Wii DVD/Wiikey Fusion/WODE (sd/hdd loading) on Gamecube

[Ashen]

Please note: Duplication in part or in whole of any part of this guide, its contents or visual references is strictly prohibited without the express consent of the author.

Original Discussion here: http://www.gc-forever.com/forums/viewto ... ?f=3&t=301

Guide + Wiikey Compatibility list here: http://www.gc-forever.com/forums/viewto ... 4054#p4054

Wii DVD/Wiikey Fusion/WODE (sd/hdd loading) on Gamecube Guide/Tutorial Direct copy from the gc-forever.com forums.

Things to know ahead of time:
1. You will need some soldering skill to perform this mod.
2. If you want to retain the ability to hook the original GameCube DVD drive back up you may solder to the DVD connector pins on the bottom of the GC motherboard (only one can be hooked up at a time!). If you plan to remove the connector a desoldering iron is recommended.
3. As of right now only original GameCube discs work with the Wii DVD drive mod. This may change in the future as different GC and Wii modchips are tested.
4. Not all Wii DVD drive revisions are tested.
5. When the Wii DVD drive is connected to the GC the disc insertion/disc eject (slot loading mechanism) acts kind of funny.
6. The Wiikey Fusion is not compatible with all Gamecubes! See the compatibility list below.
7. Last but not least, We are not responsible for anything you destroy or electronics that go up in a puff of blue smoke whilst attempting this Mod. If you read and follow this guide carefully you should be ok.

For those interested here is an early video of the testing of the Wii DVD mod: http://www.youtube.com/user/Ashen123451 ... MeXMlDtaGE

Zenloc's most epic Wiikey Fusion video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jht0PBJVTZE

Emu_kidid running the WODE on his cube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKGwzPU0Bs4

That all being said, on to the meat and potatoes.

Wii DVD/Wiikey Fusion/WODE Jukebox to Gamecube Mod:

These are the connector pin out's of the Wii DVD Drive and Modchips confirmed working with the GameCube:
Wii DVD Drive:

Wiikey Fusion:

WODE Jukebox:

In reference to the above pinouts, all of the connectors pins 1 through 32 run from right to left. Pin 1 being rightmost on the connector and ending with pin 32 being leftmost.

Special Pins/Connections:

Pins 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 are ground pins and must be connected with a common ground on the GameCube motherboard itself!

Pin 32 Needs 3.3v power input to power the modchips. The Wii DVD drive will function without this hooked up.

Pin 23 Is the "lid open/closed" signal. Wire a on/off switch between this connection to retain the ability to "open/close the lid". The normal GameCube lidswitch is fine. This is needed for multi-disc game disc swapping.

Pin 29 Simulates the Wii's eject button and also controls disc sensing. This pin needs to be run to a normally closed momentary tact switch which is then run to the GameCube's ground. The DVD drive/Modchip WILL NOT FUNCTION unless this is done exactly as stated. Here is an example of the type of switch you will need:

The common (C) pin should be run to pin 29, the normally closed (NC) pin should be run to the GameCube motherboard's ground and the normally open (NO) pin should go to 1.9v from the GameCube's regulator (1.9v is only needed for the Wii DVD Drive! Wiikey Fusion/WODE requires only the pin29/switch/gnd).

Little update from none other than our ol' pal Shockslayer that I think is worth noting if your having issues getting your wiikey to work:

a few days ago, the wiikey quit working all together. I tried everything, I knew my wiring was good, checked all the switches, all sorts of sd card formatting, etc.

Nothing was fixing it.

I decided even though it had worked plenty of times before with the "eject" switch on just ground and pin 29, hooking up 1.9v might be what the wiikey needs. One added wire, once pinch of potassium chlorate, one errant button press?

Ta-da. Wiikey works every time I press the button, first try. Pretty Dang happy about that.

I suggest that, if you know your wiring is good, the blue light flashes in sequence with the "reading disc" message, you know your SD card is compatible and formatted right, and you can't get your Wiikey to work?

Try this next.

I suppose it could have something to do with the Wiikey itself, or it's compatibility with this cube. I never had this problem with my last cube, it might have something to do with the board revision because the IPL on this one is the same as my last working one.

SS

Pins 30 and 31 are left disconnected.

