Teh-dehh
Anyways, lots of big developments since my last update. This is all moving along quite quickly, thanks to finally finding someone to invest in it. Also, the lab in which this setup currently resides was a recent addition to my school (details below). In order to put it in, they had to tear out a computer lab, and of course all the monitors were given to the robotics team to sell. And of course, we took the best ones for ourselves, cannibalizing a few others for their speaker bars. Now, there were a couple leftover--everything to the right of the Gamecube motherboard is what was inside. Sound quality is decent, it comes with a built-in volume control/power switch, two 3.5mm headphone jacks, and runs off of 12v.
Now on to the fun part: everything you see above took me about two hours altogether I think, possibly less. At first I was having some issues with the LCD control board (the tall one sticking straight up) as I would plug it in and the connector would just get really, really hot. Turned out to be a simple mistake, the connector was in upside-down and was shorting out. Easy fix. In pleasant news also pertaining to the controller board, I hadn't realized it came with a ton of goodies, such as HDMI in, AV out, a remote control, and a USB port that allows me to play things off a flash drive. All of these things, I intend to leave in the final product. I do intend to re-solder some things on the board, laying down capacitors and removing non-NTSC ports, but other than that minimal work needs to be done. My only complaint is that the board takes about 30 seconds to warm up before you can actually turn it on.
Next I shall tell you that I have decided against the built-in Wavebird connectivity, though the sold item will still come with a customized one. I figured that between the switches, the transceivers (very hard to buy independently), and the extra space just weren't worth it.
For power, I have also decided against a custom regulator. the Wiikey will run off the Gamecube's 3.3v line. as I'm told, using a custom set for a 12v (really 11.1v) battery just wouldn't give me enough of a boost, again, thanks to cost and space. However, since it will run on three of these batteries, connected by this protection circuit and charged by this charger, I should get between one and two hours playtime. I'll probably still need a 12v regulator, but thats all. My final comment on the batteries is that since this is mostly intended for long car trips with friends, there will be a port for an external battery pack, likely of the same nature as the aforementioned LiPo cells.
Before you leave due to boredom, I give you the one, the only, the long awaited...
Video of it booting up.
Yes, I know. It's late, I'm tired, and I don't want to bother editing it out. It happens to be the teacher who runs that lab, and who immensely enjoys spooking me because I'm jumpy.
Speaking of that lab, it's called the FabLab, short for Fabrication Laboratory. It features three Makerbot Replicator 2's, two 60 watt Epilogue Laser Engravers, a CNC machine, a vinyl cutter, its own computer room (complete with tons of CAD and programming software), some very nice soldering equipment, a whole host of miscellaneous tools, and enough Arduinos to play Portal 2.
And guess who's the technician for it.
See him majestically survey his domain.
It's usually pretty nice, though stuff keeps breaking, so I'm pretty busy most of the time. The only downside is dealing with students. Nothing reminds you of your loathing for people like sitting in a room a noisy, sweaty kids.
That's all for now. Photography is courtesy of my lovely assistant Stephanie, who will be appearing in many posts to come.
And on that note I must say good night. I hope to see you again next post, when Abraham shall not only play games, but do it without a power socket.
-K
