Worklog My First Wii Portable, no name yet

[Littlehat221]

For testing, I never bothered with a shield wire. Only really do that with VGA video
I would remove the wii2hdmi adapter I found it causes problems sometimes.
Yeah, I would just wire the composite and ground directly to an av cable or something.
Re-sanding helped with some of my wiis.
Try wiring the composite directly to the resistor. Found it's much more sturdy than the via.

 

[Tartarus]

If the hdmi converter is probably the issue then I think I'll have to wire up the 5" screen that I bought for the portable since I dont have anything with AV ports.

And I wired to the via because I accidentally desoldered the resistor.

 

[Retro95]

Those HDMI converters require power to enable the conversion. You only have composite and ground hooked up. Pins 4 and 10 on the AV connector are power.

With your current set up, that HDMI convertor will only cause you issues.

Best route is to wire an AV cable to pin 3 and ground and plug into a tv, or monitor that has an AV connection. Or use your mini screen and set it to AV.

EDIT:
Id also check continuity between the AVE chip and where you have your wire soldered. Looks like when you de-soldered the resistor things got a little melty...

That could have damaged the trace leading to C57. Which you'll need to solder to the leg of the AVE to get video out if that's the case.

 

[Tartarus]

Thanks for the info on why the HDMI converter isn't working.

And I found this cable that I could plug into my old TV:

Do I just cut off the audio jack end, take one of the two plugs, and do what's done at the time stamp in this video but leave the connector on the end instead of wiring it into the wii video/audio port?

Edit: I checked and there is continuity between that output on the chip and C57.

 

[Retro95]

Cut the black 3.5mm jack off. Then separate the white and red RCA jack. Remove the jacket for the cable and you'll have braided shielding and a wire.

Twist the braided shielding together, that gets soldered to ground. Take the wire and solder to pin 3 of AV out.

 

[Tartarus]

alright, ill see if that works.

 

[Tartarus]

Umm... There's 2 wires instead of one, and no shielding. I guess the audio ones are different. The white wire is off-center, while the black one is centered in the casing.

 

[Retro95]

Take your multimeter and find out which wire is the center pin of the RCA connector and which wire is the outside of the RCA end.

The outside of the RCA is ground and the center pin should be the AV connection.

 

[Tartarus]

Alright, turns out that the white cable is the center and the black cable is the outside.

 

[Stitches]

To add onto the HDMI adapter needing power, most of them use and upscale the Wii's component video feed, not the composite feed. Some can work with just composite, but most of them need component video to function (which means no VGA patch)

 

[Tartarus]

IT LIVES!!!

I don't have a picture of the screen since I had to very awkwardly hold the wii up to the back of the TV while peering around the edge, but it successfully booted!

And thanks for the extra info on how those HDMI converters work, I find converters to be strangely fascinating.

 

[Retro95]

Ayyyyyeeee congrats!

Always so satisfying when it boots for the first time. Huge breath of relief!

 

[Tartarus]

What do people use to connect the cpu and gpu to a heatsink? The old thermal puddy stuff that came on the wii or what?

Also, are the cpu and gpu the only things I need to be worried about cooling?

 

[CrazyGadget]

Depending on how much clearance you have between the CPU / GPU and the heatsink(s), you can use thermal paste, thermal tape, thermal pads (only if you have a significant amount of clearance, and if the original pads from the Wii are squished / torn / dry, do not use them). Some extreme builds will use thermal epoxy, but that's outside the scope of the majority of projects. As far as what to cool, you are correct about only needing to cool the CPU and GPU.

 

[Tartarus]

Thanks, i should have some thermal paste lying around somewhere.


And what are these pads on the GC+2? I dont see an explanation for them in the documentation.

 

[CrazyGadget]

The set pf 5 pads are only for the MCU to be programmed by 4LayerTech when the boards are built; they are not used by the end user. The jumper pad labeled LRA underneath should be soldered if you are using LRA motors, otherwise you can leave it un-jumped.

 

[Tartarus]

Oh, alright. glad I asked since I'm planning on using LRAs.

 

[Tartarus]

Can you mess with the axes of the joystick in rvloader? I was hoping to use joycon joysticks, but they don't fit well unless i put them sideways like in the picture.

 

[CrazyGadget]

Yes, you can calibrate the sticks in RVLoader. You can also wire 3v3 and ground / SX and SY backwards to reverse the direction of stick movement / axis.

 

[Tartarus]

Cool, thanks.

Does something like this look good? This is a WIP of a 3d printed fake motherboard, where I'll just do the wiring myself with wires.

I still need to move the joystick down to make room for the breakout board, and I think later I'll add room for an LRA and a speaker. I'm going for something like the right controller pcb on the ashida.

How should I go about attatching the components to the board? I've put holes through the board where there are holes in the components, but there aren't any holes in the buttons.