gc-forever - Gamecube/Wii Forums

So today I won an auction on e-bay for 15 "broken" gamecubes. As you can probably guess the only useful part of these units to me are the motherboards. As such, instead of selling the DVD drives as replacements I've decided to de-solder the male connectors from the DVD daughter-board and make some "plug and play" adapters up for those who want them.

I've figured up a cost efficient way with Zeturi's help to drop the voltage on the 5v line from the DVD connector down to 3.3v this being such I've also ordered a bunch of the "eject" switches and will be installing those too. This leaves only the splicing of the wires for the lid switch to the end user which is great!!

The adapters will cost 30$ each plus shipping to wherever they are going (since these will be relatively small international shipping should remain pretty cheap). This price to some may seem a bit high but considering the fine soldering work that I need to do and the time it will take me I think its reasonable. Plus I need to make up the cost of the units and the FFC cables I need to buy.

I have ordered everything that is needed to produce 50 of these connectors so i'll make them available as I aquire GC DVD connectors after the initial batch of 15. I'd say that these will be available in a few weeks once everything arrives. First come first serve! Get em while they're hot!

Please. NO PM's expressing interest. If you are interested please express it here. PM's concerning this will just be deleted and not responded to.

Zenloc may also be interested in making these as I know he has a bunch of useless (to him) gc dvd drives. I need to talk to him about this though.

Bought.
you know my address and that i will pay fast and accuerate.
i boght an broken gamecube.
i can give you another broken drive if you want.

Also buying one!
Great for people who lack fine soldering skills. (like me hehe)

Interested.

Ashen, I can send you 5 FFC and 5 GC DVD connectors. Also interested in two

As am I.

emu_kidid wrote:Ashen, I can send you 5 FFC and 5 GC DVD connectors. Also interested in two

Sounds good as long as shipping isn't really crazy. If anyone wants to "donate" plugs or FFC cables I can knock some $ off their final order. I'll need to figure whats its worth for each piece though. Also I need to make sure the interest level in this is high enough.

If I can find an easy/cheap way to drop the 5v line on the connector down to closer to 3.3v I could make this truly plug and play, where the only wires the end user would need to connect are the ones for the lid switch. I'm looking into this atm. If anyone knows of a decent place to get the Wiikey style FFC cables from for cheap please let me know. I found a cheap supplier online but they want an arm and a leg to ship them to me.

Again mainly right now I'm just checking the interest level in this. Emu, do you think we should post this as news? I don't know if I have board permissions for such things and wouldn't even know how if I did.

Interested!

i think i have one or two broken drives somewhere, too so i'll see if i can donate them (well, the plugs only of course)

Ashen, I'll make a link to this as news.

I bought my drive cables from here: http://www.divineo.cn/cgi-bin/div-cn/wii-dbset

Awesome Emu, thank you!

Where I'm looking to buy from is here: http://www.modchipexport.com/wiikey-fus ... rive-cable They want 40$ to ship me 25 of them though.... I will check mouser and digikey tomorrow. I need to sleep now

I wired up a first adapter tonight. Took me about an hour and a half total of cutting/soldering/testing/gluing/testing. I should be able to streamline it a bit though once I have all of the connectors, etc if I do it assembly line style. Still looking into making it more plug and play than my first post lets on.

Sounds like an excellent idea to me.
Definately interested.

I definately want 1.

Count me in for 1.

I would also like to buy one of these adapters

i am also interessted in one.

i'm interested in one aswell.

Looks like we're getting close to having this first batch sold out already! Once we get this first batches list full I'll still keep track of who wants them and put you on a waiting list.

I'm still looking for an affordable FFC supplier. I will start work on these as soon as I wrap up Emu's portable in roughly 1-2 weeks. Still looking into making it more plug and play. Looks like I may be able to drop the voltage of the DVD connectors 5v line with just a few resistors wired in series to ground. I still need to test this theory and test the functionality if it works though. If i can get the correct voltage drop I need from the 5v line I will wire up the eject switches myself for the adapters. That will leave only the splicing of the lid switch wires to the end user which would be great! I looked into the maximum voltage of the wiikey and WODE's actel chips and both top out at 3.6v. I was really hoping they would just run off 5v. Cest la vie! More updates when I have em.

