NES mini (entire NES system in controller!)

Show off your completed projects, announce your hacking progress, or discuss upcoming events.

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G-force
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NES mini (entire NES system in controller!)

Post by G-force » Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:25 pm

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(hand in pic borrowed from girlfriend)

Not entirely a new idea, but it's got some nifty extras, and looks pretty dang sexay while its at it. And no, it's not a portable! :shock: Entirely home TV based!

(if you want to go ahead and jump to the pics,
here they are
)

I took a famiclone (Super Joy III) and put it in a controller, with a bit of style and quality added. It was made for my girlfriend who's a big NES nut like me. That made it easy to guess a gift for her birthday. Just thought, "what would I want?" :P I got it made a little late, but it was worth it to make right.

Anyways, here's the info on the stuff I packed into this sweet little rectangular gaming goodie!

-Came with built-in pirate games, including the 2 player version of tetris, and a level select hacked Contra, among 70 or so more games. Nearly endless supply of old-school-nes there. I didn't even get to play every one before I gave it away, lol.

-Catridge connector on back for playing those NES games that aren't built in. Just switch the power switch over to the left and it disables built in games, and the catridge is playing. I wasn't going to add this at first, but thought about how she had a weird pirate game with a guy who threw rocks, and it wouldn't work on her blinking NES. I really wanted to play it, so thats why I added it. A bit selfish maybe, but I don't think anyone will complain :P

-2nd player controller port! Lightgun works with it too. Which is nice, because there's at least 3 lightgun games built in.

-Controller got a nice new white paint job! Makes it look both old school, and newer iPod-ish. I basically wanted to make it look like something that Nintendo would make if they were to re-release the NES. I think it ended up better than what they'd make ;)

-Nintendo logo is backlit! Looks insanely cool in real life. I'm going to do this to all my NES controllers when I can get around to it! It's that cool. Only thing that bugs me is that one LED is too close to the logo and unblablances the light. Something only a perfectionist would notice.

-Fixed those little "notches" that were near the cord and on the bottom of the controller. I did this by filling them with bondo spot putty and sanding smooth. Those little things alwasy bugged me, they detract from the beauty of the controller in my opinion, and needed to be killed
.

Thats about it, here are the piccies.


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Hacked, 2 player version of tetris playing. No cartridge needed, ha ha!!!

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The system. It will be well played, no doubt.

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The LED back light looks awesome. Even when it's not dark, you can see it.

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The insides. PACKED! TIGHT!

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Size comparison to Tetris-mint game thing the I made for her also. seemed appropriate.

well, enjoy! I had a blast making it! If you've got questions, fire away! I like answering.

There are tons more pics of the assembly and finished unit here http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v510/ ... ES%20mini/
Check 'em out!

EDIT:
Hello Digg and Etechblog! All the photobucket pics went out long ago, lets see how long these imageshack ones will hold up. :P

(BTW, everyone seems to get it wrong, it's G-force. Small f, big G. Just noting. :P)

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Ooo! Tetris playing with no cartridge. Built in pirate games or witchcraft, you decide.

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Compared to the Tetris case mint game system I made

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My friend Kyle playing a cartridge. Some pirate game called Big Nose. Cavemen games, you can't get enough.

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A small junction box houses the player 2/lightgun port, AV out jacks, and the power jack.

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here you can see the power switch. In the middle its off, to the left it plays cartridges, and to the right it plays the built in games.

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White LED backlighting. Gotta love it, such a classic mod and it works so great on this.

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some larger pictures of the whole thing. Thats an entire NES system and a pretty large game library right there.


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Build pics.

As you might know, this uses a pirate famiclone called a Super Joy 3, there was no real NES hacking involved. Here is the wikipedia link which has a list of the games included onboard.

I found my Super Joy 3 for a few bucks at thrift store, and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it when i saw it.
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Shown here is the SJ3 with a neat little thing called a family converter plugged in, these are used to convert this from a japanese connector to a US cartridge connector. I just had to make it smaller.
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Here everything is shown already taken apart, desoldered and dremeled apart, ready to be soldered to the famiclone. I later wired every connection by hand. Took a few hours, but since I've done it before on the NES Boy and NES p0cket, it wasn't too bad.

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After using goo gone to get rid of old sticker residue, using bondo on the case, doing several coats of primer and sanding, it was painted white with Krylon Fusion paint. Tough stuff from the testing I did. The sticker was put back on with some Duro spray on glue, worked excellent. After all that, you wouldn't know this case wasn't from 1988, and not some new gadget off the internet. It even fooled several people into thinking it was a real thing I had just bought somewhere. It took showing pictures of the insides to prove i had made it, lol.

