Worklog Waker of the Wiind - Ginger's Second Wii Portable

[GingerOfOz]

Good stuff mate! Does Eagle not have footprints (feetprint?) for common components like microUSB? I guess I can understand if it doesn’t; I toyed around with KiCAD a bit but for the life of me couldn’t find an HDMI port footprint. I thought it was pretty weird.

I wouldn't be surprised if theses feetprints were out there somewhere, but I'm designing them on my own for a couple of reasons. The biggest issue is that if you go on Digi-Key, there are hundreds of micro USB ports. A lot of them look similar, but most of them differ ever so slightly from one another. I don't want to risk downloading a footprint off of the interwebs and then find out that I have the wrong port for the footprint. I mean, odds are that I'm going to mess up on something, but I'd rather be mad at myself for making a mistake than cutting corners.

I also wanted to practice this on super basic stuff, before I started moving into more complex components. Honestly, It's probably not that much more difficult to design an IC or a 40 pin FFC connector, since it's all 2D stuff, but I wanted to start with things I was familiar with. Once I've got my PCBs in my hands and I know for sure my designs are good, I'd be more than happy to release my library to save other people some time.

 

[BocuD]

I wouldn't be surprised if theses feetprints were out there somewhere, but I'm designing them on my own for a couple of reasons. The biggest issue is that if you go on Digi-Key, there are hundreds of micro USB ports. A lot of them look similar, but most of them differ ever so slightly from one another. I don't want to risk downloading a footprint off of the interwebs and then find out that I have the wrong port for the footprint. I mean, odds are that I'm going to mess up on something, but I'd rather be mad at myself for making a mistake than cutting corners.

I also wanted to practice this on super basic stuff, before I started moving into more complex components. Honestly, It's probably not that much more difficult to design an IC or a 40 pin FFC connector, since it's all 2D stuff, but I wanted to start with things I was familiar with. Once I've got my PCBs in my hands and I know for sure my designs are good, I'd be more than happy to release my library to save other people some time.

You can search for parts and their corresponding footprints on ultralibrarian. They have a nice collection of 5ish million parts.
Eagle has a TON of premade packages and symbols pre loaded btw, so for ffc connectors or simple ics (eg lm1117) i would just use those.

 

[GingerOfOz]

You can search for parts and their corresponding footprints on ultralibrarian. They have a nice collection of 5ish million parts.
Eagle has a TON of premade packages and symbols pre loaded btw, so for ffc connectors or simple ics (eg lm1117) i would just use those.

Hey cool, I'll be sure to check that out. Thanks!

 

[GingerOfOz]

Made lots of progress on my case over the last 24 hours!

I added a whole bunch of stuff to the front. I think I'm going to go with DS buttons because they take up way less space and look a lot nicer. I still need to add the button guides, the rivets by the holes are just there to remind me to save space for them. Screwposts are cool. The holes near the top of the case are for a couple of IR LEDs.

And I started on the bottom of the case!

That fan vent was fun to design, and I mean that seriously. At first, I tried to just make it by looking off of a picture, but then I remembered that you can import a picture to lay over your case and that made it go a lot faster.

I went around the basic shape with lots of individual points and then connected them all together with the spline tool. Interestingly, the design isn't symmetrical like I'd thought, but the final design looks pretty good. I used the circular pattern tool to just copy it over to the other side, rather than try to copy the first swooshy thing exactly.

I decided to go with Prince Komali's pearl because it was the only design that wasn't too detailed to print. Even this design is probably pushing it pretty close to what a 3D printer can do.

I am really strapped for space in the back. I'm going to have to do a maximumish OMGWTF trim in order to get my Wii trim narrow enough to fit between my battery spots. The two filleted cylinders near the top are rotational points for my triggers, which really don't have enough room. I'm going to have to use double action switches in order to have analog capabilities for GC stuff.

There's not a whole lot else to report. My screen came in, so I'll be testing that in the next couple of days. Thanks for all the help and suggestions!

