Bacteria's multi-console system project : UNITY

Spent a while trying to remove the GameCube memory ports on the Wii; they are quite tall, and not needed in this project. The solder points refused apart from a couple of pins to release their solder, even using different desoldering braids and also flux. Consequently, used my brute force technique. By that I don't mean levering up the port with a screwdriver in the hope the motherboard doesn't get damaged in the process (handy for some boards), or cutting away the area - neither method is a good idea in this case as the Wii PCB is clearly a multi-layer board so therefore no idea what if anything would be damaged in the process. For that reason, this brute force method is simply to pry up the grounding from around the port with a screwdriver, levering up the shielding to snap it off the board, then using pliers at the exposed pins at the back of the port taking one at a time and wigging it until the pin breaks off at the solder joint. This method the port loses its connections one at a time until it gives up, leaving a clean area. Got to do similar with the GameCube controller ports on the Wii PCB, those will be fiddly, if I cut through the section which holds them all together in order to work only on one port at a time, I might be able to pry those off the board as the pins are shorter, not sure yet. As is often the case, the end justifies the means. Anyway, making progress; taking my time.

Doing a fair bit of modding before get to stage where I can test the console to check (and hope) it all still works - if not then troubleshooting may be rather difficult as i've not worked with a Wii before.

 

Sounds like you need a pre-heater my friend

 

Added more grounding on the HDMI upscaler and improved the output to being pretty excellent. Also changed mode from 1080 upscale to 720 upscale on the logic that not only will it make no difference to any of the systems (even the Wii) but also has to mean less processing and therefore more speed - sure enough that made the paddles in Psycho Pinball activate as quickly as they should; which means issue solved.

One more thing though to do with the MegaDrive - tapped off the chip for the L and R audio (i'm using a MegaDrive 1 board) however sound is a bit quiet. Audio can be tapped off another part of the board, however I think it's mono (doesn't matter) but might be amplified; have to test that when get chance.

Update - ports removed. Will keep the A/V and sensor bar ports on until the drive unit is connected (when ribbon arrives in post), to test system, before then moving to next stage. I'll then remove that port and wire to the parts I need to. The port will need to be removed anyway as otherwise it is liable to get in the way of the JAMMA board when the Wii is made into a cartridge.

 

Since photo above, i've extended the cable in the port next to the ribbon cable, added heatsinks to the two silver chips, using a dab of Arctic Silver paste and then to secure the heatsinks to the chips, a dot of superglue on the corners of each heatsink, pressed down onto the chip. I've done that process before with the likes of the DreamCast, which does get hot, and it works fine. Superglue melts at about 95 Celcius, and the point after all is to keep chips cooler than that anyway, so the superglue holds in any case. On research I did recently, it doesn't look like the Wii gets that hot anyway.

Also wired the reset, drive eject and on switches so can include those buttons in the cartridge. As well as that, trimmed part of the shielding which goes over the top of the motherboard (had to anyway as needed to change the heatsinks as the stock one is too large), and as doing that may as well use the shielding underneath the motherboard - after all, the shielding is probably needed due to the inclusion of the wifi and bluetooth on the Wii? On retro consoles the shielding serves no useful purpose but likely to with the Wii. Doing this has the benefit to screw the motherboard into the cartridge to make it removable if needed later. I'll also make a mount for the drive unit for the same reason.

Basically, the motherboard is ready now for when the extended replacement cable arrives, I just hope I got the right one. I couldn't find on-line specifications for the ribbon cable so took a judgement.

When the cable comes I can test the system works, i'll use composite for testing; assuming all's ok I can finish off the modding needed and get the system made into a cartridge. Basically the last of the motherboard modding is to remove the AV and also IR unit and wire directly to the solder joints, as that port is in the way of where the JAMMA interface will be.

There is a recess along the drive unit which means I have just enough space to install the drive unit alongside the motherboard and let it all fit into the same footprint as the other cartridges made, which is ideal.

Enjoying doing the Wii as not modded one before so something new for me to work on. I just hope I haven't screwed anything up and it all works ok!

 

Ok, my cable arrived today, along with an Everdrive64 v.3 card (my old v.2 card stopped working). I can test the Wii with the new cable tonight or tomorrow.

 

Cable seems to be the right one for the Wii, which is good news.

To test the Wii with composite and then removing the video port would mean a fair bit of work, assembling the shielding, wifi, fan, ribbon cable, drive power, coin battery; screw it all down; then end up having to dismantle to remove the video port, solder the connections and then re-assemble it all again. I may as well go "shit or bust" as the saying goes, do the full modding, RGB, power, etc - everything - then turn the system on for the first time and hope all works fine. It's a risky gamble but if the gamble pays off will save me a lot of time, if fails, i'll waste a lot more time resolving.

