Hi, about Serial port 2 USB for Swiss, any chance?

[Papy.G]

I'm not into chips in general, so I can't say much more about these that what you've probably already read.

[Seniorcelica]

I'm not into chips in general, so I can't say much more about these that what you've probably already read.

did you get it to work. i am tring the same sort of thing but using a old card reader to hold the sdcard. cut a hole in the back of my gc to mount the reader and follower the wire diagram but nothing. im booting swiss775 from disc and choosing sd2sp for the source in swiss. i see the progress bar for about a second then it dissapears..

[Diego borella]

Yes, but as long as the public release of SWISS wasn't compatible and confirmed working with Citrus's µSD card reader, I was not able to test my "homework".
And, no, it doesn't work (My homemade reader).

the capacitor, if electrolytic, must be very close to the SD slot you want to transform into an SP2SD.
otherwise, it will not work.
weld your legs close to the solder point as much as you can. IDE wires are great. keep only 8 cm or less.
make 1 bridge in both GND.
use 22uf capacitor for 25volts or 50v

the diagram presented in this post is correct and works. just change the capacitor to 25 or 50 volts.
it worked for 50volts for me.

[Papy.G]

Yes, it works, and without the cap, see what was the problem:

Yes, I have crossed the lines, this is because of the different erroneous sources such as your diagram.
In a dedicated serial connection, one has to cross the lines between DI and DO from both side, but on SPI, serial data lines are named MOSI and MISO, because the lines between Master and Slaves must not be crossed, you wire MOSI to MOSI, and MISO to MISO.

So the diagram may be right, but the pins namings are wrong, and lead me to error.

[gaseoso]

Does anybody know if the chip responsible for the CS on SP2 is still on Dol-101 MB? Since we can get any of the other useful signals for an internal SD2SP2 adapter, it would be nice.

I'm really sorry for bumping this dormant thread, but I want to know if you ever found the answer to this? Reason is I want to know if there's the possibility of readding the SP2 functionality to the DOL-101 MB, since that's the only Gamecube I have. I know the contacts points have been traced, and I have found diagrams for it (here and here), but I want to know for sure if it's safe to proceed, so I don't accidentally break my cube.

Besides identifying the solder points and needing the 22uf capacitor, should there be more components required in theory? I'm just asking about the electronic components and not the connector itself, because I plan on adding a direct Micro SD reader to the motherboard that acts like a hard-modded SP2 port.

[rafer_22]

The diagram for DOL-101 is rigth, you only need the microSD reader

[gaseoso]

Okay, thank you very much!

[RetroFili]

Hi, I wanna install internally sd2sp2 on my Gamecube Dol-101 and I need help to know where solder the 2 grounds and power wires from sd card to gamecube's board.

[Diego borella]

The diagram for DOL-101 is rigth, you only need the microSD reader

did you do this scheme on a Dol 101? following this diagram will be all right?

Yes, it works, and without the cap, see what was the problem:
So the diagram may be right, but the pins namings are wrong, and lead me to error.

and you Papy.G, managed to work on a 101 dol? and the capacitor, where does it go in this scheme?
a cousin of mine has a dol 101, I want to use an SP2 for him ...

[Papy.G]

Didn't already, seems that many experience problems doing this mod.
I wonder if it is safe to solder straight in the vias under the CPU, as it can heat and desolder the BGA…

I have slots on cards with cap already in place, and some without and I won't add them at first, it must be the closer to the SD slot.

[Diego borella]

this information is quite relevant.
my first homebrew SP2sd i had some frustrated capacitors.

However, when trying to solder a citrus SP2SD2 on the plate, it heated up to fry the PCB. I think there should be a sink.
I will work as soon as possible, this is an essential mod ...

what problems are presented? heating of the BGA.


But this is strange, because the 3.3 volts that seemed to me responsible for heating.

because they are not extracted from that area.

[Papy.G]

There's no point in getting a Citrus SD2SP2 to eventually solder it.

Heating while soldering is the main concern.

If I ever do this, I may try from a distant via, not right under the cpu, if available.

[Diego borella]

there were 8 cm of threads at the SP2_ points on the 001dol board

an sd2sp2 was soldered on these wires ... the Citrus board was very hot and didn't work.
when I refurbished
my Serial P2 and I used Sd2sp2 in the series in an original way, it worked ...

would the 10 volt voltage and the mass of wires cause this? I say the error ...

[Papy.G]

You may just have wired the thing the wrong way. I have almost 10cm of ribbon on mine, connected via a custom-made male connector, and it now just works fine, without any capacitor, as seen in my little crappy video showing the SD2SP2 in action.

10volts? If you shorted something this way, luckily it only heated the board, otherwise you may have fried your SD as well.

Maybe your SD heated, that makes me think about the main Memcard I currently use, a Datel 1019 blocks (labelled 16MB for any reason…), that gets quite warm, don't remember if this is the one I experience problems with when inserting after boot, but that may be a wrong pin assignment, causing the chip to be always selected or something…

[Diego borella]

I mean 10volts capacitor tolerance ...
on the SP2sd2 board there is a 22uf capacitor for 10 volts.
for me, it only worked with 50vots 22uf, the homemade SP2sd2.

with 22uf 10v the capacitor exploded.




you say without capacitor ??? how?
for me, it didn't work without a capacitor.
what is the connection for this? I followed the diagram with 22uf cover for 10v_50

note that the homemade slot worked with the welded wires.
Citrus SP2 does not.
...

[gckrz]

Hello, and excuse me for possibly hijacking this thread.