 

[jefflongo]

From what others have told me, it's best to put the IR LEDs at the 1/4th and 3/4ths positions relative to the screen for the best results.

 

[GingerOfOz]

From what others have told me, it's best to put the IR LEDs at the 1/4th and 3/4ths positions relative to the screen for the best results.

Hmm ok. I'll have to see if I can cram them in there below the screen, because my case is basically the exact same height as my screen, plus the curve. Thanks for the tip.

 

[GingerOfOz]

time2update

I've been a well rounded boy (not to be confused with a round boi, that'd be Doom) and have made some decent progress on all sides of this project.

We'll start with the workbench.

Most of my workbench time has been spent trying to fix the WaluWiigi, but I decided to go ahead and trim this Wii closer to maximum OMGWTF due to my case being smaller than I had thought it would be. I trimmed a bit too close on the right by where you pull composite off of, but I barely managed to not cut off anything neccessary. As in, I chopped a couple of the necessary vias in half. This was a mistake, but thankfully the only consequence is that I have to pull composite off of a tiny component on the bottom, which eventually won't matter if this uses BBVideo like I hope. After making sure it worked, I cut more off on the bottom and top. I have yet to wire up video after making the extra cut on the top and bottom, but it should be just fine. I'll verify that for certain tomorrow.

Anyways, the reason I have to cut the board down smaller is that my case is smaller than I'd thought it was. Considerably smaller. When I planned out the overall dimensions, I went solely off of how small I could make it based off of the 5 inch screen and 3DS sliders. And you can get it pretty small with just those two criteria. Unfortunately, 4 18650s and an OMGWTF take up more lefty righty room than that. So thus, I need to take out a couple of batteries (ew), start over on my case (ew) or make the motherboard smaller. I went with the last option, because I won't be detrimental to the overall design or take like 30 hours. After making the cut and sanding to absolute maximum points, my motherboard is 94.64mm wide at its widest point. I have 94.98mm of space for the trim in my case. Yeah, I'm just that good at planning. Dunno how I'm this lucky, but I'm gonna roll with it.

It's gon be tight. I also had to spend a bunch of time moving the vent around so that it lines up perfectly with my fan. From there, I added the screwposts to mount the Wii motherboard to. With the more extreme trim, I also have more room to extend one of my custom PCBs underneath the Wii Mobo to have buttons to control things.

On the front, I've just been cranking out the small details. My 3DS sliders and replacement DS case came in, so I was able to get final dimensions off of those. Everything up front is a super tight fit as well.

Hopefully this will be good enough to use just screws with my 3DS sliders. I'll be running a tes print to make sure before I do a final print. I'll probably add fillets where I can, but there's not a whole lot of room.

This piece here is for holding my screen and driver board down, kind of like what @jefflongo and @Aurelio are doing in their current portables.

Anyways, my case is looking like it'l be around 34-35mm thick. It's around 32mm if I were to try and max it out to the thinnest possible, but I'd rather leave myself a few mm of wiggle room. This will leave me with a decent amount of extra space along the sides with my batteries and controls, so I'll be able to use custom PCBs without worrying about keeping them super thin. Along the middle with the screen and Wii, I'll definitely need to be a bit more careful, but in reality I will have 4-5mm of wiggle room because I'm leaving the inductors on the screen driver board, which stick up a decent amount.

As for Eagle, I've made some progress thanks to @JacksonS taking the time to help me out with this circuit:

This circuit will allow me to have an internal flash drive, accessible via a micro-USB port on the outside of my case. There are a couple of ICs to help switch power and the data lines on the Wii and flash drive, so that way things don't get connected in harmful ways. I'm really grateful for Jackson's help, since most of the stuff I was trying to use for this was going way over my head, and he took the time to explain it to me.

I've also made the footprints for several more components, so pretty soon here I'll be ready to start actually designing some real circuit boards!

As always, thanks for all the help everyone!

