daftmike N64p progress

[Life of Brian]

When it's done i'll draw up a diagram if anyone wants it so they can check it out themselves.

I am very much interested!

Edit: I've been doing some research on hot air soldering, and just for fun I think I want to give this idea a try - the guy used a fish tank air pump, a bit of steel wool, and a desoldering iron to make a homemade hot air iron. It probably won't work well, but I think I have all the parts on hand already so why not give it a try? If so, I'm definitely going to try the "expansion pak memory directly attached to the N64" mod a try.

[Basement_Modder]

I know that all of the "holy $@#*&!" posts have pretty much passed, but, well, holy $@#*&!

I can clearly see that you are not a noob like most new members, and I respect that. Do you do this for a profession? If not, you should.

I expect great things from you...



...You know, like solving the GC DVD drive issue, or getting the Xbox down to decent portable size

[XCVG]

I just read this thread and my jaw dropped. I didn't even know it was possible to add ram that way! I also didn't know you could 'convert' a console like that. Would it be possible to use two PIF chips and add a switch?

[Gordon1]

If so, I'm definitely going to try the "expansion pak memory directly attached to the N64" mod a try.

Yeah, I tried it and and it didn't work though. I did however take a memory off of a fried board (took a chance) and accidentally ripped a trace. But, it seems that the trace I ripped off was just a pad and does not go anywhere. I will go back to it when I am less aggravated.

You can also get the 36mbit memory off of a newer n64 that only has one block of memory on the board.
What i ripped...



Also, sorry for the thread jack, I'll get rid of the picture later, once (hopefully) my question gets answered.

[XCVG]

The highlighting makes the break impossible to see.

[Gordon1]

OK, well here is a different image. The highlights were from something else.

[daftmike]

@Life of Brian
Excellent, that diy hot-air pencil looks like it could be quite effective, i do worry about the steel wool heat exchanger, if i were you i'd try to use copper, maybe some coax cable sheath or something, steel is a bit flammable.

@Basement_Modder
Thanks

@XCVG
The switching between PIF chips is a bit dificult, (see here for a pinout) because the PIF is a bit more complex than lockout chips in other consoles, it not only handles the region lock but also the controllers so you can't just disable it, you would have to switch pretty much every pin for it to work properly, i've considered installing a socket to swap out the chips when i want to play other region games but i have so few ntsc games that i just swap the CIC chip in the cartridge for the corresponding PAL one and so far they work fine (there's a list here that's quite useful) although there are other issues involved when playing games from a different region, the refresh rate is controlled by the game but the colour subcarrier is controlled by the console so you get strange combinations of 50hz NTSC composite video, etc. so RGB is handy to have.

Also, sorry for the thread jack, I'll get rid of the picture later, once (hopefully) my question gets answered.

I'm not sure what exactly your question is, the pictures aren't too clear it looks like its pin 6? if so that pad is not connected so you should be fine if you ripped it off.

[Life of Brian]

@Life of Brian
Excellent, that diy hot-air pencil looks like it could be quite effective, i do worry about the steel wool heat exchanger, if i were you i'd try to use copper, maybe some coax cable sheath or something, steel is a bit flammable.

Good advice. I'm reminded of seeing a demonstration in fifth grade that consisted of putting a 9v battery to a ball of steel wool and watching it burn...

[Tibia]

Interesting. I'd seen Gordon's original thread, but I never commented on it. I didn't know how much the N64 required the location of the memory as well as the size. (I'm sure there's some technical term, but I'm not sure what it is.) Very cool to know that the amount of expansion pack memory can be put in place of the on-board memory with no ill effects.

[Disco_Stu]

great work! Did you try to attach another expansion Pak to the RAM modded n64 mainboard? Would be interestig if it works

[daftmike]

Ok, for anyone interested i've drawn up a little circuit for the power switch, i'm probably going to go in a different direction for mine and use a μc so i can do some other things as well, dim the leds on my backlight to save power and a couple of other ideas i'm still thinking about.



Sorry it's a bit rough, hopefully you can make it out ok, you connect the battery to the left-hand side and the load on the right. Pressing the switch will turn the circuit on, pressing again will turn it off, after switching off there is a delay of about 2 seconds whilst C1 charges before you can switch on again
The transistors can be changed for equivalents, Q1 can be any low-power NPN (2N2222A, 2N904, BC337 etc.) Q2 can be almost any N-channel MOSEFT (IRF530, IRFZ44, STP36, BUZ71 etc.)

[Life of Brian]

Super awesome! Thank you!

[daftmike]

OK, I had an hour or so this afternoon to work or my portable and decided to rewire the cartridge slot in preparation for cutting the board down.



I wired the cart slot directly to the RCP so that i could cut off the top few cm of the board. I saw in bacteria's thread that he will be doing a similar thing so here's where i traced the cart slot to:

GROUND: 1 - 26 : GROUND
GROUND: 2 - 27 : GROUND
RCP 58: 3 - 28 : RCP 57
RCP 54: 4 - 29 : RCP 53
RCP 52: 5 - 30 : RCP 51
GROUND: 6 - 31 : GROUND
RCP 50: 7 - 32 : RCP 47
RCP 46: 8 - 33 : RCP 45
+3.3V: 9 - 34 : +3.3V
RCP 44: 10 - 35 : RCP 41
RCP 40: 11 - 36 : RCP 39
RCP 38: 12 - 37 : RCP 35
+12V: 13 - 38 : +12V
N/C: 14 - 39 : N/C
RCP 34: 15 - 40 : RCP 33
RCP 32: 16 - 41 : RCP 31
+3.3V: 17 - 42 : +3.3V
PIF 5: 18 - 43 : PIF 3
PIF 1: 19 - 44 : CPU 57
RCP 26: 20 - 45 : CPU 93
PIF 23: 21 - 46 : N/C
GROUND: 22 - 47 : GROUND
GROUND: 23 - 48 : GROUND
LAUDIO: 24 - 49 : RAUDIO
GROUND: 25 - 50 : GROUND

Hopefully this will be useful for people who want to have a go at shrinking the board, the soldering is actually not too hard, you just have to be careful because the pin spacing is a bit tight.

[palmertech]

I am speechless. Hot damn.

If you pull this off, you will have the smallest N64p, beating my forever WIP one.

Have you wired up a cart slot to that yet and tested?

[daftmike]

Yes, the cart slot is tucked round the back, I played Wetrix for about 45 mins earlier and it worked fine, I will do a proper stress test tomorrow when i start cutting the board down.