The next post i'll make in this thread (apart from replying to any comments) will be when it's being tested, whereby i'll post pics and proper updates - if this works first time, i'll have the Wii 90% system completed.

 

The sheilding is to comply with interference laws, look up about the wireless controllers for the atari (never released iirc) that's how not to do it
Is your wii modded?

 

My Wii is not modded for homebrew, etc - the only modding is what i'm doing to the board.

That AV port on the Wii is a royal pain, the pins wouldn't desolder and due to the amount of pins, prying it up to snap the pins would have snapped the board. Also, couldn't get to the pins at the back behind the shielding as the pins were recessed, and also various components on the board were in the way.

Way I did it was to just pry up the port enough (about 1.5mm gap) gently, to then insert a craft knife and push down along the pins to sever them front row then back row. This tactic worked, a bit brutal and unconventional but did the job. I didn't have a lot of option really. Also cut the top shielding section to what I need. The shielding also acts as a heatsink to the wifi. Tonight, going to assemble the motherboard section and then make some posts to secure the drive unit into place.

 

You should look into thermal adhesive instead when mounting heatsinks directly to the chips. I doubt superglue has much thermal conductivity

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_alumina_thermal_adhesive.htm

 

Thermal adhesive from what I remember reading a while back is conductive so if you get a bit on the chip legs by mistake, could cause shorts. The idea is to use thermal paste thinly so just covers the chip barely; then a dot on each corner of the heatsink when pressed onto the chip will stick to the chip holding the heatsink sandwich together keeping it in place. Superglue will melt at a higher temperature than the chips would work properly anyway. I've used this method for a while now, including DreamCast. Not sure if would work on modern consoles like Xbox or later as those chips will be far hotter; from what I read though the Wii doesn't get that hot so the method should be fine.

 

The kind I link to isn't conductive

 

The link given: http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_alumina_thermal_adhesive.htm

On link it says... "It is NOT intended to be used between a CPU and the CPU heatsink." So I guess only suitable for other chips.

With then linking to "On a CPU please use a thermal compound such as Arctic Silver 5" ; http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm
... it says "(While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)"

Whilst it is easy to be careful and not cause this to happen, if it does get into the chip pins I can't see any way to remove it, therefore ruining the board potentially, so not the best option.

I remember years ago researching and it took ages to find what I use - Akasa 450 silver based thermal compound. I can't remember if it's any better than the Arctic Silver as it was several years ago I got it, and a small tube lasts a lifetime anyway. I got stuff suitable for PC chips as they will get hotter than what I was wanting for; this stuff is good for up to 200 Celcius. Downside is it is non adhesive.

http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?...ns&type_sub=Thermal Interface&model=AK-450-5G

 

The reason they don't recommend using it for CPUs is because you can't remove the heatsink after the adhesive has hardened. You generally don't use fanless heatsinks on PC CPUs and GPUs, and regular CPU fans are designed to be screwed/clicked onto the motherboard, not glued. Pretty obvious if you think about it

Not sure why you start quoting Arctic Silver 5 characteristics when I didn't point you in that direction. It clearly says this about the thermal adhesive:
"Pure Electrical Insulator:
Arctic Alumina Adhesive is a pure electrical
insulator, neither electrically conductive nor capacitive."

Also, rubbing alcohol is great for removing thermal paste

 

I know I said I wouldn't upload a pic until this was tested, however changed my mind.

The Wii internals are complete apart from wiring to the JAMMA board for the power and A/V lines.

Still have no idea if this will work or not. There are a variety of circumstances that could not succeed and thereby make this fail:

* Didn't work out the A/V pinout correctly
* The ribbon cable isn't quite right, even though it looks fine
* The power lines to the drive are too long
* The Wii can't run off the GameCube PSU even though should (amperage is fine and 12v)
* Some other error like a short somewhere including where the shielding is.

One can only test so far, then it comes down ultimately to crossing fingers and hoping for the best.

Managed to get the system to fit horizontally fine (which is no big deal as the Wii was shorter anyway; make it less deep especially with the A/V connector; however the unit is 40mm high not 30mm as originally hoped, as the only way to position the drive is above the side of the motherboard as I didn't want to trim the grounding off the edges of the motherboard as the board is multi layer and have no idea what i'd be cutting that way.