Gamecube soldering points:
The soldering points depicted below are the above referenced Wii pin #'s. No confusing pinmatch required anymore.
Gamecube Motherboard DVD Drive connector. TOP of Motherboard:

Gamecube Motherboard DVD Drive connector. BOTTOM of Motherboard:

The power connections for the Wii DVD drive/WODE may be taken straight from the correct voltage pins on the GameCubes regulator board. For portablizing purposes the 12v power connector on the Wii DVD drive has been tested (not extensively) and confirmed to work with as low as 7.4v, it should work fine with Zenloc's custom regulator.

Power Regulator to Motherboard input (Rev A/B only):

Making the connections between the systems:

However you decide to make the connection between the systems a high gauge 24-28awg solid insulated wire type is recommended. IDE wire has also been reported to be acceptable. Keep your wire length to a minimum. Anything over 5-6" wire length may run into latency issues. To sum it up, the shorter the better.

1. (DVD/Wiikey/WODE) Currently the best connection option is to order one of the connectors listed below. This option allows you to connect the flat ribbon cable directly from the DVD drive/Wiikey Fusion/WODE and provides good sized solderable pads/thru holes to run your wires to. Depending on the interest shown in this mod emu_kidid may end up stocking one of them in the web store. http://www.proto-advantage.com/store/pr ... id=3400013 http://www.newhavendisplay.com/index.ph ... ts_id=2476 http://en.esskabel.de/adapter/datasheet ... 0-set/186/ http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=6598834882 + http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=5686938034 http://www.lcd-store.de/xaranshop_k014013s001_1.htm (You have to specify that you need 32 pins though). If you decide to use an FFC adapter that has too many pins you need to make sure that the pins are aligned correctly when you seat the FFC into the adapter! Check continuity from the end of the FFC to the soldering points of the adapter BEFORE you attempt to power on the system! You can kill your DVD drive/modchip very easily this way! After you've done this its a very good idea to secure the FFC in the socket in some way (hot glue, epoxy).

2. (DVD Only) The second method is to solder to the test pads right on the Wii DVD drive daughterboard. As you can see in the photo above each connection coming from the ribbon cable has its own test pad that can be soldered to. Since there are so many different revisions of the Wii DVD drive daughterboard you will need to do your own testing and confirm what pads go to what pins.

3. (DVD/Wiikey/WODE) The third option is to solder directly to the ribbon cable leads. This can be very precarious work and for long term use may not be reliable depending on your soldering skills. However it is do'able. The easiest way I found is to split every lead on one end of the ribbon cable with a razor blade and fold every other lead back to avoid bridging. Hold the bent back leads in place with some double sided tape placed beneath them. Tinning the leads before hand should aid in making a proper connection. The leads on the ribbon cable are very easy to burn through so make sure you use as little heat and contact time as necessary with your soldering iron. After confirming continuity on all pins covering the soldered end of the ribbon cable in hot glue or epoxy is recommended to avoid future broken connections. Here is an example of this method:

Other notes:

Before using your Wiikey Fusion on your GameCube you must set the region switch correctly! Else the GameCube will give you the standard error that you get when a Disc Drive is not connected to the Cube. Instuctions on how to set the region DIP switches on the Wiikey Fusion can be found here: http://www.wiikey.com/en/support/wiikey ... tallation/

When first connecting a Wiikey Fusion to a gamecube you will need to update it to v1.5 Wiikey Fusion firmware for it to work with the GameCube properly. This update can be done right on the GameCube, However you must have an SD card inserted at system power on with only the v1.5 firmware update on it for the Wiikey to boot properly and to recognize the SD card inserted. All Wiikey Fusions I've received so far have shipped with v1.0 firmware flashed to them, so this is required most if not all of the time.

The Wiikey Fusion has been confirmed to work with multidisc games using a SD card swapping method. When asked to switch discs simply swap the SD card to a SD card with the next disc .iso on it and flip/press your lid/open closed switch. There is however one other catch.

When adding games to SD card it seems that the Wiikey uses whatever "slot" the game is loaded to to identify what image to mount if the SD card is removed and reinserted during gameplay. So if on one card you have 5 games and on another card you have 3 games and the multidisc game you are playing ends up in a different slot than it is on the first SD card. The trick will not work. Ex:

SD card 1:
1. game x
2. game c
3. game v(disc1)

SD card 2:
1. game v(disc2)
2. game p
3. game d

This will not work! The game needs to be in the same "slot" as such:

SD card 1:
1. game x
2. game c
3. game v(disc1)

SD card 2:
1. game q
2. game p
3. game v(disc2)

This would work. I'm not 100% sure how WBFS manager arranges things on the card and why. Honestly the best way I can say to play a multidisc game this way is to just go buy two 2gb SD cards and put disc 1 on one of them and disc 2 on another.

