Laptop style N64

[Neildo_64]

Very cool, indeed. Are you going to leave any of it clear or paint the whole thing?

[HBN]

I may leave it clear so you can see the innards.

Hope that helps, Neildo, .

This is turning out very cool. And very fast!

[bacteria]

I suggest not having the case clear, unless the wiring looks nice and clean and there isn't mounds of hot glue everywhere. Also, seeing the guts of a system can be off putting when playing games?

You can make the case less wide on the sides, as you have made your case base thick, so there is plenty of space to put the hacked controller on top of the N64 mobo; assuming you intend to relocate the memory card on the controller of course. Just a suggestion, but this will have the effect of making the PSone screen look bigger if the casing is smaller, and will look better. With this sort of project it is the case of less hacking = thick case, lots of hacking = thinner case.

[evilteddy]

I'll probably end up spraying the case white to look like my ds lite. As for the size of the case the width is as thin as I could get it for the relocated cart slot, the case the screen will be in (laptop) will be as thin as I can get it and the batteries and any other things I deem neccessary will go in the spaces at the sides. I realize I could have made this case smaller but when I did my 3d design I made sure there were lots of tolerances just to make sure it all fits nicely. When I play a handheld I rest the system on my knees while I am sitting down (which is when I play portables mostly; train, car, bus) The laptop design will make it easier on the neck as well as protecting the screen.

After I finish and get an urge to tinker again (probably just a couple of months) I will rebuild the case and add other features. Maybe a portable DVD player that is built into the portable and can play off the batteries using the screen. The point is all these improvements are in the future. Right now I just want to finish what I have done and I don't really care if the case is oversize (Though the amount of empty space would mean that I could store my lunch and books in there as well). Anyway I got a controller and will build it into the top of the case as soon as I can.

Progress may be a bit slow this week as I have to finish my english assignement but I will do as much as I can in my spare time.

Thanks for all the comments.

[Neildo_64]

I may leave it clear so you can see the innards.

Sorry, must have missed that part.

[evilteddy]

Can anyone tell me what is better in a heatsink, a lower degrees C/W or a higher one.

[timmeh87]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_co ... Resistance

Based on this, it looks like it is thermal resistance, and smaller is better (smaller Rhs for a given delta-t means larger Pth, ie. greater power flow away from the heat source)

However, this is not the only factor that determines the efficacy of your heatsinks. You must also consider surface area, and thermal mass, primarily.

For an N64 pretty much anything made of metal with fins will work.

[Sharp Sapphire]

evilteddy - Great to see you are having a go.

What are the voltage regulators you refer to (link?), what amperage are they?

1) Yes you can, but you need to put heatsinks on the chip, you can't trim much off the expansion pack board, but you could try to relocate it.

2) You can spray paint the reverse side of the plastic if you like, protects the paint - I did this on my Nintendo 64 Advance project. Or better still, use the stuff Tibia suggests (I haven't used it before).

3) Yes, I sometimes score lines in perspex and crack it lightly, however it often splits where it shouldn't, so I use a double method to cut straight lines - firstly run a drill near the edge you want, then secondly use a sanding attachment (12mm ideal) on a Dremel to trim it down to a straight line. I use this method a lot.

4) No chance - use 6 cells, you need far far more than 1000mAh; you will be lucky to get more than a few minutes with those! Go for Li-ions, or Li-po batteries; if you must use NiMH, use two sets of 6 x 2700mAh in parallel - you might get about 3 hours maybe. In my project I am using two camcorder Li-ions, 4400mAh each, in parallel (7.4v each), total 8800mAh - should give about 5-6 hours use between recharges. NiHM cells lose a lot of charge even when not being used, I have gone off using them now!!

Many thanks for your kind comments BTW. Follow my current project (I will be stripping apart a new N64 in the next days).


Tibia - A jigsaw is rather brutal and is likely to damage the perspex by splintering it at the edges. My method? as above! I get very straight cuts with my method.

8800 vs 16200 makes no sense.

[evilteddy]

Thanks for the prompt reply. I will go to jaycar as soon as I can to get all the materials to complete the project except batteries as they are too expensive and earning money requires me working on electronics other than the nintendo. My portable should be up to the functionality (not quality) of the N64 section of Bacteria's portable.

In other news I added the headphone jack back onto the psone screen (because banjo kazooie sound effects on public transport draws looks from other passengers). The switching wasn't working until I a blob of solder on my iron that I was about to wipe of fell inside that jack and the whole thing now works perfectly. Thanks go to Life of Brian for the guide. Detailed with a graphic!

[evilteddy]

Diecast Black Heatsink

* Size 150(L) x 75(H) x 46(D)mm
* No flange
* Thermal resistance 0.784°C/W

Would this heatsink, when cut up, be suitable? Its one of the few I can get at.

[bacteria]

Buy heatsinks about 6-10mm tall, depending on what you can get. You need ideally three 28mm x 28mm ones, or two 28mm x 28mm and two 14mm x 28mm or six 28mm x 14mm; else you need to trim them down - not easy, as they are metal. On mine, I had smaller ones I had to join together!

[evilteddy]

Well up to last night I was going to buy the heatsinks mentioned above and I went over to a friends place for dinner with a heavy heart. As I described my n64p to them their faces assumed the usual looks of bemusement that they take each time I describe my latest electronic project then halfway through dinner. "You wouldn't happen to need any parts out of a computer would you? We found an old one in the shed." To make a long story short I now posess heatsinks and a fan.

I'll get some heatsink compound and then my cooling problems will be solved!

[bacteria]

Well up to last night I was going to buy the heatsinks mentioned above and I went over to a friends place for dinner with a heavy heart. As I described my n64p to them their faces assumed the usual looks of bemusement that they take each time I describe my latest electronic project then halfway through dinner. "You wouldn't happen to need any parts out of a computer would you? We found an old one in the shed." To make a long story short I now posess heatsinks and a fan.

I'll get some heatsink compound and then my cooling problems will be solved!

People buy heatsink compound as standard (for good reason), however I don't see any reason not to use the gunk from the solid metal heatsink dissipators when you removed them from the N64 - they were designed to work on the N64 chips after all. A free solution!!

[Neildo_64]

I'm not using them because they don't hold well. You can easily remove the heatsinks and I really don't want one falling off. However, they are free and they would work fine as long as they weren't dirty and either held well, or you had some other way to hold the heatsinks down.

[Tibia]

Would Marshall's method work? The one where he solders a wire to a ground, runs it over the heatsink, then solders the other end to the ground?