Wiikey issues
- Thread starter midgetman104
- Start date
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
Ashen said:
back in the grave
nothing to see here...
the situation is all under control and currently being investigated....
ShockSlayer
Probably SS
Worse comes to worse, at least make some pretty board scans! 
SS
SS
Gamerlolwind
Well-Known Member
megalomaniac said:
Oh, my eyes!
Is the wiikey o-Kay?
Does it breathe? Will it live?
(Btw I'm joking on this part, board scans should help out a lot
).megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
i found the problem....i was getting some odd autoboot like LED behavior except for the after the blue LED would flicker it would also stay on...
turns out 3v and GND were shorted....i could not find the problem after removing a few components and suspected the short to be under the IC...sure enough i found a few solder balls which may have previously been there as a result of using solder paste or similar...then the balled dropped into place only after i decided to epoxy everything...
Dang you wiikey!!
the only slight problem left is getting the IC back on since the wires and pins are epoxied making it impossible to solder the pins on that side of the board....so using my trusty finger slicer to try to cut thru the epoxy to access some of those pins did not work so well...some of the legs were amputated during surgery...
on the good side, i have access now....
on the bad side, i just created more work....
.....lets see if i can repair those little amputated legs
turns out 3v and GND were shorted....i could not find the problem after removing a few components and suspected the short to be under the IC...sure enough i found a few solder balls which may have previously been there as a result of using solder paste or similar...then the balled dropped into place only after i decided to epoxy everything...
Dang you wiikey!!
the only slight problem left is getting the IC back on since the wires and pins are epoxied making it impossible to solder the pins on that side of the board....so using my trusty finger slicer to try to cut thru the epoxy to access some of those pins did not work so well...some of the legs were amputated during surgery...
on the good side, i have access now....
on the bad side, i just created more work....
.....lets see if i can repair those little amputated legs
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
got the chip back on the board...
looks like the solder ball may have done damage...
FPGA pin 38 is GND
FPGA pin 39 as VCC
it appears pin 39 is now shorted internally to GND...
the only adverse affect i can tell so far is WKF pin 28 is now sending a GND signal....
this is not much of an issue since WKF pin 28, 27, 26 do not need to be wired to a GC anyways since its only for DVD data transfer of audio streaming info and has zero affect what-so-ever when playing a title from SD CARD...
ill add a pic in a little bit to show the pinout of where the short is located....
ill have to keep doing more testing to see if any other parts are affected... and then determine how the WKF will behave if i simple do not allow pin 39 to be soldered to its respective pad to prevent it from inducing an overall short on VCC and GND...
looks like the solder ball may have done damage...
FPGA pin 38 is GND
FPGA pin 39 as VCC
it appears pin 39 is now shorted internally to GND...
the only adverse affect i can tell so far is WKF pin 28 is now sending a GND signal....
this is not much of an issue since WKF pin 28, 27, 26 do not need to be wired to a GC anyways since its only for DVD data transfer of audio streaming info and has zero affect what-so-ever when playing a title from SD CARD...
ill add a pic in a little bit to show the pinout of where the short is located....
ill have to keep doing more testing to see if any other parts are affected... and then determine how the WKF will behave if i simple do not allow pin 39 to be soldered to its respective pad to prevent it from inducing an overall short on VCC and GND...
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
a little close shave...
solder a few wires...
and soon we will know they outcome...
anyone wanna start placing bets??
solder a few wires...
and soon we will know they outcome...
anyone wanna start placing bets??
LOCtronicz
Formerly known as zenloc
WOW!!! you are putting allot of effort into getting it fixed. Don't know how much you are asking for your services but I assume it would be lower than the original costs of a new wiikey. That being said he's getting it for a steal for the amount of work you are doing.
Just a quick note. You said that pin 28,27,26 don't need to be wired for a sd loading wiikey?
So just to be clear which pins need to be soldered to the gamecube for sd loading only?
