legofan623
Well-Known Member
MAJOR EDITS:
- Name changed from RegHex to ClunkerCube for size reasons.
Hello all! This is going to be my first GCN portable (if all goes well, that is). I plan on using a ZN-45 case, WASP Fusion, SD Gecko, and external slot B and players 1, 2, and 3 ports. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to use for a screen yet, but I'm leaning towards a 5" widescreen. This portable will probably take a long time, seeing as I don't get paid well/often. Anyway, each time I mess around with the portable, I'll put down the date and what I was doing with it, along with some pictures. I'll put down what was on my mind while working too.
6/2/2015
Opened up the cube, dug out an old trimmed controller board from the junk bin. It actually works!
Thoughts: Is this really the best way to connect buttons to the controller IC?? It's quite maddening. And why isn't the A button registering? Probably my crappy soldering job...
The test rig for the time being.
This is why I hate soldering.
6/3/2015
Did some thinking about how the external ports are gonna work. 21 required pins are a lot! I'm planning on using a 25-pin parallel cable until I can find something better. Here's how I have it planned:
I also started working out a face layout. It's pretty standard to everyone else's ZN portables, but keeping the face buttons the right rotation is important to me, so I'm going to try to keep ABXY at the correct rotation angle. Also, I have these pressure sensitive membrane buttons that I'm going to experiment with for triggers. Here's a rough graphic:
Scratch the ZN actually, I bought a SERPAC 192 case instead. I HIGHLY advise looking at the SERPAC cases if you don't want to pay for Polycase's outrageous shipping. Oh, and I found out I have a rev C board! Hooray!
Hopefully this is the last edit for today. I drew out on paper what I think would be good, and I guess I should rename this thing because it's going to be HUGE. 9.5" x 6.3" x 2" is a lot bigger than I expected. I had the great idea of using nunchucks to make it nicer to hold, and I believe I'm going to be the first to attempt that (correct me if I'm wrong). These drawings are almost guaranteed to change:
Front
Back/Right side
6/7/2015
I decided that I was going to put an internal wireless controller in, and I devised a way to switch the internal controller, wireless controller, and one external controller port all between being connected to either P1 or P2. It requires one SPST switch and one DPDT switch:
-----------------------------------------------------------
6/11/2015
Lots of progress today! I got a wavebird donor controller, a dremel kit, the case, and some sd card mounts. Let the frankencasing begin!
----------------------------------------------------------------
6/12/2015
Started and finished the left side of the controller, epoxy'd everything up, and wired all the inputs.
------------------------------------------------------------------
6/13/2015 - 6/18/2015
Used Bondo for the first time, and it went great! I used my dremel and some fine(ish) sandpaper to smooth it all out:
The dream of clean wiring is gone, but It's all wired up, thanks to Blargaman91 selling me a very professionally cut and wired controller circuit. Still need to do R, L, and Z, but I haven't bought the nunchucks yet:
------------------------------------------------------------------
6/19/2015 - 6/27/2015
Been doing a lot lately...
I realized that mounting full, or even half, sized nunchucks was going to be way too big! I ended up cutting them down really small:
I fit a tact switch into the nunchuck's Z button like so:
Here's where the triggers and Z button will be at:
I got my 5" LCD, which I will say looks pretty crappy... You get what you pay for I guess:
I cut holes in the top for speakers, which are still being experimented with:
------------------------------------------------------------------
6/28/2015 - 7/3/2015
Put the P1/2, P3, and P4 ports in place:
I cut the vent out of the side of an original gamecube case for my fan output:
Looks like it isn't quite alligned correctly... Oh well:
And it also looks like I didn't sand well enough on ANYTHING
:
It doesn't bother me enough to redo it though, this is my first portable afterall.
Here's my heatsink cut down and fitted with a fan:
I found some brass spacers from an old project of mine that were just begging to become screw posts, so screw posts they became:
- Name changed from RegHex to ClunkerCube for size reasons.
Hello all! This is going to be my first GCN portable (if all goes well, that is). I plan on using a ZN-45 case, WASP Fusion, SD Gecko, and external slot B and players 1, 2, and 3 ports. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to use for a screen yet, but I'm leaning towards a 5" widescreen. This portable will probably take a long time, seeing as I don't get paid well/often. Anyway, each time I mess around with the portable, I'll put down the date and what I was doing with it, along with some pictures. I'll put down what was on my mind while working too.
6/2/2015
Opened up the cube, dug out an old trimmed controller board from the junk bin. It actually works!
Thoughts: Is this really the best way to connect buttons to the controller IC?? It's quite maddening. And why isn't the A button registering? Probably my crappy soldering job...
The test rig for the time being.
This is why I hate soldering.
6/3/2015
Did some thinking about how the external ports are gonna work. 21 required pins are a lot! I'm planning on using a 25-pin parallel cable until I can find something better. Here's how I have it planned:
I also started working out a face layout. It's pretty standard to everyone else's ZN portables, but keeping the face buttons the right rotation is important to me, so I'm going to try to keep ABXY at the correct rotation angle. Also, I have these pressure sensitive membrane buttons that I'm going to experiment with for triggers. Here's a rough graphic:
Scratch the ZN actually, I bought a SERPAC 192 case instead. I HIGHLY advise looking at the SERPAC cases if you don't want to pay for Polycase's outrageous shipping. Oh, and I found out I have a rev C board! Hooray!
Hopefully this is the last edit for today. I drew out on paper what I think would be good, and I guess I should rename this thing because it's going to be HUGE. 9.5" x 6.3" x 2" is a lot bigger than I expected. I had the great idea of using nunchucks to make it nicer to hold, and I believe I'm going to be the first to attempt that (correct me if I'm wrong). These drawings are almost guaranteed to change:
Front
Back/Right side
6/7/2015
I decided that I was going to put an internal wireless controller in, and I devised a way to switch the internal controller, wireless controller, and one external controller port all between being connected to either P1 or P2. It requires one SPST switch and one DPDT switch:
-----------------------------------------------------------
6/11/2015
Lots of progress today! I got a wavebird donor controller, a dremel kit, the case, and some sd card mounts. Let the frankencasing begin!
----------------------------------------------------------------
6/12/2015
Started and finished the left side of the controller, epoxy'd everything up, and wired all the inputs.
------------------------------------------------------------------
6/13/2015 - 6/18/2015
Used Bondo for the first time, and it went great! I used my dremel and some fine(ish) sandpaper to smooth it all out:
The dream of clean wiring is gone, but It's all wired up, thanks to Blargaman91 selling me a very professionally cut and wired controller circuit. Still need to do R, L, and Z, but I haven't bought the nunchucks yet:
------------------------------------------------------------------
6/19/2015 - 6/27/2015
Been doing a lot lately...
I realized that mounting full, or even half, sized nunchucks was going to be way too big! I ended up cutting them down really small:
I fit a tact switch into the nunchuck's Z button like so:
Here's where the triggers and Z button will be at:
I got my 5" LCD, which I will say looks pretty crappy... You get what you pay for I guess:
I cut holes in the top for speakers, which are still being experimented with:
------------------------------------------------------------------
6/28/2015 - 7/3/2015
Put the P1/2, P3, and P4 ports in place:
I cut the vent out of the side of an original gamecube case for my fan output:
Looks like it isn't quite alligned correctly... Oh well:
And it also looks like I didn't sand well enough on ANYTHING
:
It doesn't bother me enough to redo it though, this is my first portable afterall.
Here's my heatsink cut down and fitted with a fan:
I found some brass spacers from an old project of mine that were just begging to become screw posts, so screw posts they became:
.
