Let's talk about Wii trimming

[Shank]

I've got a Rev C/CPU-20. I might try to trim just the bottom ground, as well as the USB/AV areas. Any trouble on that side?

This is just my experience from all my fajlures:
If just trimming the ground edges, the major issues come from trimming the corner where the power button and led are. Every time i have cut off that corner i get a short li have yst to fix. All my trims have been fine up to that point at which they bust. The edge by the regulator is safe to cut so long as you are careful.

 

[Blargaman91]

The AV side shouldn't cause trouble. The ground strip beside the regulators is fine too. The front is where vital stuff likes to short.

 

[Bush]

Yeah I've had luck with the bottom ground in the past. I'm hoping that will be enough to fit the board into a Wii U Gamepad.

And I agree with both of you. I don't dare *Can'tSayThisOnTV* with that area and especially not those damned tacts.

 

[Shank]

Unless you are trying to fit a lot into the gamepad, the board with basic ground trimming just barely fits, but it does in fact fit. Due to the curvature of the wii u gamepad edges, you can't put the board flush against the back of the inside of the case without further trimming. You have to either put it in at an angle, sit exactly at the seam (where the gamepad's inside is the "biggest"), or trim the board more

 

[Blargaman91]

One thing I'd like to point out is that some Wii's have only 2 layers on each side for 4 layers total, like the GC, while others have 3 on each side, 6 in total. Those boards with 6 layers vs. 4 layers probably are a good deal more difficult to trim due to the increased risked of shorting and the sheer number of things that could be hiding inside the board.

 

[Blargaman91]

I chopped off the bluetooth module connector on my board. Now it's smaller.

I'd say it's approaching the size of an untrimmed GameCube.

Rewiring the bluetooth module is a little bit of a pain, but it's not too bad.
Further trimming hasn't led to any new discoveries so I'll just leave it at that.

 

[Bush]

Good lord, can you tell me exactly how you are figuring all of this out? That's beautiful work, man. I wish my multimeter read continuity.

 

[Blargaman91]

There hasn't been a whole lot to figure out; we're lucky at this point there are no problems. The Wii seems to be pretty lenient.

The bluetooth module data lines were traced back to the most convenient points by just following traces and testing continuity.

There are several (3, I think) data lines on the module that don't have to be connected for the Wii to turn on and the wiimotes to work. I'll show them when I get a chance.

 

[Blargaman91]

Any word with anyone on sanding and scanning boards?

One thing to note: Be careful if you're sanding a triple-layer board. It has oodles of minute data lines on the middle layer and/or the very inner layer, and almost none on the outer layer.
Double-layer boards just have voltages on their inner layers, for the most part.

 

[Bush]

Unfortunately it seems I tossed my broken boards earlier and forgot about it.

On a side note, do you know if I cut these areas if I would need to rewire anything? I would assume not since it's all shielding but I just want to make sure you didn't run into that.

 

[Blargaman91]

Yeah, no rewiring required with those cuts.

 

[Bush]

You're the man.

 

[E64]

What about the wii mini Despite that it doesn't have sd card reader or internet access could it be a good portable curious what do y'all think. the connector above c mark is the DVD drive connection and 6 mark beside it is the fan connection

 

[Shank]

Bush, that cut should be just fine. I have never had issues with those locations. Beware the corner with the power tact; that's where everything goes wrong.

E64, as for the wii mini, the density of the components on the board look like it couldn't be trimmed. The wii mini isn't much smaller than the wii, and they aren't as inexpensive to acquire. In addition to no documentation on the components, the missing features such as GameCube mode/ports, and difficulty of modding make me wonder if there even is a point. A wii is a GameCube with more features. A wii mini, is well, not.

 

[Blargaman91]

It's true that the Wii Mini doesn't have GameCube components, but it does at least support wifi with some soldering.
And while trimming and removing components would no doubt be difficult without any documentation on the board, the square-ish shape that it appears could be achieved may be very valuable in some situations compared to the rectangular regular Wii. But, that's just looking at the pictures briefly; measurements might prove that a trimmed Wii Mini would still not be small.

Like Dyxlesci said, the Wii Mini doesn't come cheap, and it probably won't become much cheaper due to its relative obscurity.

 

[Bush]

My board is trimmed up without issue. However, while I have composite coming from a capacitor, I'm not sure where the audio lines are as I can't find any info on it. Blarg, do you by chance know if I can grab audio from capacitors as well or some other alternate pins? I hate to bother but I can't find it anywhere and I cut the normal pins off.

 

[bentomo]

I'm considering doing some cpu-40 scans. I just purchased 2 online. But why do we have 2 threads for this?

 

[Shank]

This is an old thread. I was questioning the possibility of trimming the Wii. This thread was before we had all the wii information consolidated into a single megathread, and this was me trying to gather information that was already available, but scattered.The second thread was general discussion on my discoveries as I disassembled wiis.
The third thread is consolidating all the information I have gathered into an easy to understand guide for users to follow.

1: find what already is known
2: make new discoveries
3: post info as a guide

We still don't know where the trim the board exactly