So anyway, if nothing else you can see the work that's gone into this so far. If all works ok, i'll incorporate a larger fan above the heatsinks and use the existing one to pull air out of the system for circulation. The IR LED's will be removed from the bar and installed into the case at both ends, at the moment I just soldered those 2 wires to the port for convenience.

Planning to do the soldering to the JAMMA either tonight or tomorrow, then will test and hope all works. Never ideal to do so much modding without testing a system while progressing...

Not a great photo I know.

 

Update time!

Wired up the Wii to the JAMMA connections and turned the system on; initially a blank screen, to which I remembered to press the on button on the Wii; all booted up first time.

Clearly the Wii works fine off a GameCube PSU (all be it with a different port), my extended ribbon cable works so clearly I got the right one, the extended cable I extended to the drive unit works fine.

A few things to do though:

* There is interference on the screen image. You can see that in the second photo. Tested using another (fairly thick) wire to ground from console to HDMI converter unit and it cleared away all interference totally. I therefore need to incorporate that into my wiring system. Took the photo however as-was as showed system was working ok.

* The IR receiver for the controller (which is resting on top of the TV at the moment) needs to be incorporated into the cartridge shell when I make it, the IR LED's can be removed from the bar and installed as they are though.

* The smaller of the two heatsinks got quite hot after a few minutes, proving I need to install a decent fan, which will do. Should have used a larger heatsink too probably, will look into that.

Apart from that, as you see below, the unit works. Inserted a Wii game and it did what it does and worked.




I also did a little more on the MegaDrive - tested and sure enough, the mono output from the audio is far stronger than tapping off the audio chip directly, there is no benefit with stereo on the MegaDrive anyway so i'll change the wiring on that; and while was at it tested a thicker wire from console ground to HDMI ground (as did with Wii) and it made no difference. The image quality is pretty stable with the MegaDrive, slightly wavy for about a minute until the capacitors clearly fill, as after that the image looks very good without the interference. Clearly on some systems like Wii it is considerably more important.

I will experiment further with that before closing up both of these systems. After all, i'm in no rush with my work, want to get it right.

The paint came off part of the joystick on the master controller so removed the rest of the paint from it. Not sure yet, happy with the master controller but may decide to make a version 3 of it sometime, depends if I stay with the current joystick type or go back to the larger one I used to prefer; undecided as yet.

Anyway, my gamble with doing all the modding to the Wii and then doing testing at final stage worked out ok as you see, so i'm rather happy with that.

 

? The Mega Drive outputs separate stereo signals on the left and right audio channel. That's a benefit to me. If you just want any kind of audio and don't care about that, then mono is fine of course.

 

I'm using a MegaDrive 1 board, which outputs mono, unless tapping off the chip directly (on the MegaDrive 1, the two channels get mixed into one, and then goes into amplifier). The MegaDrive 2 outputs stereo however as had a board already out of the console casing ages ago, didn't want to waste another console for modding. I could incorporate an audio amp to boost the volume but as I don't use a separate speaker system for the big television, there isn't realistically any benefit over mono for this system as one doesn't get stereo effect anyway.

 

So split the signals before they are mixed. Add a second (preferably better than the LM358) dual channel op-amp and you'll have perfect stereo. And yes, the Mega Drive is in proper stereo. If you have a flash cartridge you can check out the sound test in the 240p test suite, to hear for yourself.


- Here it is in my own MD1.

 

Yes, you're right however I decided to just use mono in the end for convenience, so wired it up as such. Have some audio amps but decided not to use them.

With the Wii, i've cured the interference issue by using two of the spare JAMMA connections to interface to provide an additional grounding from the console to the HDMI converter, that now outputs a crystal clear no interference image on the Wii.

I'll have to open up the other console cartridges i've made so far therefore to do the same with them, as there is a faint trace of the lines I got with the Wii on the other systems too, nothing like was for this system though.

It's things like that that slow making a multi system down as the further into a project one gets, the more likely something happens that will affect other systems and mean alterations.

Update - was exchanging emails with Bad_Ad84 on how to make the system auto boot when it is switched on and not go into standby mode; had thought I might need a special chip or at least a capacitor to do this - I think it was with the Atari 7800 (maybe not, don't remember) I did on the Project Unity system but adding a capacitor to the button made it activate as when the capacitor was charging a little it sent out a little pulse once, which acted as a button press to take the system off standby mode. Anyway, Bad_Ad84 suggested on one of the tests to just short the button so permanently "on" - sure enough, the Wii boots immediately. Job done.

 

About to upload the MegaDrive video for the project - so will be another post presently.

In the interim, uploaded this video too:



With the Wii, forgot to mention changed the small blue heatsink for a larger one for better heat removal.