Wii DVD/Wiikey Fusion/WODE + GC Portable Discussion

[liquitt]

sounds good to me. you should post a photo where and how you wired the power source

[KirovAir]

With the latest events, I'm really considering buying a WODE. But first, I need some more soldering practice.

[liquitt]

btw, concerning the plugs again, how did THEY do it?

[Ashen]

Very nice Emu! glad to see you got it working again.



This should make it easier on people who want to power things right from the Cube. I'll add to the megaguide also.

[liquitt]

what is thermal protection circuit for btw?

[Ashen]

If the GC processors get too hot it cuts all power to the system.

[liquitt]

If the GC processors get too hot it cuts all power to the system.

nice, never knew it had something like this (i always hoped it had though...)

[KrzyInuYasha]

I love all the work being done here and it's nice to see a HDD option to replace the ODD. Though I am curious about how well home brew will work with these, Especially emulators like FCEU-GC, Snes9x, and VBA-GC. Also will they work in conjunction to say a Viper Extreme or Qoob Pro or not if you want to use any of there debug features through USB for program testing.

[infact]

The WODE and Wiikey fusion are dvd drive replacements, so they will look like a normal dvd drive to the gamecube...
Emulators will load files from them as they would with the dvd drive.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it could be possible to add a Viper or Qoob chip to this setup.
But we need to pay attention to the commands these chips send to the dvd drive (if they are accepted/interpreted), cause the "play homebrew/backup"-thingie is already handled by the wii chips.

=============

Btw. Ashen, do you want to focus on the WODE now or stay with the Wiikey Fusion?
Have some thoughts and ideas about the wbfs limitations of the wkf, that I need to consolidate, before I can say i improved something, but if you or somebody else could help me with a few tests it would be great.

[emu_kidid]

until the wiikey fusion guys get back to me (so I can implement support into swiss) I'm going for wode temporarily (although it's larger/etc, it works out of the box).

[Ashen]

Btw. Ashen, do you want to focus on the WODE now or stay with the Wiikey Fusion?
Have some thoughts and ideas about the wbfs limitations of the wkf, that I need to consolidate, before I can say i improved something, but if you or somebody else could help me with a few tests it would be great.

I'm not sure what you mean by focusing on one or the other. I'm not a dev, just a modder that got lucky with this

The way I see it, WODE and Wiikey both have separate selling points as far as GC'ers are concerned. WODE is probably what most people will go for who are going to do this mod on a GC system that will sit in their living room/den/bedroom. Just because the storage capacity is just that much greater and compatibility with all games is supposedly 100% plus the support for wodeflow and the like. On the other hand the WODE is roughly twice the price of a wiikey.

For portablizing, I'd say most people will go with the Wiikey. The Wiikey is just that much smaller for a portable system, requires less power and has a better price point and as far as I can tell close to or more than 95% compatibility. Homebrew can be loaded by making a bootable swiss or SDLoad disc.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that me personally am not going to make it much further with this than I already have. But if you have suggestions about opening up the Wiikey to further filesystem support or any other ways to make these mod's better, we're all ears

Edit: Oh, and I'm always willing to help test. Provided I have a working gamecube at the time >:D

[KrzyInuYasha]

The WODE and Wiikey fusion are dvd drive replacements, so they will look like a normal dvd drive to the gamecube...
Emulators will load files from them as they would with the dvd drive.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it could be possible to add a Viper or Qoob chip to this setup.
But we need to pay attention to the commands these chips send to the dvd drive (if they are accepted/interpreted), cause the "play homebrew/backup"-thingie is already handled by the wii chips.

I guess that's what I'm wondering is I would like to have a HDD to store all my GC games onto to play from, But I would like to keep my Viper Extreme for dev and homebrew/emulators. It's easier to update and move files onto a SD card then it is to build a whole new ISO and upload it to the HDD.

[Ashen]

Little Teaser of roughly what the final product will look like. The Case's will be painted in the end of course. Right now everything is just taped in there, still A LOT of work to do.



I have to say that I kind of underestimated the amount of work that goes into case making. Cutting up the electronics and rewiring things is the easy part XD

On a side note, After I get the cases all done and painted I will be looking for someone to do some graphics for around the screen and possibly some other parts of the case. If anyone is pretty good with graphical work or has any cool idea's and would like to volunteer, please PM me. It will be GREATLY appreciated.

[liquitt]

do you really want to paint this? white looks nice - and also just some really sleek graphics to go with that white would look amazing!

[Ashen]

Well, You cant see it well in the pic but my vacuum former works almost too good. The suction on my vac table is so good that the wood grains in the mold that I used actually show through a bit on the outter part of the case. So it needs to be sanded smooth a bit. I could always pain it white (and for my unit I may), but Emu has already told me that he wants his indigo

[liquitt]

didnt even know you were building them for other people?
PM me a price

[Dragoon]

Ashen, maybe you could help me with my portable? I have sucking dust in my room, but I want to get this baby to work :p
Btw... how the *insert any swearing here* did you get those coolers attached? They are smaller then the chips .
And how would you like to save? :p

[Ashen]

didnt even know you were building them for other people?
PM me a price

Well, at this point I hate to say my work will be comparable to a seasoned modder like Zenloc's but that is the plan anyway. I will be sticking close to his pricing strategy: http://forums.modretro.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1667 While to some it may seem way overpriced. You have to consider that probably close to half that cost is build cost and the other half is the blood, sweat and tears poured into the production. In the end Zen's prices are very reasonable. I dare say though that before I take any more commissions I should ensure I can pull this off first. Provided I can, I will be open to build for anyone who wants one

If you haven't seen Zen's latest masterpiece I highly recommend checking it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP74Cdufx6s

Ashen, maybe you could help me with my portable? I have sucking dust in my room, but I want to get this baby to work :p
Btw... how the *insert any swearing here* did you get those coolers attached? They are smaller then the chips .
And how would you like to save? :p

I'm glad to help any way I can. The heatsinks are attached via arctic silver thermal epoxy. I'm not sure I understand the rest of what your asking XD

[liquitt]

i was just joking anyways
if i'd really need one of these, i'd want to get my ass up and build one myself

[Dragoon]

Ashen, maybe you could help me with my portable? I have sucking dust in my room, but I want to get this baby to work :p
Btw... how the *insert any swearing here* did you get those coolers attached? They are smaller then the chips .
And how would you like to save? :p

I'm glad to help any way I can. The heatsinks are attached via arctic silver thermal epoxy. I'm not sure I understand the rest of what your asking XD

Well, you cut your gamecube in to little pieces so I thought how the **** are you going to get the EXI/MC port wired?

[Abb_eliten]

Tracing lines,
preferably before you cut it up ;P

[infact]

Well it's no problem at all... (see http://void.printf.net/~foobar/wii/soldered.jpg)
(of course only if you dont cut off the exi ports from the mainboard)

Edit:
Or, like Abb_eliten said

[Ashen]

Tracing lines,
preferably before you cut it up ;P

This.

It requires lots of what I like to think of as "extreme soldering". You should see the tiny little bastards I had to wire the DD leads to.

[Abb_eliten]

Oh, the joys of DD soldering. Hahah

Luckily, those components seem to be rather resistant to heat

[infact]

Ashen, btw. what i meant was if your portables will use the wkf or wode.

Can you upload this file (iso attached) to your sd card with the wbfs manager and try this with your setup?
When it works, it should load swiss r33 and it should take only 2 mb on the sd card instead of 1,36 gb.

I would test it myself, but i dont have a wkf yet, so I cant.