Thank you first of all for everybody involved, who made SP2SD possible, software and hardware wise.

I am also having touble with a sp2sd homemade adaptor. Without finding a readymade one (at the time they were all sold-out), I asked my friend who is skilled with pcbs and soldering to botch one for me. So he made it, but he did not have a gamecube to test it for me. Also, he used spare parts from what he had, not exactly from the BOM provided.

Long story short, after several tweakings due to the board being too thin and veryfication that all contacts are intermittent, the adaptor can detect micro-sd cards, but only ones which are 2 Gb max, old ones. Neither of the newer cards I have, which can also be read through wiisd adaptor, are detected. I have a Transcend 16Gb MicroSDHC (class 6), A class 10 Samsung EVO MicroSDXC 32Gb, and an Apacer Class 10 32Gb microSDHC card.

Could it be a wrong capacitor? It is an smd ceramic one. My friend does not remember which capacity he put in it.

Using swiss-gc v0.4r775-1 which corrected detection of sp2sd. Also tried the latest version v0.5r813, chainbooting from wiisd, it has the same symptoms.

[Diego borella]

samsumg SD evo doesn't seem to work.
formatted the fat32 SDs?
use electrolytic capacitor for homemade SP2SD2. SMD does not.
how do you get to swiss?
send the adapter photo ...
or soldier on the board?
do not use together with wiisd.

additional information and what you are looking for are in the same post ...

[gckrz]

Here it is. The original capacitor was measured to be 4.5 uF, I replaced that with two 11 uF in parallel which gives 22 uF...

Still, I can read only 512 SD cards, the 2 Gb is detected (allows to select it at start) but won't read anything, included files.

The SD cards are formatted FAT32, primary partition, default cluster size.

[Diego borella]

Your SD2SP2 is a copy of SP2 citrus.
In that case, I think you should use an SMD, as it is closer to the original.
place a 22uf 10volts SMD.

a 22uf 16v electrolytic can be tried if nothing goes right, but take care of the polarity.

but say, are the files in the folders seen and executed? did you do anything on the cards that were detected, copied something, deleted a file by swiss?
try to play an MP3 through Switzerland. a game on the 2gb card ...

it looks like a capacitance problem.

As I understand it, the closer to the SP2 plug, the lower the required voltage.

farther from the plug, more tension ...

and the boot is from the drive: original DVD; or replacement of the unit?
or DVD recorded with Switzerland;
how do you get to swiss?
...
ps. swiss is supporting exFAT now, you can try ...

[gckrz]

The Gamecube has XenoGC in it. I am booting from a DVD-R with swiss-gc v0.4r775-1.

I can execute the .dol from the 512 mb sd-card in the SP2SD. I did not put any iso-s on it, because they do not fit.

The 2 Gb card which is detected just shows up in the selection of sources. When I select it, it disappears from the selection, and then allows to select DVD or ram.
If I put another 2 Gb card or a 4gb card or a 16 Gb card or any of the 32 Gb cards after the boot sequence swiss just straight lists the content of the DVD.

I tried electrolytic capacitors 22uF 25V and 100 uF 16V - same symptoms.
The same cards do detect and list filesystem if inserted in wiisd (so should not be a file system problem).

[rafer_22]

Forget the capacitor, you don't need it. Check your traces and pin assignment on sd slot. If everything looks alright, make another

[gckrz]

Thanks, I will check whether the traces are same.
Should I take away SD-card slot and inspect beneath?
Also, what is pin assignment?

[Diego borella]

100uf !? never change the UF capacitor, just voltage!


there is something strange and still unknown in SD2SP2.
for me, it didn't work without a capacitor.
for Papy.G, it worked ...
see my cube is USA_ntsc
Papy.G PAL EUR

does this have to do?
and more,
do not use the 775-1, it is a double-edged sword.
you will need to reset your SRAM. (remove the battery, the control slot part).
burn DVD use the 688,

if there is no need for the capacitor, why did Dan put it there?



for my part: keep the standard capacitor, reset your SRAM and try Swiss r688.
...

[rafer_22]

@Diego borella If you check the mainboard, you can see a capacitor near to serial Port 2 connector and many around. So, you don't need external capacitor. Dan knows a lot, but he's not the only one

[Papy.G]

In electronic components integration, one should always pair one chip to its decoupling cap, the closer the better, it is a basic rule.
In real life, there are many cases where it is not absolutely needed, so the cap pads are left unpopulated on many PCBs.
This is the case with most SDGeckos (WiiSD, WiiKey), and they work flawlessly without it.
Citrus just wanted to do things as the state of the art suggests to do, and did well.
If the SD2SP2 doesn't work without a cap, the wires or contact may be the problem, if it doesn't work with a cap, skip it.

Just do not use outdated SWISS releases, always keep up to date so you'll get the better from it.
Hey, It's not as if SWISS was a big company OS with slowness on updates and bugfixes and not really caring about user feedback, we're talking about one of the most reactive team with direct comunication from creators to users!
So for this same reason, don't burn discs uselessly, and save your drive's laser at the same time (not touching to that Pot anymore!)

For DOL-101 models, never solder right at the back of the CPU, the risk is to desolder its pads while soldering to the vias on the opposite of the MB.

Pin assignment is quite straightforward:
SP-SD
VCC-VCC
GND-GND
CS-CS
CLK-CLK
MOSI-MOSI
MISO-MISO

Beware, if MISO and MOSI are labelled DI/DO, you'll have to cross the wires so that it will be:
DO-DI
DI-DO

That's what I previously related, the mis-labelling in some pictures we took as reference leaded many to mis-match those wires.