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The player 2 port came from a broken NES. It was dremeled down a lot so it would fit in the junction box. The cable going from the controller to the junction box is from an old broken 6 button genesis controller. It had just the right amount of wires, and was just thick enough to fit.

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Inside the junction box. Before hotglue was very generously applied to prevent wires coming apart from use.

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The NES controller IC had to be "flipped" in order to fit the famiclone in. So the pins were all bent the opposite direction, and then soldered in place. The board had to be cut in a few places too and rewired, so that the switch would fit.

Almost done wiring
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Everything was hotglued later, to prevent anything coming loose in the years it will be around. That was pretty much it.

I've been asked if I could make more of these, and yeah, I think I could. But I won't take any orders, it's just too complicated that way, I will just post the ebay auction on this thread when I get one made. Thanks for all the interest guys! Keep the NES love going! And if you're interested in making one of these I would recommend reading Ben's NES portable stories, then checking out the NES forums here (most notably, the sticky at the top).
Last edited by G-force on Tue Jan 16, 2007 2:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by CronoTriggerfan » Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:40 pm

Woo! First comment!

That's awesome! But does the cartridge get in the way of your hands at all when playing? Still, that's gotta be one of the coolest non-portable NES mods ever! :D Good job!

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Post by Skyone » Thu Oct 19, 2006 11:31 pm

Swizeet. I like the candy gloss paint, really makes things looks new, and also the backlight.

Whoo!

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Post by Sparkfist » Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:25 am

I can't believe you managed to fit an NOAC and the controller board all in an NES controller. That's the smallest I've seen an NOAC packaged.
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Post by Turbo Tax 1.0 » Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:16 am

wow, i mean that is just awesome G-force, it looks so clean cut and everything,

i still cant even manage to put a 72 pin connector on a NOAC and this is like you 3rd or 4th time
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Post by blackbox_dev » Fri Oct 20, 2006 7:44 am

Lookin' awesome, man!

I gotta try this when I have the time (notice the emphasis, lol).
I'd imagine right now you wish you were a cuttlefish...

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Post by bicostp » Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:02 am

Wow. This HAS to be the smallest (semi-) portable NES ever.

Maybe for the holidays you can make a cradle for it that includes batteries and an AEI Components LCD... :P

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Post by benheck » Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:30 am

To quote Cardman from South Park:

"Awesome...."

Good job!

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Post by jeroen » Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:45 am

Ben likes south park? :shock:

another quote from cartman: Sweet!

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Post by G-force » Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:34 pm

@ CTF: Maybe a little bit, but when the cartridge is 3x the size of the entire system, that's going to happen :P It's actually forward enough that it doesnt get in the way of your fingers as much as it unbalances the controller. But eh, its mostly used for the TONS of built-in games anyways.

@Sky: Yeah, I think that paint really improved the look of it. And the backlight is just plain-out modding sweetness. (i was a bit surprised to see no one else had done it before)

@SparkFist: It was a tight fit! using solid wire from radio shack for the cartridge helped save a lot of space though.

@TT1.0: Whats holding you up? Maybe I could help? And you're right, this marks my 4th famicom to NES conversion! wooh!

@Bic: thats a cool idea! Man, I might have to look into doing that... It would be bigger than if I had it all in one single case, but it would still be pretty awesome.

@Ben: Thanks! :D It means a lot to get a comment from a master modder like yourself. I couldnt have made it without your info on the super Joy 3! thanks for your awesome work.

Thanks for the great comment guys! :)

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Post by CronoTriggerfan » Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:41 pm

Still man, the more I look at it, the more godly it becomes. Perhaps we'll see a SNES version when that SNOAC comes out in November, eh? :D

Simply breathtaking.....Now go finish that Game Gear Genesis portable! :lol:

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Post by Fanboy » Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:52 pm

You could prolly make some decent moolah by selling those. Just multiply production by 1.50...
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Post by Kenny_McCormic » Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:20 pm

another thing carman would say "super neato!"

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Post by Harshboy » Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:25 pm

Nice :D I love it.

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Post by lifeisbetterwithketchup » Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:45 pm

Fantastic job.

I'm considering possibly doing something a little bit remotely like that. I'll take a GBM and stick it in a NES controller; not quite as cool as what you made, but it might be worth it.
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