I always just solder all the pins except pin 30,31 and all different ground wires just into one thicker ground. Would make life a little easier if I needed to solder less pins
EDIT: I see you have removed the left 2 chips. Those are needed otherwise the wiikey won't work properly. Unless you have found a way to remove them and still have it working. I'm all ears/eyes 
Just a quick note. You said that pin 28,27,26 don't need to be wired for a sd loading wiikey?
So just to be clear which pins need to be soldered to the gamecube for sd loading only?
I always just solder all the pins except pin 30,31 and all different ground wires just into one thicker ground. Would make life a little easier if I needed to solder less pins
EDIT: I see you have removed the left 2 chips. Those are needed otherwise the wiikey won't work properly. Unless you have found a way to remove them
and still have it working. I'm all ears/eyes megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
LOCtronics said:WOW!!! you are putting allot of effort into getting it fixed. Don't know how much you are asking for your services but I assume it would be lower than the original costs of a new wiikey. That being said he's getting it for a steal for the amount of work you are doing.
Just a quick note. You said that pin 28,27,26 don't need to be wired for a sd loading wiikey?
So just to be clear which pins need to be soldered to the gamecube for sd loading only?
I always just solder all the pins except pin 30,31 and all different ground wires just into one thicker ground. Would make life a little easier if I needed to solder less pins
EDIT: I see you have removed the left 2 chips. Those are needed otherwise the wiikey won't work properly. Unless you have found a way to remove them
yea i think im putting too much effort at this point, but might as well keep on going for the challenge of it...
as you can see i have put those chips back on....
i removed them when i was looking for the cause of the short....
currently im troubleshooting why the WKF does not send data to the mainboard...
pin 29 seems not to have any effect....
if i use my "recovery iso sd card" i can see the LED flashing like its suppose to for its autoboot of the iso, but no data appears to be sent....and i do not receive any error message either....
still trying to figure it out...
as for WKF pin 28, 27, 26 ( GC pin 1, 3 ,5 )...
when i was doing development testing for my adapter boards and looking for an audio streaming solution, i removed those pins from the WKF and it worked with no issues for playing from SD...
then with further investigation i narrowed down and found the audio streaming fix on pin 28...
so if you plan only to use a driveless connection and play from SD only, then those 3 pins are not required...
EDIT:
i would like if someone else could confirm the requirement of these pins...
ive never had any issues without these pins, but would like 3rd party validation as a second test to also confirm...
LOCtronicz
Formerly known as zenloc
I'll be getting my new wiikey tomorrow. I'll do some tests to see if it works properly.
Thanks for your dedication to the gamecube scene man! You, Ashen and Emu_kidid have had the biggest influance in the scene yet!! Keep up the good work. Hopefully you'll get this working
Thanks for your dedication to the gamecube scene man! You, Ashen and Emu_kidid have had the biggest influance in the scene yet!! Keep up the good work. Hopefully you'll get this working
SNEAKxxATTACK
Active Member
@megalomaniac
I agree with everyone here, you are an amazing contributor to the GC scene.
Could testing it on a wii work? I could just directly plug in (no solder) and block the pins somehow.
(off topic, do you supply tracking numbers with your orders from GC-forever? just pm me on that forum if you don't mind.)
I agree with everyone here, you are an amazing contributor to the GC scene.
Could testing it on a wii work? I could just directly plug in (no solder) and block the pins somehow.
(off topic, do you supply tracking numbers with your orders from GC-forever? just pm me on that forum if you don't mind.)
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
SNEAKxxATTACK said:
should make no difference GC / Wii
your package should arrive tomorrow....
after doing some reading of the datasheet...it appears the IO port for the HOST interface may be blown...
each IO port has its own VCC, and wouldnt you know it, this VCC line is the supply....
you know the way you insert a Recovery ISO SD card and the LED flashes to indicate loading??
that functions as normal, only problem is the data is not getting out to the GC due to the blown ports...
this goose appears cooked....overcooked
was a fun attempt and it was actually working also at one point....
oh well...ill start working on another WKF to send as replacement for midgetman104....
