Zack's NEW Gamecube Portable Worklog

[megalomaniac]

from here on forward, be very careful
so far things look good, but i do have a question about that close up shot of the 32 pin DVD port...
pin 12 (the blue wire) take a look to the right over the pin 14 wire to pin 16....

what is that strand looking thing that might make accidental unwanted contact???



also take another look at that adapter board...
all those vias where you soldered the wires and including the vias next to the adapters surface pads...
make sure those are not contacting anything underneath or have potential to contact something underneath which would cause a short on the mainboard

 

[zack]

from here on forward, be very careful
so far things look good, but i do have a question about that close up shot of the 32 pin DVD port...
pin 12 (the blue wire) take a look to the right over the pin 14 wire to pin 16....

what is that strand looking thing that might make accidental unwanted contact???



also take another look at that adapter board...
all those vias where you soldered the wires and including the vias next to the adapters surface pads...
make sure those are not contacting anything underneath or have potential to contact something underneath which would cause a short on the mainboard

Thanks for the advice and pointing all that out, I really appreciate having feedback on anything that looks wrong. That strand seems to be a tiny piece of dust or maybe a cotton fiber from when I cleaned the contacts with a cotton swab. Anyways it's gone now, and I made sure everything was clean and covered the contacts with a strip of electrical tape. Also yes, those contacts on the adapter board are insulated underneath with two layers of electrical tape.
Please don't hesitate to point out any details like that, as I definitely am trying to take every precaution to prevent an accident.
If this board fries, I think I'm gonna cry.

 

[zack]

Made some general progress, including getting the board mounted in its case, the regulator wired up, slimming down the LCD controller board so it will fit in my case, adding/testing the fan, and pretty much finalizing the position of everything.

Pics. It's finally all in one package and looking great!

(High res http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3863/w73w.jpg)

Remember I'm still going to replace that case. Right now it's still ugly with lots of holes but I'm laser-cutting a brand new one tomorrow. My next steps for my gamecube involve adding the slot B slot, wiring up controls and switches, and laser cutting the side panels. Here's my current design for the side panels.

(High res http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/806/7aab.png)

 

[zack]

Laser-cut my new case and the side panels too. It's all starting to fit together beautifully.

This first pic is just for looks. I still have lots of ports and the internal controls to wire up, so while it appears complete, many things are not functional yet. Still, you're pretty much looking at the final product already

(Full res here)
The internals. I also added kapton tape to the heatsink.

 

[randomdude4321]

2 questions.
One, what are you gonna be doing with any fans, as i might be missing something but there isnt one in there ATM?
Two, how are your external ports mounted, with glue/tape/etc or did you come up with some really official system or something (thats what it looks like?
Im just curious, the more I learn before I attempt anything like this, the better!

 

[hailrazer]

2 questions.
One, what are you gonna be doing with any fans, as i might be missing something but there isnt one in there ATM?

You can see the fan on the end of the heat sink.

 

[Ashen]

Dat case.

 

[zack]

2 questions.
One, what are you gonna be doing with any fans, as i might be missing something but there isnt one in there ATM?
Two, how are your external ports mounted, with glue/tape/etc or did you come up with some really official system or something (thats what it looks like?
Im just curious, the more I learn before I attempt anything like this, the better!

Yes, as hailrazer pointed out, there's a small fan at the top of the heatsink. Right now there's just one, but I ordered another so I will have two side by side.
The ports right now are not mounted by anything (yet). The laser-cut holes fit so perfectly that they're held in good enough just for looks. Later I'll probably glue them in, and add some kind of extra support on the inside too if I can.

 

[megalomaniac]

looking good

 

[public-pervert]

Excellent work! Hope you don't fry a motherboard anymore

 

[zack]

My board isn't fried, but I blew the fuse on my regulator. So I bridged it and now I'm testing the regulator and all my other regulators (six total), and every single one of them is outputting high voltages. Instead of the correct 3.3v, 1.9v, 12v, and 5v, I'm getting 4.6v, 2.5v, 15v, and 6.5v. Although it did seem to work before, I don't want to risk hooking this up and frying anything. Are these numbers correct, or is something wrong with the regs?

 

[DuHasst0]

Grab another regulator board don't feed that much voltage to anything.

 

[zack]

OK so I ordered a few more regulators from TI so I will be building a new custom regulator very soon. Once I build that and get everything working again, you can expect more progress more often.

 

[Blargaman91]

I thought my regulators were outputting unusually high at one point, close the whatever input voltage there was... then I realized I had connected all of them backwards. Needless to say, this breaks the regulators instantly.

 

[zack]

I thought my regulators were outputting unusually high at one point, close the whatever input voltage there was... then I realized I had connected all of them backwards. Needless to say, this breaks the regulators instantly.

So you're saying when you inputted a voltage to the regulator with the polarity switched, it broke the reg? This would explain so much.

 

[Blargaman91]

Well, I mixed up the input and output on all the regs. Reversed polarity may kill them as well, but I don't think you would have mixed up the inputs and outputs if you know what pins you're connecting (I didn't; I thought I did).

 

[zack]

Well, I mixed up the input and output on all the regs. Reversed polarity may kill them as well, but I don't think you would have mixed up the inputs and outputs if you know what pins you're connecting (I didn't; I thought I did).

Oh ok, so you're talking about the custom reg, with regulators from TI?
The issue I had with my reg was an original regulator that comes with the gamecube. At one point I inputted voltage improperly with the polarity switched, and probably did this several times by accident on all of my regs. It's because the wire that connects the power switch and regulator is oddly colored. The BLACK wire is positive and the RED wire is ground!!!

 

[zack]

Update on progress for the custom regulator.

Right now I just have the resistors attached and the input lines connected. I'm waiting on some capacitors I ordered to replace the ones there. They're much shorter and will give me room to fit in my case.

 

[ghig]

Update on progress for the custom regulator.
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/8848/rbs5.jpg
Right now I just have the resistors attached and the input lines connected. I'm waiting on some capacitors I ordered to replace the ones there. They're much shorter and will give me room to fit in my case.

Looks very neat!

I haven't done much research on regulators so expect to get a few messages from me bugging you!

Looking forward to see how it looks when it's been trimmed down and has new capacitors.

 

[Blargaman91]

It's because the wire that connects the power switch and regulator is oddly colored. The BLACK wire is positive and the RED wire is ground!!!

Ugh, tell me about it. HALF the GameCubes I've had have those reversed colors, like Nintendo was really too lazy to even care about the orientation! That's led to a lot of slip-ups for me, too.

And regarding your problem with high voltages, if you mean to say that the voltages were misbehaving on the GameCube stock regulator, well, that's unheard for me. I had no idea they could really break like that since I've abused a lot of mine and some developed very audible hissing, but no serious problems. I'm not sure what to say about it.

But I can tell you that the TI regs are just overall sensitive, in lots of ways. You have to keep your build REALLY clean when using them.