Building a Wii portable requires trimming a Wii motherboard and relocating key peripherals such as USB, Bluetooth, and GameCube controllers. This design breaks out these peripherals from the front of the board to a low-profile FFC connector, allowing for more modular builds.
The board is designed to be semi-permanently installed by soldering to exposed traces for the USB and Bluetooth data lines, and to the vias for the GameCube ports.
- Solders directly to the top of a Wii motherboard
- 14-pin FFC low profile connector fits cleanly underneath heatsinks/plates
- Fits within the footprint of all but the most aggressive Wii trims
- Breaks out frequently used peripheral lines
- Bluetooth data
- USB data
- GameCube controller data (x4)
- Reset GPIO (via magnet wire)
- Soft shutdown GPIOs
- Grab the Gerber files for the latest release
- Order a 2-layer, 0.5oz copper flex PCB from JLCPCB, PCBWay, Gold Phoenix, or similar
- Purchase a Molex 503480-1400 connector (DigiKey, Mouser)
- Purchase a 14 pin, 0.5mm pitch FFC cable of desired length
- Solder the FFC connector to the flex PCB
- Line up the 4 GameCube vias in the middle of the PCB with the GameCube vias on the front of the Wii motherboard, and tape into place
- Mark the position of the holes for Bluetooth and USB using a fine sharpie through to the Wii motherboard
- Remove the flex and inspect the marks, they should be over the traces
- Carefully expose the traces for Bluetooth and USB at the marked locations
- Use a fine craft knife or dental pick to scratch the solder mask off the correct trace
- Be careful to not expose the neighboring trace
- Clean the exposed traces
- Line up the PCB with the GameCube vias again and tape into place
- Solder the following vias on the flex to the motherboard
- The four GameCube vias
- The Bluetooth and USB vias (to the exposed traces)
- The
POWERGPIO via (P) - The GND via at the top right of the "X" of the logo
- The GND via to the right of the connector
- Solder a magnet wire from the "R" pad to the Reset via on the opposite side of the board
- Solder a magnet wire from the "S" pad to the
SHUTDOWNGPIO via on the opposite side of the board - Test for continuity, and secure in place with CA glue or kapton tape
- Remove any excess soldermask from the vias on the motherboard you'll be soldering to
- Pre-tin the vias first
- I like to tin the bottom of the corresponding vias on the flex
- Use lots of flux
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USB- | USB+ | GND | GC4 | GC3 | GC2 | GC1 | GND | BT- (Data 2) | BT+ (Data 1) | GND | S Pad | R Pad | POWER GPIO |
Pin 1 is the right-most pin on the FFC, indicated with a dot.
Don't forget that these pin numbers will likely be reversed on the opposite end of your FFC cable, depending on the connector/cable you use.
- Could potentially also break out the USB1 data lines in future
Permissively released under the Solderpad Hardware License v2.1