Worklog My First Wii Portable, no name yet

[Tartarus]

I'm hoping to design it from scratch rather than build something like an ashida. I enjoy the design process and want to practice my skills.

I've been debating a few things, like whether I could make it passively cooled. I understand that doing that would be difficult, I've been looking and have yet to find a successful finished project of one. I'm planning on using Gulikit switch joysticks because they're small in the case and are hall effect. I'd like to somehow fit 4 21700 batteries into a fairly slim case, but understand if that won't end up happening. I'll probably use the soft tactile and tactile buttons from adafruit for all of the inputs, I don't know if it would be worth it to have analog triggers. I'll be taking great advantage of everything at 4layertech, since designing those components from scratch would hurt me. I might use a pcb to connect all of the components down the line, but I'll probably just use magnet wire until I've gotten the rest pretty much perfect.

If I can passively cool the system I'd likely use 3d printed aluminum from pcbway or something. If anyone can help me figure out how much surface area of aluminum I'll need to cool it that would be VERY much appreciated. I've found this calculator, and understand thermal conductivity and thickness, but not much else.

 

[Goodie175]

To passively cool a Wii you are going to need a pretty bulky heatsink... It's not impossible to do but its going to be a big. Most portables use the smaller heatsinks with a fan because of size. Packing a sink that size into something small just isn't really feasible and the fans people use maybe hurt the battery life by a few minutes compared to what you would get without them and using a passive cooling system isntead.

 

[Tartarus]

To passively cool a Wii you are going to need a pretty bulky heatsink...

Yeah, I would definitely need to use a metal case. That's why I mentioned metal 3d printing, it would let me design more freely and hopefully be cheaper than cnc.

I'll probably be making the case more like a Wii u gamepad than something with a small form factor. So I wouldn't be *too* limited in surface area.

 

[atkfromabove]

Yeah, I would definitely need to use a metal case. That's why I mentioned metal 3d printing, it would let me design more freely and hopefully be cheaper than cnc.

I'll probably be making the case more like a Wii u gamepad than something with a small form factor. So I wouldn't be *too* limited in surface area.

Would you essentially make the case one big heat sync?

 

[Tartarus]

Refer to replies just in case I haven't edited in what people may have

Yeah. Most, if not all, of the case would be made out of metal. I'd probably add some fins to the back of the case as well, though the fins couldn't be very thin since they would be susceptible to bending.

 

[Tartarus]

Update:
I've got the batteries and the buttons. No button faces yet though.

 

[Retro95]

CNC time at a shop (unless you have your own access to a CNC) is wicked expensive.

You could use something called casting PLA. You can 3D print your prototypes in regular PLA, then when you're satisfied print it in casting PLA and take it to a local forge shop and have them cast it in plaster or green sand and have them pour you a casting. The PLA melts out and is replaced with metal.

There will be some post processing like filing rough edges, sanding, etc, but would be much cheaper than having the entire enclosure cut out of a solid block of aluminum.

Just an idea. Looking forward to seeing development on this cool project!!

 

[Tartarus]

CNC time at a shop (unless you have your own access to a CNC) is wicked expensive.

That's why I mentioned metal 3d printing. I believe it's cheaper. Though, now that you mention it, casting the part from a pla print sounds like a very viable and WAY cheaper way of doing it!

I still can't figure out how much surface area of aluminum I'd need in order to get it cooled passively though. If anyone can help that'd be super appreciated.

 

[Retro95]

Well I can't help you out with a heat generation coefficient graph to determine how much aluminum it would take to passively cool.

Someone else on the forums can probably do it, but, there's a neat build log from a few years ago that wasn't completed that has some useful information.

https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-slimboii-passively-cooled-wii-portable.2515/page-2

 

[Tartarus]

Yeah, I've looked through that one. I am getting a resin 3d printer soon, so it's possible I would just make a case using that and put in a fan like this one and maybe a heatsink like this one from the ashida. I could maybe find a larger and slimmer heatsink also.

 

[Tartarus]

I think it would be really neat if I could eventually do something to get bluetooth headphones working on it. is there anything that could enable a bluetooth audio connection in a small form factor?

 

[Retro95]

Yup Wesk did it on his "Aran" portable:
https://bitbuilt.net/forums/index.php?threads/aran-wii-portable.3037/

 

[Tartarus]

Dumb question about wiring buttons to the GC+2. Just making sure that I'm correctly interpreting the diagram on the website: (for a 4 pin button) you just connect one pin to he GC+2 and a disconnected pin to the ground, right?

 

[Stitches]

Dumb question about wiring buttons to the GC+2. Just making sure that I'm correctly interpreting the diagram on the website: (for a 4 pin button) you just connect one pin to he GC+2 and a disconnected pin to the ground, right?

Correct, input signal goes to one leg and ground goes to the other. I'm assuming you're using normally open momentary tact switches for the buttons? If so, this diagram should help

Note that for wiring convenience, all ground wires can be connected together and/or daisy chained to reduce mess. You don't need an individual ground wire going from each button to the Wii/PMS

 

[Tartarus]

Ok, glad I had it right. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Tartarus]

Preliminary BOM:

 

[Tartarus]

Progress:

 

[Tartarus]

I'm back to working on this! I stopped working when I encountered an issue of no video output when turning the trimmed board on. The cpu and gpu were heating up, so it was definitely on, but no signal. Did I do my wiring wrong? or perhaps is there an issue with using an hdmi converter?

 

[a red box]

Shielding your video lines should help. Especially when wiring to the av port.

 

[Tartarus]

How should I do that? I'm pretty new to wiring like this. I've seen people use a cut AV cable, I might have one lying around.