plus arrived pretty quickly, and after a lot of double checking my trim wouldn't cut anything important I went for it.
The trimming was thankfully a lot less difficult than I expected and I had what I thought looked like a pretty good trim.

The U10 relocation was the smallest soldering I had ever done, but using 34 gauge wire in a via made it so much easier than I expected.
After wiring up all the voltages from the PSU-Plus I was ready for the moment of truth and plugged it in.
It booted! But it didn't recognize the USB. I double checked the continuity between various parts and the PSU-Plus but everything seemed to be okay, then I checked the voltages coming from the PSU-Plus and found that nothing was coming from 5V. I double checked the PSU-Plus page and realized that I needed to bridge the jumper pads.
After doing all that I plugged it in again and it loaded into RVLoader successfully!

The next step was to model a case so I could 3D print it, however I had very little cad experience and the project stalled here for a long time because I was too intimidated to start.
I lurked the bitbuilt discord for a while and watched other people do their projects, I have to say I am so impressed by this community and the amount of resources and help you put out there.
While watching other projects I suddenly had a revelation: I had 3D printed and built several box style controllers for playing melee and I was comfortable with that process, there's a good amount of empty space in these things so I could probably modify a box controller model to fit a wii inside.
(picture of the controller I currently use for melee, I made it a long time ago so the build quality and soldering is bad but I love it)

Spoiler

The more I thought about it the more possible it seemed, it would have AV out on the front instead of the USB C port for the GCC cable, then three GCC ports on the side so other people could plug in and play with you. It's a portable melee setup that only needs a TV. I thought it would be a very fun thing to bring to events and that's what I needed to push me to actually learn to model a case.
After a good amount of trial and error I've gotten a rough draft of my model design, I had to print out a lot of little prototype parts to test the fits on the GCC ports and RCA female to female connectors I am using. Initially I was going to include both composite and component outputs on the controller, but I realized that component plugs are usually in the back of the TV and I didn't want to have to plug in back there.
Here's my model right now, I've got three GCC ports on the right side and composite out in the front.

That's where I'm at currently, I printed a test print of just the top layer and found that my button placements need to be adjusted. In theory there is enough room for the wii on the left side of the controller but I'm not certain of what the final dimensions will need to be.

Right now I need to:
-Finalize the dimensions, I could move the button clusters inward to make room for the wii but it's not comfortable if they're too close together. I would like the controller to be as close to normal size as possible but I recognize I'll have to oversize it a little bit, I just need to figure out by how much.
-Put structures inside the controller to mount the wii and raspberry pi to.
-Add screw holes for the bottom cover and possibly support structures for that cover throughout the middle.
-Find a good power bank to allow this thing to run without plugging into a wall, for longer sessions I plan on plugging into the wall but it would be cool to be able to play for an hour or two without that.
-Figure out how I'm going to do cooling with this, this is the part I'm the most unsure about.
-Figure out what color/theme I'm going to go with once it's printed.
-Look into possibly booting straight into slippi or regular nintendont by holding different buttons on boot.

Any comments, opinions, or advice are welcome. Thanks for reading my rambling post!

 

[atkfromabove]

That’s a cool idea!

 

[Shank]

I've been thinking about this one for a while, but I don't play on rectangles so I never had the interest. Glad someone is finally doing it.

If you use a PMS you could add batteries and make it completely portable. You could also integrate a composite screen onto the box itself and still have composite video output. (Can do this by combining svideo with a capacitor to create a second, independent composite signal).

Or even better, an internal vga screen. Toggle the mode switch to toggle between 480i (external composite) or 480p (internal VGA) with a single spst switch. Screen should auto power off and enter sleep mode with no signal. A minor change that gives it the additional functionality of being a portable as well, and still able to do everything you originally planned.

 

[Jaredude]

Wow, the single switch toggle between internal and external sounds really nice! It would be great to be able to practice in UnclePunch on the go.

My initial idea was just a portable but with a rectangle layout but I ended up scrapping the screen for a couple reasons:
The first is that this is my first wii project and my unfamiliarity with screen hardware and case design is intimidating, I didn't want to spend the $50 but not use it.
The second is that single player melee is less fun than multiplayer for me, so multiplayer is my main goal. Outputting to a CRT is the most important video out for me and tackling a screen would be nice but I think of it as a luxury.

I'm treating this project as a V1 to make sure I'm actually able to finish it, so I'm trying to keep my scope as small as possible for now.
If I make another or someone else is interested in me making one for them I would definitely consider adding upgrades like the PMS and a screen.
Another upgrade I would consider is adding a GCC out port so I could use this controller as a regular rectangle too, if things aren't too hard with this design I may still add it.