For those of you who like to have a bit more of a visual guide/reference and are using the newhaven display FFC adapter, Beta has made up this nice clean diagram and shared it for everyone's use:

I ask that if you find this mod useful and use it please give credit where its due. Many months were sunk into getting all this working. Find master Zenloc and emu_kidid and toss them some thanks too

 

[Ashen]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Wow not even one reply here... /pokes modretro to see if its alive... ><

I did some testing for everyone this morning, its all in the video below but this is what I got:

(please excuse my sh@tty camera work) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMeXMlDtaGE

I ripped a tact switch out of an old computer mouse today to use as a makeshift eject button. the "always on" leads connected to pin 29(wii) and gnd and the "button pushed" pin to 1.9v from power supply.

The first thing you will probably notice is that the "disc insertion/disc eject" motor acts oddly (runs and runs until disc is put in, same when a disc is removed. It does eventually give up though). This is most likely a side effect of Pins 32, 31 and 30 being unhooked on the Wii side, These pins most likely help control disc in/out sensing.

The first game I boot in the video (SSBM) gets a random error. This is the first time I've seen this. Could have something to do with how I have eject wired up. Note that SSBM booted many other times for me without error.

Wii drivechips dont work for backup loading (at least my d2lite didnt) the GC gets an error when trying to mount the game. I dont have a spare GC modchip to wire up to try. Someone else can try if they do this mod (I'm not taking my Wii apart anymore) ;P

Wii games dont work... lol. I really didnt expect this to fly anyway.

Multidisc games SHOULD work as I ejected many discs in the middle of gameplay without error and on reinsertion they started right back up from the same spot. Should be the same for disc switching on a multidisc game.

Thats it for now I think. I'm going to be working with the sundriver again for the next few days. I will be ordering some Wii DVD drives though.

Is there any way thru homebrew on my Wii to identify my drive type? Need to find this out but I couldn't see anywhere physically on the drive that it says what type/revision the drive is.

 

[Tchay]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

YES. OH GOD. YOU ARE MY HERO.



So the eject button is a piece of cake. Thats good.

As for the error when booting SSBM, is it possible that you bumped a wire? If you have any more GC games, try them all out and see what happens...plz.

What would u say is the length and width of this wii drive? I'm curious if it will fit in one of my smaller cases. Can any of it be cut off and have it still work?

Thanks so much for working on this. I have seriously been waiting for someone to do something like this for 2 years (since I first started modding the GC).

EDIT: Im pretty sure the drive revision WONT matter. But it will say on the daughter board what type it is.

 

[Ashen]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

The length and width unmod'd is about the same size as an uncut GC mobo, maybe a little larger. Also its roughly 1/4in thick maybe a little more. These are pic's of Palmers slimmed and mod'd top loading Wii Drive (for his Wiiboy I think?). I found them somewhere and saved em for reference (daughterboard is not pictured):

All cred goes to Palmertech for these pics:

 

[bentomo]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

This is amazing actually! The possibilities of how small gamecubes can get with this.

So you don't need any external parts? Is it's only wiring the correct signals together via the chart?

 

[Ashen]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Yep, Pretty much "plug and play" besides pin 29 which needs a switch between gnd (to trick the drive into thinking its receiving a "low byte" signal) and1.9v for ejecting.

Like I said the disc insertion/ejection motor acts kinda funny with the extra pins 32, 31 and 30 (wii side) left unhooked. but I'm sure if someone really wanted to figure out how to fix this it could be done with a small home built circuit.

For now the way I have it seems to work pretty well.

 

[bentomo]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Doesn't the eject signal get a low anyway just from not being connected to anything?

 

[ShockSlayer]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Ah, I almost missed this!

This is fantastic, I cannot wait to see what GC portables can be now, it makes me want to pick it back up for one last go. The riddle of slimming the GC dvd drive has now been solved! Finally, we can make some super epic portables!

As far as identifying the drive: http://www.wiidrives.com/howto

That might help.