So, was it my post over in Modretro's junkyard that interested you in this, or were you thinking about it already? I know I'm going to be ordering enough stuff to make three adapters for now, possibly more in the future.

How much is the amp draw for the Wiikey on the 5v line? If it isn't very much, then you could use an LM1117 voltage regulator. Here's a link to some cheapies: http://cgi.ebay.com/10pcs-AMS1117-LM111 ... 2c566811f4

EDIT: There are actually quite a few cheaper batches, like 20 of them for $5.00.

Heya Zeturi! Nice to see you over here.

Actually I/We have been thinking of ways to do this pretty much since we found out all of this was working (wiikey/WODE). Reason I'm doing this now is because the DVD drive connectors are so elusive that getting 1 or 2 hundred of these made up professionally seems to be out of the question still. Not for lack of trying of course. Anyway, I know not everyone has super soldering skills and I just happened to win 15 GC's. Figured I'd try to help some people out that really want to run this mod. Thx for the links to those regulators. They look perfect!

Edit: I wonder how hot those regulators get though. I know its not a huge voltage drop from 5v to 3.3v. I'm not going to have much available to dissipate the heat from the chip, I guess I could cut up some small blocks of aluminum if need be. Have you worked with those regulators before Zeturi?

If someone Wouldn't mind who lives outside the US could you please check and see what the shipping would be to order 25 WKF FFC cables.
If its cheaper for someone overseas I would like to pay you and have you order them and ship them to me. I'm not paying $40+ for shipping on 25 units...

Ashen wrote: Ridiculous I say!!

indeed...

hey, if you're not in a hurry, you can try this:

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/repair-par ... -wii-39775

just over $2 each, and free shipping...
(just don't expect them the next day though.. it usually takes about 2 weeks to the US to get to the US)

Wow nice find man. I even looked on DX and didnt catch those... Thx man! Everyone disregard my previous post

Ashen wrote:Heya Zeturi! Nice to see you over here.

Actually I/We have been thinking of ways to do this pretty much since we found out all of this was working (wiikey/WODE). Reason I'm doing this now is because the DVD drive connectors are so elusive that getting 1 or 2 hundred of these made up professionally seems to be out of the question still. Not for lack of trying of course. Anyway, I know not everyone has super soldering skills and I just happened to win 15 GC's. Figured I'd try to help some people out that really want to run this mod. Thx for the links to those regulators. They look perfect!

Edit: I wonder how hot those regulators get though. I know its not a huge voltage drop from 5v to 3.3v. I'm not going to have much available to dissipate the heat from the chip, I guess I could cut up some small blocks of aluminum if need be. Have you worked with those regulators before Zeturi?

Well, I originally joined benheck years ago in hopes of creating something like this:

What was impossible back then is becoming a reality now, thanks to the breakthoughs that you and zenloc have found with the wii disk drive conversion, and the wiikey. It's amazing how far gamecube portablizing has come in the past six months. I never knew there was an active, dedicated gamecube forum before. I'll definitely be dropping in once in a while.

I'm not certain on how hot the LM1117 will get, but they shouldn't get too hot, as long as the amp draw on the Wiikey isn't too high. Remember, the regulators on the back of the psone lcd are also linear, but they do not get very hot. They're dropping the voltage from 7.2v/7.4v to 5v, so I'm assuming the LM1117 should be fine dropping the voltage by such a small amount. I can't imagine that the amp draw would be very much, being just an SD reader and all.

Since linear regulators are pretty much just resistors anyway, I would imagine that it would work just as well as resistors in series on the 5v line. I'm going to go ahead and buy a batch, and I will let you know if I have any problems. You could ask zenloc for his thoughts on using this regulator, he should give you a concrete answer. I'm willing to bet it'd be fine.

EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention; I don't believe that you would even need to heatsink the regulators, either. They are linear, but the voltage drop is small and the amp draw should be very low. They may get warm, like the ones on the back of the Psone LCD as mentioned above, but they should be fine without any heatsinking.

Well, I just ordered 50 of them today. So we'll find out shortly.

If i have to mount em to a little aluminum plate its no big deal. Just a bit more work that will have to go into them.

Kewlness. I'm ordering 5, just as soon as I get those little dvd connectors desoldered from their boards.