IDE-EXI = FIRE!

[andre104623]

um yeah well I had a fun day I was messing about with one of my IDE-EXI's today one that I have not tested or used yet and it was working fine for about 25-30 minutes playing zelda. The dog had to go out so I was gone for about 10 minutes when I got in the house I smelled smoke and I run into my room only to see my gamecube on fire! I got the fire put out and I wanted to see what happened but its so burned up I can't tell but I can see that the fire started in slot B where the IDE-EXI was. What I think happened the Xilinx chip shorted out and caused the fire but why? Why only this one I have others that worked for hours without any problem besides problems that the IDE-EXI's have anyway. Now I don't want to sound cheap but I got these chips out of china and for all I know there clones but they read in IMPACT fine and flash in 7-9 seconds. This incident has worried me and I've decided to hold on to my extra's and not sale them which was only 2 but this could of been much worst and if I would had left my house for a hour my house would have burned down and my frog would have died which might sound ridiculous but he is 7 years old and I like having him around. I unfortunately had one casualty which was my japan spice gamecube but I'll live and will replace it.

webtalk_impact.rar

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[megalomaniac]

no pics??

post some shots of the PCB and the GC....
clear pics would help...

[andre104623]

no pics??

post some shots of the PCB and the GC....
clear pics would help...

I will have some pics tomorrow I'm still trying to get the melted plastic off my table. The ide-exi is completely destroyed to the point that you will not be able to tell what happened but I will upload pics when I'm ready to I'm going to see if the mobo inside the GC is OK because I want to keep it

[andre104623]

This is what I got so far

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I will post more sometime tomorrow morning

[andre104623]

You know what was really funny Zelda was still on the screen when it was on fire

[andre104623]

Never mind about the mobo its fucked and got wet the only thing I had to put it out was water so yeah and my component cable was plugged in at the time thank god its OK and still working

[megalomaniac]

too soon?

Spoiler

Show

[ShockSlayer]

That's amazing. I've seen some shit but man, that's somethin' else.

[iamdablasta]

Probably still fixable, just a liiiiitle black.

[MockyLock]

I would say that's more than amazing. Scary !

[andre104623]

I have found the cause of the fire and its my doing that cause the fire. If you look at the second pic I posted you will notice that I added solder to the IDE-EXI pads this was to have better connection in the Gamecube but all it did was push the tangs in the memory card slot up to the point that they were touching. At what point they touched is anyone's guess but I do have a cat that loves to fuck with my frog and he could of bumped the hard drive or ide-exi and caused the tangs to touch then short and light on fire. There are some factors here that made the fire so big like how I painted the controller board with oil base paint and the ide-exi wasn't fully clean yet (maybe flux?) but I have learned that even 3.3 volts can cause a fire like this and to be more careful in the future (and not to leave my GC on when I'm not around). Also since I'm leaving the ide-exi part of the scene and getting into the GCvideo project I'm going to check every solder point and clean the PCB before testing. If anyone has been in a house fire or any kind of fire it fucks with your head it traumatizes you and when I saw the fire it gets your adrenaline pumping. All in all this was a horrible way to end my project cause this was my last PCB to complete and test now I'm paranoid about the GCvideo but hopefully it will pass and I'm still waiting for parts so I have some time to recover and to remember NOT to change the design. I asked Unseen about taking out some wires from the install but I will wait till someone that really knows what he is doing to mod the PCB. Lesson learned

[andre104623]

Probably still fixable, just a liiiiitle black.

um no not fixable I used water to put out the fire so no chance. But yes it is black and yes I unplugged the gamecube before throwing water on it

[emu_kidid]

Was your fuse bridged, why didn't 3.3v just drop off and die?

[megalomaniac]

I have found the cause of the fire and its my doing that cause the fire. If you look at the second pic I posted you will notice that I added solder to the IDE-EXI pads this was to have better connection in the Gamecube but all it did was push the tangs in the memory card slot up to the point that they were touching.

taking a look at the second and third pics i see some nice and clean purple areas where those memcard slot pads are...if those pins shorting were in any way the cause of the fire, then they would be burned up by electrical surge to become the cause of a fire...
instead, they were shielded from fire within the memcard slot while everything else around it burned...
i think i might already know the cause of the fire, but it would take a few more photos of the actual GC itself to confirm...

I asked Unseen about taking out some wires from the install but I will wait till someone that really knows what he is doing to mod the PCB.

the info Unseen posted is accurate...

dont take this the wrong way, but his statements were only based on common sense and basic electronics...
1. 12v and 27mhz are not needed in his design because he does not use them...so there is no reason to connect those...
2. GND is GND is GND....you do not need to individually connect every GND to the digital port. Instead just connect GND from the GC video to GND on the mainboard collectively as one or as a single GND....



....about your statement:

"I will wait till someone that really knows what he is doing to mod the PCB"

you do realize Unseen is not new to hardware or PCB design??
he only made a quick beta board suitable for his own use / needs and included that ready to use design for others to have a quick and ready way to test his design...

yes, there are some improvements which can be added to the PCB to allow more custom fit or more custom connection....
....but for you to make indication that he doesnt know what he is doing is just improper considering this recent fire fiasco in which no previous IDE-EXI has ever caught on fire until now...and im pretty convinced based on the photos posted above that the IDE-EXI itself was not even the cause of the fire...


- Chips from china, while possible, might not be the cause based on what i see in the photos...
- Malicious cat bouncing around the room while you are away is possible, but i still dont see the actual IDE-EXI as the root cause of the fire..
- i already indicated above about how it seems impossible for the memcard pins to have been the cause since thet area of the PCB is considerably unscathed..
- While oil based paint would help the fire burn, something had to start flaming for it to even catch on fire...and if the chip overheated and by generating enough heat to catch the paint on fire based on contact heat then the chip itself would have also become a bit desoldered by the temp of its own self yet the chip still looks like its in perfect placement...



My concern is knowing the actual cause of the fire. This will help others avoid danger in the future thru the use of safe modding practices...in your case you only lost a prized Spice GC and not your entire home...Lets try to help others from a potential loss of their home..

post some pics of the entire GC