Wii DVD/Wiikey Fusion/WODE + GC Portable Discussion

[Ashen]

Yea its a tricky thing to get the timing right. It needs to be pretty exact. All I can say is to keep trying. Funny thing is the first time I did it was a total accident and I just happened to be making a video at the time.

Edit: Also I'm not sure which firmware version is flashed to my sundrivers but I was using the old programmer and menu: SunDriver_Programmer_V2.04 + SunDiskMenu01.ISO

Awesome that you are going to test the WODE now too. I have a good feeling about it.

I wonder if there is anywhere to buy the male/female type of connector that the GC DVD drive uses. Could get some custom PCB's that go to the 32pin FFC connector made up. now that would be awesome ^_^

[Ashen]

Zen, have you tested the amp draw of the GC with the Fusion hooked up? I'm really curious of the power savings of not having the DD. Hopefully it increases battery life of portables a signifigant amount.

[LOCtronicz]

Tried many different things and nothing seems to work. The sundriver is out of the question for now. WODE is on the way so that will be the next one to test.

Here's the original amps draws of a gamecube with a discdrive connected.

The individual voltage lines on the GC draw as follows:

1,9v - 6 Amps at start up and in game sometimes goes up to 6.6 Amps
3,3v - 0.8 Amps
5.0v - 0.3 Amps (note that the 5v line is ONLY used for the disc drive motor, memorycard and rumble line for controllers nothing else!!!)
12.0v - 0.05 Amps (without fan, sound only!)

Note that the sound amp is actually a pre amp and is not always needed if you use a proper sound amp. Also the 5v line for the memorycard line and rumble don't draw that much.

If I get round to it tomorrow I'll test the draw with the wiikey fusion. I doubt there will be much difference in total amp draw though but you never know until you test it.

Also did some research on the wiikey fusion and like every other wii modchip is does not support the audio glitch some gamecube games have. So some games will not work properly. It's a small list but still not 100% compatibilty.

[Ashen]

Wow, jesus... 6 amps for the proc, gfx chip and memory pretty much then. Damn, i didnt think it was that high of a draw.

[LOCtronicz]

I don't think you understand correctly. Those are the individual voltage draws. It is all power of the regulator of course which mean "higher the voltage lower the amperage" when run on 12v it draws a total of 1.5A max.

Check this thread for more info http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=29319

[Abb_eliten]

List of games using streaming audio if anyone's intrested
Not too many well known games, apart from Zelda CE, Starfox, Pikmin 2, Eternal Darkness and some others.
I can totally sacrifice that for the space savings

[LOCtronicz]

There is also another downside. Using the modified WBFS manager for the wiikey fusion each and every gamecube game will be 1.36GB even if it's smaller wiped. That sucks bigtime!! Allot of games are not even close to that size.

Anybody have anymore information on an alternative manager that reduces the size to the wiped image size??

[Abb_eliten]

Have you tried Wii Game Manager?
Apprently a completely rewritten version of WBFS Manager.
I'm just grasping for straws here. Have no idea if it would work...

[emu_kidid]

Hopefully the interface is easy on the wiikey fusion and I can add fat support to it via swiss.

[Ashen]

http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/WBFS_Managers

Luckily the streaming audio list of games is short. 1.36gb games wont really bother me either. Like anything with emulation, theres usually some kind of trade off. Thx for clearing up the amp draw thing Zen

[emu_kidid]

With the wiikey fusion the 1.36GB file limit is only a small worry since you can get a couple of 32GB SDHC cards and just swap. Here's hoping they add SDXC support

I've not made any progress with my stuff, been far too busy

[Ashen]

Zen, I'm 99% sure its safe to cut along these lines here. what is that stuff down where I've drawn the ellipses? safe to cut that off and not worry? Its the only part that I'm unsure of now. If I can get the board slimmed that much on these sides I'm not going to worry about trimming the controller area anymore for this batch of portables.

Also is it safe to use thermal adhesive on the chips to hold the heat sinks? Or should I use paste and find a different way of securing the heat sinks? Does that knockoff classic controller for GC you used in your vids have the pressure sensitive L and R buttons?

[LOCtronicz]

Look at my cut up board pic and you will see that I have cut it exactly at those lines. Also the stop you circled has a regulator. On the top side and a small cap on the bottem side. You can remove that little smd cap and cut right next to the regulator (as seen in my pic). The controller side trimming is allot of work as you will have to rewire ever little component. But I'm gonna try for the sake of having the smallest gamecube motherboard

Make sure you sand down the sides you cut and run an exacto knife over it to be sure the double layers don't touch eachother. You will also have to rewire power to different locations.

[Ashen]

Zen, Thx for the confirmation. I really need to thank you and Tchay again for your GC motherboard layer scans. Without them it would have been MUCH harder to plan the cuts of my motherboards. I saw the regulator down near the end of the motherboard and had figured cutting that off would be a no no. I only wasn't sure about the large smt cap I would have to cut through on the other side of the board under the regulator. Its good to know this can be removed without worry. I've already wired up my first cut mobo and everything is working fine so far (only had to relocate a few 3.3v power lines + the 12v lines). I have not wired up the memcards yet but I believe I've left everything that is important to keep them working attached to the board. I'm hoping wiring the 3.3v and 5v power they require direct from the regulator will not be an issue, though I don't see why it should be. If things go as planned I should be able to get the Mobo to 4.25" height, which is my desired height for my first set of cases.