SS

 

[Ashen]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Nope. Pin 29 is not only the eject signal while being driven high (1.9v) but it also has an effect on disc recognition while being driven low. If this pin is not driven low by some means (gnd or otherwise) you will get no disc in the disc channel on the Wii and the effect is the same when the drive is hooked to the cube.

 

[Abb_eliten]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

This is really great indeed!

I just remembered I've got another GC mobo laying around here.
If I can find a Wii disc drive for a reasonable price I might try this.

Does anyone know if the region locking is on the disc drive or GC mobo?

 

[Ashen]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

YES. OH GOD. YOU ARE MY HERO.



Thanks so much for working on this. I have seriously been waiting for someone to do something like this for 2 years (since I first started modding the GC).

Lol @ the first bit.

3years here man. Check my benheck post history. First post asking about something like this was in 2008. I got tired of waiting. ;P

I accept beer by mail btw

 

[Mako321]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Ashen, any test results with a sundriver?

 

[Ashen]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Mako, The sun can be hooked up the same exact way that I've posted to hook up the DVD drive. To get the sun to initialize properly it needs to be powered on after the GC. No matter what I've done so far I always get the "cannot read disc" error on the cube. After considering it a bit more and seeing the error i got with the wii dvd hooked to the cube trying to load backups with my d2lite i think it may have something to do with the way Wii modchips "inject" the boot data to trick the console into thinking its a real disc. I'm going to rip out my viper extreme from my other cube later on tonight and wire it up to my test cube to see what effect it has on the boot process. Wish me luck.

 

[wyadith]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Wow this is an amazing innovation and a big leap forward for GC portablizing great job man! But i have a few questions.. Do you need to have a modchip for this to work?If so what modchip do I need?Im a little confused with your wiring diagram when you say sun driver are you referring to the wii disk drive? and could you maybe describe how your diagram works a little more?I think I kind of get it are the numbering pinouts on the left the only wires you need to hook up for this to work besides the eject button? Anyways just a few questions.



thanks

 

[Ashen]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Nope, No modchip required. Originals work perfectly. Still testing modchip functionality.

Whoops! didn't realize my pin out diagram still said sundriver... Its supposed to say Wii. I will fix it shortly. Here are some diagrams to help you with the pin matching.

This is the GC DVD controller connector:

and this is the Wii DVD controller connector:

you can see right on the board where pins 1 and 32 are marked

So the jist is, connect the dots using my pin match diagram between the two systems and voila!

Edit: Also this should go without saying, but you must connect all ground pins coming from the dvd drive to ground somewhere on the GC mainboard.

 

[BoFoSho]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

nice work.

 

[LOCtronicz]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

SICK!!! I'm gonna try this asap. Got all the parts laying around anyway. Altough I've noticed that if you trim down a wii board with a sundriver connected you can make a very small wii/gc portable which is able to play all gamecube games and some wii games that support horizontal wiiote and wi classic controllers.

Does it matter how long the wires are from wii drive to gc? Also if you just wanna remove the whole eject thing all together and use it like palmer's slimmed drive how would you have to wire the eject switch?

Great work so far man definitly a place in the book of portobalizing discoveries!!

 

[Mako321]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Can I guess that this is on the Wii's Mobo itself? Looks backwards to the DVD drive itself, and my DVD drive has no markings for pin 1 or 32.

 

[Ashen]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Can I guess that this is on the Wii's Mobo itself? Looks backwards to the DVD drive itself, and my DVD drive has no markings for pin 1 or 32.

Yes, The pinout in the chart I have supplied is from the connector on the Wii Motherboard. The easiest way to see what is what on the DVD drive side is to check where the ground pins start and go from there.

Does it matter how long the wires are from wii drive to gc? Also if you just wanna remove the whole eject thing all together and use it like palmer's slimmed drive how would you have to wire the eject switch?

You should be able to get along with semi longish wires. Mine right now are about 10in long and im having no trouble. I did have them a bit longer originally (17in+) and had some latency issues when I was doing tests with the Wii.

Great work so far man definitly a place in the book of portobalizing discoveries!!

Thx!!

 

[Abb_eliten]

Re: Wii DVD drive on Gamecube

Also if you just wanna remove the whole eject thing all together and use it like palmer's slimmed drive how would you have to wire the eject switch?

I was also thinking about this. And if you slim it down, how will know when to start reading the disc?
Like the lid open/closed switch on the GC