WII U RASPBERRY PI 3 FINISHED

[BadBert]

me: hun, this will be my next project
wife: omg dear, don't you have enough?
me: no... this is fun to build!
wife: that wil be way more expensive than your gbz i think?
me: erm... .yeah...
wife: hell no!

damn...
someone looking for a wife? LOL!!!

[IrieMars]

Battery protection

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151964180103? ... EBIDX%3AIT

Amplifier

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181988847863? ... EBIDX%3AIT

Batteries

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/361690806846? ... EBIDX%3AIT

Front glass/plastic cover

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/141701772296? ... EBIDX%3AIT

Flat fpc hdmi cable

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282018672395? ... EBIDX%3AIT

Chargin circuit

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222090228691? ... EBIDX%3AIT

HDMi display

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251878770018? ... EBIDX%3AIT

Teensy 2.0

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252462189157? ... EBIDX%3AIT

FPC adaptors

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191241778886? ... EBIDX%3AIT

FPC connectors

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291557691449? ... EBIDX%3AIT

Pro Tip for everyone. I'm in the process of this and I found soldering the FPC adapters and connectors to be a pain in the ass. So I did some searching and found that you can purchase them them already mounted to the board for a slight fee. See link below. Hope this helps someone avoid the pain in the ass effort I had in trying to solder these two together and line the pins up.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/2017136927 ... noapp=true

I've also noticed that there are two tips/wings on the 10 pin ribbons that will need to be cut off in order to fit the above. The way I did it was I took a pair of smaller scissors and just clipped them off. This allowed the ribbon to slide into the connector all the way and with ease.

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.

I also updated the wiring diagram that Banjo previously used and was kind enough to provide. I made some changes that I thought would make things a little easier.

First I plan on using a Uboost for power. There are a few reasons I wanted to go this route. First, it freed up more space inside the gamepad. It also didn't add much bulk to the gamepad, I'm okay with it at least. On top of that, it has a built in LED indicator, a power on/off button, and a charging female connection on the side. This I think, will eliminate several steps the and I thought cut down on costs.

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I also noticed the charging board has since been upgraded to include the battery protection. This can be purchased here for a small price. Here's the link.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1PCS-5V ... 0.0.T7Af2h

I also read that Banjo custom made a PCB clad board, which he mentioned was the hardest part that he would use to mount everything. I thought I might save myself some trouble by ordering the original LCD bracket and hacking it up leaving only enough to hold the Screen and be able to mount/glue the boards to the back.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-LCD ... 0.0.b4o1y1

This is all so far in theory. I'm just going through the motions now. I received a bad LCD board so a replacement had to be shipped out from China this week. Which set me back some. But I'll do what I can to try and get going on what I can. Here are my steps so far.

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28awg 10 conductor ribbon that I split in half (one for each analog stick)

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The gamepad with the added uBoost battery.

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Power button and LED on uBoost.

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Same, now in the off setting though.

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Charge connection on the side of uBoost.

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LCD bracket in place. I've since chopped off the sides to allow for more room and I plan on grinding it down to take up less space.

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Analog wiring.

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Now the connector has been removed and wires stripped.

[IrieMars]

More Pics of the work in progress.

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Soldered the ribbon wires to the analog to hold better. I tried just twisting the wires together and using electrical tape. But they didn't want to hold.

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Taped them to avoid contact with each other.

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Replaced in the housing. This is the reason I had to remove the sides on the LCD bracket, I wanted the room and it allowed the taped splices more room.

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This is just the right side. If you will notice, the ribbon cable I used matches the coloring of the wiring diagram, so black = ground, and so on.

[Armstrs]

Re. "Pro Tip for everyone. I'm in the process of this and I found soldering the FPC adapters and connectors to be a pain in the ass. So I did some searching and found that you can purchase them already mounted to the board for a slight fee. See link below. Hope this helps someone avoid the pain in the ass effort I had in trying to solder these two together and line the pins up."

Nice find! But OMG that was info I could have used a week ago. LOL. I posted how I soldered those tiny parts on the other Wii U thread. Difficult but not impossible.

And, it looks like the already mounted boards are the correct "bottom connect" design as well, although it is hard to tell. The separate connectors that were linked to earlier, have pins that contact the cable at the top of the connector, so the board faces the back of the screen.

Re. "I also read that Banjo custom made a PCB clad board, which he mentioned was the hardest part that he would use to mount everything. I thought I might save myself some trouble by ordering the original LCD bracket and hacking it up leaving only enough to hold the Screen and be able to mount/glue the boards to the back."

I found a $3 project board at Radio Shack that was pretty easy to cut. I was thinking about posting a printable template people could use to cut their own.

[Armstrs]

me: hun, this will be my next project
wife: omg dear, don't you have enough?
me: no... this is fun to build!
wife: that wil be way more expensive than your gbz i think?
me: erm... .yeah...
wife: hell no!

That is why I have found it is better to ask for forgiveness later than to ask for permission. Hahaha
I am $300 in on the GBZ and Wii U projects so far. ...I really hope the wife never reads this...

[IrieMars]

me: hun, this will be my next project
wife: omg dear, don't you have enough?
me: no... this is fun to build!
wife: that wil be way more expensive than your gbz i think?
me: erm... .yeah...
wife: hell no!

That is why I have found it is better to ask for forgiveness later than to ask for permission. Hahaha
I am $300 in on the GBZ and Wii U projects so far. ...I really hope the wife never reads this...

My costs so far...