 

[DeoNaught]

Spoiler: Oh boy

where do you plan to put your screen controls?
also, do you plan to use a custom Screen board? prolly by Transferring components, which would save even more space

 

[GingerOfOz]

Spoiler: Oh boy

where do you plan to put your screen controls?
also, do you plan to use a custom Screen board? prolly by Transferring components, which would save even more space

Screen controls are somewhat up in the air as to their placement right now. I was planning on having screen controls as well as BT sync and reset run along the bottom of my case on the back half, but there probably won't be enough room because of how much space my batteries and cooling vent take up. Either way, it's just 3 buttons, so I'll wait until I have everything else in their final positions before deciding where to put them.

And no, I'm not going to be redesigning the screen driver board, because it's not worth the effort to me. I'd rather just keep what I have right now working. Plus, it's really only space on the Z plane that I wish I could eliminate. I don't have anything to gain by making the driver board a smaller rectangle.

 

[GingerOfOz]

Hello again!

While I haven't updated in a couple months, I have been working on it at every possible opportunity. Learning PCB design has been super fun, but somewhat rocky. Thankfully, my two most complex boards are virtually wrapped up, so here they are:

This board is the first one I did. It's the one that hangs out on the back side of the case, right in that little wedge on an OMGWTF trim. Along the bottom of the board from left to right is a headphone jack, a micro-usb port with an LED indicator for when something is plugged in, a reset button, and a charging jack with LED indicator. It also has a USB port and the necessary circuitry to allow the flash drive to be accessed via the micro-usb port. It also has a variety of pads on there for things like voltage lines, screen control lines, speakers, and the left and right triggers.

Yes, there are ground planes on this, they just aren't visible


Board number two is on the front half and covers the C-stick and ABXY buttons. This board holds a GC+ and everything needed for that, minus the rumble stuff because this project is not going to have rumble in it. This board also has a variety of pads for anything and everything that'll need to be connected. The idea is that the FFC handles all the lines going across the case halves, with the exception of power lines.

These boards could be far, far better than the way they are now. My inexperience is pretty clear when you look at how weird some of the lines are laid out and I still have some things I need to fix on these (mostly the trace thicknesses). I have a couple of simpler boards that I need to finish up, so I will do my best to make those be a lo nicer than these.

So far as case design goes, I haven't done a whole lot outside of the trigger system, which I'm pretty pleased with.

This is the trigger.

This is where it goes. Essentially it acts as a lever, because I don't even have space for an ultra thin double switch between the battery and the trigger. I should have just enough space to be OK.

This little part goes between the screwpost and the Wii motherboard, and acts as the rotational point for the trigger. I originally had the pin just sticking up out of the back of the case, but I was worried about getting the trigger hooked over the pin, so I made it into its own separate piece.

One major change to the overall system has been the decision to implement the Eyoyo 5 inch screen into my portable rather than the other one I had in order to get that sweet 480p video. The screen does take a decent amount of prepwork, but it looks really, really good once that's all done. I've also got the cooling setup ready to roll. I probably won't be able to do much more on the workbench since most everything Wiiside is all done, and I'll probably just wait for PowerMii's release before doing much more with the motherboard.

Pretty crappy picture with a pretty crappy setup. I do plan to use shielded wire on the video lines, but I'm going to need to look into some much thinner stuff like the ones on WiFi module antennae, because I have to pull video off of those tiny components by the video chip.

Anyways, with any luck I'll have those last two PCBs wrapped up here in the next couple of weeks, along with said boards meshed into my CAD design. From there, I'll send a fat chunk of cash to OSHPark and Digi-Key, and work on getting my case 3D printed. Motivation for this project is still running high, free time is just starting to go low.

Thanks guys!

 

[DeoNaught]

I like where this is going :3

But food for thought, have you thought of a Qfn package for your Gc+(PIC18F25K22)
Mostly because it will save space.

anyways, just food for thought Great project so far,

 

[The_Dude]

Are you shure that trigger wont snap?

 

[GingerOfOz]

But food for thought, have you thought of a Qfn package for your Gc+(PIC18F25K22)
Mostly because it will save space.