I've also decided to vac form the cases for the first set of portables I'm making. The final dimensions I've nailed down will be 8" x 4.25" x 1". Admittedly its a bit larger than I wanted BUT the units will include 5" screens which require a good bit of real estate by themselves and after careful consideration of the pro's and cons of 7.4v vs 11.1v still include the 11.1v lipo packs I ordered. Really the major factor will be that the units remain thin. Which is possible now since we've eliminated the need for the DD.

I only have a few small things left to get my hands on before I can really begin production (a few of those knockoff controllers you use and some memcards). I am really super excited to get started.

In other news, keep and eye on the Wiikey official site news section

[LOCtronicz]

Nice!! The size is not bad at all. Definitly the smallest..... for now Bet your portable is going to look great. Using the original regulator at 11.1v is I think the best option for you.

Looked around the net for more info on the gamecube compatibility for the fusion and have found out that it also does not support multi disc games.

So the downsides are:

gamecube iso images are always 1.36gb on sd card
no region free
no multidisc support
no audio fix


Hoping that Emu_kidid will get swiss working on it and allow all the functions to work.........(crossing my fingers)

Would be awesome to be credited by the wiikey team themselves. We've added another feature for them. They only need to make a little add on adapter and they can make more money Thanks for contacting them. Maybe they will be able to do something about there firmware. Maybe more compatible for the gamecube! Aaah you can always hope

[Ashen]

Nice!! The size is not bad at all. Definitly the smallest..... for now Bet your portable is going to look great. Using the original regulator at 11.1v is I think the best option for you.

I cant wait to see what you come up with as far as size/design goes (your gamecube slide is beautiful). You and a few others (hail, technott) have always put out 100% quality beautiful looking portables. Looking forward to it, especially if you get that mobo trimmed like you say.

Looked around the net for more info on the gamecube compatibility for the fusion and have found out that it also does not support multi disc games.

So the downsides are:

gamecube iso images are always 1.36gb on sd card
no region free
no multidisc support
no audio fix

Well, like I said before. The audio and region lock thing don't really bother me much. Multidisc games taht dont allow saving before switching discs could be a bummer though. I thought though that it was possible to merge multi discs into a single .iso file somehow thru homebrew. I'll have to do some research on this.

[LOCtronicz]

Here's a little sneak peak at what I'm going to stuff into my new project. It will be called GameCubePocket. Not original I know BUT WHO CARES IT FITS IN YOUR POCKET!!!

Features:

3.5" led screen
wiikeyfusion sd mod
custom mini heatsink with fan
custom regulator
Mini gamepad buttons, shoulder buttons and 2 tapwave zodiac mini analog's
stereo speakers

Case will be slightly thicker due to the battery. I'm aiming for a decent 2 hours of battery life. Let's hope I can fit it all in.







LET THE MODDING BEGIN!!!! ...........altough I won't be able to start until April

[Ashen]

Wow man. That is going to be sick! Very nice find for the frankencase, I'll have to keep that in mind for my next round. Thx for sharing Zen. Awesome as always.

By the way, These screens are awesome (available from2.5"-10") and seem to run off of 5v (.6mah draw) just fine: http://www.aliexpress.com/product-gs/25 ... alers.html Thx to Tchay for finding them

[Abb_eliten]

Good to hear they can run on 5V
Was a bit worried about the 9-12v rating.

Zen: What are the other sticks taken from? Just to get an idea of the size

[LOCtronicz]

PS2 - Mini gamecube - tapwave zodiac

[Ashen]

http://nintendo-scene.com/619

Somebody somewhere apparently had a source of the male black plastic connector thingie on the GC. I wonder if any of the guys responsible for the microdream are still around to ask where they obtained them. GC DVD to 32pin FFC connector would be sweet.

[doktor_krotch]

Can the boot loader of the wiikey fusion be replaced with a hombrew program? Say like Swiss for example ...

Edit - but I don't think streaming audio support will be possible because there's not enough logic on the wiikey fusion to do so.

[bearteam]

http://nintendo-scene.com/619

Somebody somewhere apparently had a source of the male black plastic connector thingie on the GC. I wonder if any of the guys responsible for the microdream are still around to ask where they obtained them. GC DVD to 32pin FFC connector would be sweet.

Emukid_id has a prototype of this DVD emulator.

[liquitt]

http://nintendo-scene.com/619

Somebody somewhere apparently had a source of the male black plastic connector thingie on the GC. I wonder if any of the guys responsible for the microdream are still around to ask where they obtained them. GC DVD to 32pin FFC connector would be sweet.

afaik the developer of that drive replacement thingy is not around anymore and/or has other stuff to deal with.
maybe just take the connectors from broken gamecube drives? i could provide at least 2

[Ashen]

Final board cuts. Need to wire up Controllers/Memcards and the DVD connector when my proto advantage connectors arrive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeOWvJBWB2w