I spent a lot of time working on the case design last night. I printed out a single layer of my button holes to make sure they lined up well with my current controller and they didn't!
I also hadn't spent too much time refining the holes for my AV out ports, I went through a few iterations and got to a hole that I'm very happy with.
I printed a cross section of the middle of the board last night to test the look of the AV out and check how the thickness of my walls looked.

Spoiler

The front and back walls are THICK, I didn't realize how much space I had given them, I'd like to decrease that but I'll have to see how much I can trim while still leaving support for the AV connectors.
I also found a set of transparent keycaps I had ordered a while ago, they didn't look great in my current controller and had stored them away until I remembered them this morning. I think I may paint the inner walls of each button cavity the color of the button, then put clear keycaps in to show that.





9/13 Update:

I went through a couple rounds of changes to my button layout, I wanted the button cluster to be slightly rotated inward to reduce ulnar deviation but it took a couple tries to get it feeling right. I had originally planned on the wii fitting in on the right side of the controller, but when I rotated the buttons I lost room over there and gained room in the center.
Here's the button layout that I think I'm happy with, the buttons are rotated 15 degrees inward and I moved them a little further to the sides than my original layout.

Spoiler

For the cooling I took a look at other designs on the site and wanted to try to replicate the ashida's cooling design.
I ordered the same fan and heat sinks as the ashida last week and took a break from the project to work on other things.
The heat sinks got here yesterday but they were supposed to arrive on Friday and I hadn't started designing the housing.
I whipped up a prototype last night and started the print before bed, I was surprised this morning to find that I got everything flush on the first try!

Spoiler

I need to slightly shrink the width of the cavity, add a hole for the fan wires, and raise the wii mounting posts a little bit more.

I realized that there's no way the AV cable is fitting in here, I'll need to shorten the cord or just skip the AV cable and wire from the wii to the controller's AV ports directly.

To do:
Finish wii mount prototype and implement in my design
Make a mount for the pico, probably on the left side
Print it?????
Figure out AV wiring.
Wire it up baby!

 

[Jaredude]

I finished this a couple months ago but forgot to update my forum post!

I printed the full body in three parts and I held them together with duct tape for testing.

Spoiler

After printing I realized that I had forgotten to round the edges of my corners.
My wii mount didn't fit against the heat sinks just right and I would need to adjust it a tiny bit more.
I shared pictures with Crane's DIY rectangle discord (https://discord.gg/S3qgZWD) and got some feedback.
I wanted to decrease the size of the controller a little bit more, and they convinced me to put 4 ports on the side so the controller could plug into itself or a different console. Having the controller plug into itself was also kind of funny.
I also found that my button layout had the wrong dimensions because the reference model I was using had it wrong and I hadn't realized it.
I ended up getting a composite cable from goodwill and stripping it then soldering that to the AV pins.
I tried plastic welding the three parts of the body together, but it ended up kind of sucking and I decided I would try something else for the next print.


The project stalled for a long time, I was intimidated by the model changes I had to make.
I ended up taking a break from the project to refresh my main controller.
I had switched from green Marth to red Falcon, so I repainted and rewired it.
Both the painting and the wiring took much longer than I expected but I am very happy with the results.

Spoiler

Feeling reinvigorated from my cool new controller, I made the necessary changes to my 3D model.
I still printed it in 3 parts, but I made pegs and holes for the parts to fit together with, then used epoxy to stick them together.
I forgot to take pictures of a lot of steps from here, I was close to the end and I mostly wanted to finish the project after so long.
After a lot of sanding, painting, and wiring it came out looking like this:

Spoiler

I brought the controller to my local tournament, here's a pic of me playing doubles with it.
I also used it for bracket, I brought a GCC cable extension so I could plug the controller into the tournament wiis.

Spoiler

I plan on building another, someone at the tournament offered paying to commission one.
I'm going to try out cleaning up the rough edges of my design.
I want to add mounts for a 4layer PMS and the Pico, as well as for some batteries.
I'm planning on getting some proper RCA jacks for the composite ports since the female to female ports I'm using right now take up a lot of space.
I'm also going to make my button holes a little deeper, right now the bottom of the keycaps are hitting the bottom of the holes and the controller is kind of loud.

If things go well I may end up making more.

 

[Hatz]

Hi! I really love what your doing here. Have you looked at modding the OpenFarme1?

I just got done building these, and its fantastic, I just learned about the trim and portability possibility's of the Wii so now I want to try and remix what I've already done, add a layer or something to fit the wii+PMS.