machjas n64p work log

[Bush]

You may have fried your board. Put your hand on the CPU when you turn it on. If it gets really hot really fast, its gone to N64 heaven.

Please tell me you have done this.

 

[machjas]

Yeah I did this (sorry forgot to reply), the board I was working with seems fine. I removed the 32awg single-core wire I was using, and I'm going to give it another shot tonight with wire I took from the controller.

 

[Bush]

Good, wanted to make sure you werent wasting money and labor. If i had to guess, the wire was too thin to make a solid connection.

 

[machjas]

Good, wanted to make sure you werent wasting money and labor. If i had to guess, the wire was too thin to make a solid connection.

I think you're probably right. Someone said controller wire works fine though, so figured I'd go that route.

 

[Bush]

I have heard it too. Good luck!

 

[machjas]

IT WORKS!

Cartridge slot relocation success

My soldering job was uncharacteristically clean, too bad these pics can't quite seem to do it justice

Many thanks for your help so far everyone!

 

[Bush]

Glad to see this coming along!

 

[machjas]

I relocated another cart slot today, thought I'd get some practice in. Success on the first try. Hot-glued it up so I won't need to worry about loose wires anymore. Tomorrow I'll trim my board down a bit more and hope I get my yobo controllers in so I can continue.

 

[snowpenguin]

People usually don't like solid core because it isn't as floppy as stranded, but in wire as small as 32 it really doesn't matter.

Also, floppy drives use the same cables that IDE DVD drives and HDDs use.

 

[machjas]

I made it work with ribbon cable just fine. Just took me some time, as I had never really soldered before starting this project.

As for the floppy drive.. I know. Same wire, different pinout.

 

[snowpenguin]

Well what I'm saying is it's not thin cable because of it being used on a floppy drive :/

 

[machjas]

The yobos came in today. Thought I'd sit down for a quick Goldeneye trial run with it. The stock joystick is absolutely horrible... Good thing I'm not using any part of that.

I did have some trouble opening up the analog stick enclosure, seems like the screws were either already stripped or really soft and easily stripped, so anyone working with these controllers *cough*bush*cough*, just a heads up... Ended up having to drill down through one of the screws to get it open.

I was excited to see the form factor of the C, A, B buttons though. Seems they will work great on a flat surface, so i won't have to modify the length of the button slots once I cut them out, which is nice... I'll be putting the gamecube analog stick on it either tonight or tomorrow (I feel like I could fall asleep any minute, so we'll see if I can wake up enough to get that accomplished.

Quick links for my own reference:

Using gamecube joysticks with N64 controllers:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1226

How to wire up your controller!
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1229

A few pics for the sake of my work log:

 

[Bush]

Cough* thanks

 

[machjas]

So easy... Replaced N64 analog with GCN. Works perfectly. In my opinion, I don't see why anyone wouldn't take 5 minutes to do this.

I'll be replacing the wires with longer ones, but I was just testing at this point. I tried keeping the surface-mount potentiometer on the board, but didn't work. Desoldered it, wired it back up to the controller, worked fine. I'll figure something out for that...

 

[machjas]

Small update.

I did some continuity checking on the yobo controller I'm using and found that they're all connected to a common ground. I guess from this point I'll need to figure out where to ground them all to.

Anyway, I bought a new dremmel. It's a 200 series, and runs on wall power. Couldn't be happier with it. I was using a model 750, a 4.8v battery powered tool, but I got tired of having to wait for it to charge. This new one cuts like a hot knife through butter.

I went ahead and cut up some controllers to salvage button slots and a couple joystick mounts:

I've also ordered some squishy tactile switches.

 

[Basement_Modder]

Looks good. Make sure you have perfboard for the tacts if you forgot, as it wasn't mentioned.

 

[0wnage Modz]

Looking Good.

 

[machjas]

Yeah, I'll figure something out. Do you generally use the same method bacteria does, using the beads as spacers to mount the buttons?

 

[Basement_Modder]

No. Use real screwposts from controllers and the like. The bead method sucks.

 

[XCVG]

I did a really ghetto hotglue job, using the existing button boards. I do not recommend it. It's reasonably secure, but removing it is insanely hard. It's also impossible to put the joystick in straight. In this case, I'd say go with the screwposts.

Also, genuine Dremels are worth the money. I have a 4000, top of the line. It's lovely, cuts through flax that would stall my $10 cheapy instantly.