The idea was brought up but I'm not that pressed for space on the board. Plus I have a couple extra PICs leftover from when I was trying to fix the WaluWiigi, so I'll just use those.

Are you shure that trigger wont snap?

I'm pretty sure it'll be fine. You really only have to push the trigger down a quarter millimeter to get a full press, but I'll be sure to test the triggers thoroughly before letting other people touch it.

 

[Kagehoshi]

There is no Z button?

 

[GingerOfOz]

There is no Z button?

Z button is on the front half of the case, not shown in this update. It'll be similar to the triggers on the back, but considerably less severe since I've got plenty of room in the front for it.

 

[Kagehoshi]

Z button is on the front half of the case, not shown in this update. It'll be similar to the triggers on the back, but considerably less severe since I've got plenty of room in the front for it.

I can not wait to see more

 

[GingerOfOz]

All righty, time for more!

Case is done!

Added a lot of screwposts and went for structural stability over prettiness on the inside, so it does kinda look like a mountain range in parts. I got my Z trigger all nailed down, and due to space constraints it ended up having to have a weird design like my other triggers. Decided to go ahead and use a real GameCube Z button for authenticity's sake. I also made a piece that holds down the screen and my speakers, as well as the power button. The power button will go in that bottom middle hole, and since it's such a small button the only tact I have that fits is a Wii power button. So uhhh... I'm using a Wii power button for that authentic "turning on feel"!

Custom PCB boards were integrated. Those holes for all the ports were rather mind-numbing to implement, since they are all at slightly different angles. I'm also getting a couple of LED diffusers printed in translucent filament with the help of Spencer for the indicator lights I'm gonna have. Should be pretty cool!

I also finished up the custom PCBs I'll be getting:

This is the board that goes over the Dpad.

This is the board that holds all the buttons for screen controls. It also has the same BT sync mod that @Gman used in some of his portables, really grateful for his help in showing me how to pull off that circuit.

The plan right now is to give my brain some time to recover and come back and take a final look at everything in a couple days, to make sure I haven't forgotten/ messed up on anything. Just in typing this out I've remembered a little piece I need to get 3D printed.

Anyways, I'm super hyped to get all this stuff in my hands within a couple weeks! Guess we'll see how much or how little I've messed up soon...

 

[Tedzors]

@GingerOfOz How good is the quality of the screen say compared to composite? Would you say it makes a big difference? Was it difficult to remove the ports at all? The composite screens that I finally got working on 5v have pretty horrible quality. I saw @Stitches guide on them and was thinking of picking one up myself, I haven't got a hothair station but have got some chipquick which has been good for desoldering things.

 

[GingerOfOz]

I'd say that if you're picky about screen quality and want to use a 5 inch screen then this is your best option at the moment. I'm not super picky when it comes to screen quality, but even in the PortablizeMii menu everything looked noably nicer. To me it was worth paying the extra $30. The ports were a HUGE pain to get off though, I dunno if chipquik would suffice but I haven't used it myself. I'd say buy it, and if you can't get the ports off with chipquik then just Dremel them off or pick up a hot air station. Hot air station are super cool by the way, definitely worth picking up one of the $35-45 models when you get the chance.

 

[Tedzors]

I'd say that if you're picky about screen quality and want to use a 5 inch screen then this is your best option at the moment. I'm not super picky when it comes to screen quality, but even in the PortablizeMii menu everything looked noably nicer. To me it was worth paying the extra $30. The ports were a HUGE pain to get off though, I dunno if chipquik would suffice but I haven't used it myself. I'd say buy it, and if you can't get the ports off with chipquik then just Dremel them off or pick up a hot air station. Hot air station are super cool by the way, definitely worth picking up one of the $35-45 models when you get the chance.

Cheers bud, will definitely look into getting a hot air station. Chipquik has been pretty good for the small part smd parts, but getting stuff off like the wii usb ports has been a real pain. I honestly didn't think I would be so picky about screen quality, but actually looking at composite now, I might actually spend the little extra for this screen.