$15.99 Wii U GP
$57.95 lcd
$12.58 teensy
$1.87 shipping
$6.99 touchscreen
$9.65 HDMI
$4.00 Adapters
$4.67 PCB
$9.60 Replacement shoulder buttons
$3.20 shipping
$10.49 uBoost
$5.00 Pre-soldered pcb and adapters
$3.00 shipping
$1.02 Battery Charging board
$5.90 LCD Frame/Bracket
$16.95 Power Boost
$8.98 10 Conductor Ribbon
$16.00 rotary tool & extra Hands
$13.00 OEM Screws & Touchscreen with black Bezel
$40.00 Pi 3
$20.00 64 Gig Micro SD
$266.84 TOTAL

I haven't even starting thinking about sound either.....

[Armstrs]

Ok. I need Teensy help. Long story short, joysticks are great, digital buttons not so much.
Short story long...
I wired everything up and used Banjo's teensy code even though I knew I needed to tweak it (pin 15 is not home button/Esc on mine, etc.) And nope.
I then tweaked the code making sure all pin numbers were correct. And still no go.
Then I deleted all code and put in a simple, single button input_pullup.
The problem: all three attempts are just sending random key presses. Not consistently either. I plug it in once and I get rows of zeros, next time: 5 zeros, then a pause, then more zeros. Without hitting any buttons. Even disconnecting all physical buttons, the teensy is still sending key presses.
Using a joystick testing app, pins 0-7 are all lit up as soon as I plug it in and 11-15 shortly thereafter. Joysticks are reading accurate but there is a slight constant 'jiggle' when untouched and at center.
In order for it to be doing what it's doing, I would think I would need to have accidentally bridged every single button. But the fpc connector and button testing was all good.
I would think bad teensy... but the joystick clicks both register correct and are only on when pressed.
Really frustrating. I'm hoping I just missed something simple but I can't figure it out.
Right side (A,B,X,Y) FPC ground is wired to the ground by pin zero. And the left/d-pad FPC ground and both joystick ground wires are using the other ground at the end of the teensy.
Next step is unsolder and just test bridging each teensy out to ground? I dunno.

[IrieMars]

Ok. I need Teensy help. Long story short, joysticks are great, digital buttons not so much.
Short story long...
I wired everything up and used Banjo's teensy code even though I knew I needed to tweak it (pin 15 is not home button/Esc on mine, etc.) And nope.
I then tweaked the code making sure all pin numbers were correct. And still no go.
Then I deleted all code and put in a simple, single button input_pullup.
The problem: all three attempts are just sending random key presses. Not consistently either. I plug it in once and I get rows of zeros, next time: 5 zeros, then a pause, then more zeros. Without hitting any buttons. Even disconnecting all physical buttons, the teensy is still sending key presses.
Using a joystick testing app, pins 0-7 are all lit up as soon as I plug it in and 11-15 shortly thereafter. Joysticks are reading accurate but there is a slight constant 'jiggle' when untouched and at center.
In order for it to be doing what it's doing, I would think I would need to have accidentally bridged every single button. But the fpc connector and button testing was all good.
I would think bad teensy... but the joystick clicks both register correct and are only on when pressed.
Really frustrating. I'm hoping I just missed something simple but I can't figure it out.
Right side (A,B,X,Y) FPC ground is wired to the ground by pin zero. And the left/d-pad FPC ground and both joystick ground wires are using the other ground at the end of the teensy.
Next step is unsolder and just test bridging each teensy out to ground? I dunno.

I could be waaay wrong. But it sounds like maybe a wiring issue? Are all you wires and solder pounts clean and not touching any ither input? What about the grounds? Only reason I say this is because of the random inputs your getting.

Hows yours coming along? I cant for the life if me figure out how to keep the screen on and keep it on. Do you know if i need to by a battery for the control and turn it on? I have 5v 2a using the charge boost.

Anyways, good luck.

[Armstrs]

Hey thanks. Looks like clean soldering under magnification but that's gotta be the problem right? Guess I'll undo everything and start over.
Sorry, my screen has not arrived yet. So I guess I need to figure out the problem with the controls before I get the screen and have a whole bunch of new problems to figure out.

[IrieMars]

More updates.

Got another tip for everyone. If you order the screen digitizer order an official Nintendo replacement from here.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/162251255451?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

This one comes with the bezel trim. I noticed the one linked to before didn't have it and will show grey lines once it's mounted. The above one comes with it and gives your GP a nice clean look.

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I used a rotary tool to file out this area for the usb. I plan on using this to transfer roms to the PI or connect a keyboard for programming. Thinking about it now, I should have left it as is and placed a stacked USB connector there. But this will work.

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image of the filed down LCD bracket. I noticed it was taking up much needed space so I filed it down and some sections out. The corners are the important part as they hold the LCD in place. Fits perfectly.

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Another angle.

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Front side. Looks clean and really happy it's coming together.

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Pi, charge boost, and LCD board all wired up. Look good but I can't figure out how to keep the screen on. It keeps going black even though I know I have power to it. Might be as simple as hitting the on button on the control that came with it. I'll need to pick up a battery today and test. If this doesn't work I will have to figure something out.

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Another angle.

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Here are the two boards in the case where I think they will sit. I'll have to go back and strip down both the Pi and the LCD board some more to make extra room. I'll do this once I figure out how to keep the screen on, just in case I have to return it.

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Even though I have more room to make, it fits the case. I plan on going back and completely grinding down everything not needed on the Wii U gamepad to make more room. I still have the Teensy, sound card, battery protection, control boards, etc to go. So I'll be needing all the space I can get.