G-Boy: Wii / GameCube Portable DIY Kit

hello I'm shank I built aji boy and you can too if you've seen any of my videos before you know I love wee portables all the Wii for adults I'm a can showcase on my channel use real cut-up and rewired we hardware inside these are not emulators there are real Wien motherboards inside these portables this gives them flawless compatibility with no glitches or slowdowns from a hardware standpoint a Wii is just a beat depth Gamecube allowing it to play all GameCube and Wii games perfectly we portables also run we will and virtual console games as well as the leaves massive homebrew library and selection of homebrew emulators they're all loaded through custom front-end software allowing you to navigate menus and boot games without the use of a Wii Remote how we're on to gameplay as a matter of seconds and game compatibility is unrivaled we portables are everything Raspberry Pi portables wish they could be the G boy takes real we hardware and packs it into a classic pocketable form factor the built-in controller uses contemporary controller parts as well as custom engineered controls like dual action shoulder buttons for analog shoulder button functionality the G boy also packs in a ton of modern tech and electronics it's powered by two 18 650 lithium cells and the efficient RVL power management system giving it between two and three hours of battery life with an RGB LED as a battery life indicator the G boy charges over USB type-c and even supports power delivery for high speed charging disk drives like the ones that we normally uses to load games are slow noisy and suck a lot of power instead games are loaded off an internal USB Drive which can be accessed from your computer through a type C charging port at the top games load much faster through USB than disk drives and you can fit a lot of games on a single USB Drive this is without a doubt the most elaborate and streamlined port obliged console ever made I assembled this purple boy myself however the G boy and its accompanying kit was actually created by someone much more experienced and skilled than I am he has a YouTube channel of his own but he's been a little busy more on that later since my next project is a ways out I thought it would be cool to showcase one of the coolest and most comprehensive projects to ever come out of the portable eyes in community the first ever complete kit you can buy to build your own portable to understand how big of a deal this kit is it's important to understand the long history behind it members of the community have been building portable weaves for years each with their own design and flair each portable was designed and built from the ground up by the individual modders based on their skill set and the tools at their disposal but due to the one-off nature of portables even recreating a portable that was already designed has always been a challenge in itself for example the peewee pocket files are all open source but unless you have access to a 50 watt laser cutter with a ventilation system you're completely out of luck the topic of kits has been discussed in the community for years but always dismissed the amount of work and complexity to make an effective kit is next to impossible that is unless your g-man hi I'm Jim Ian and I'm the designer of the g boy this is g-man the mastermind behind the g boy and a living legend and the portable icing scene g-man has been in the community for over a decade and has made insult more portables than any non g-man on planet Earth GameCube we Nintendo 64 Super Nintendo PlayStation 2 Dreamcast he's done it all and he's uploaded dozens of these portables to his YouTube channel as he's made all these countless portables over the years he has continuously tweaked and perfected his craft he's a portable icing master and a streamlined the building process down to a science but of all of his projects none encompass this ideology better than the G boy whose roots date back almost seven years the original dmg kid was my first gimpy portable that I made in 2013 this is a original Gameboy case that I modified to hold a Gamecube and trim down the gamecube motherboard as far as we possibly could and I still didn't have room for batteries but it served its purpose I was officially hooked on building portables later on during the fifth summer in 2016 fertilizing competition I built the lead wave red one I call this one that we avoid because it's built from in a original dmg Gameboy case by this time the community moved on to reap horrible icing which allowed me to trim the motherboard small enough to fit batteries this time the wee boy Rev 2 is made shortly after the Rev 1 this one is the wee boy Rev 2 to put on in from building the Rev 1 improve the heatsink and was able to fit twice the amount of battery cells I also switched to using D s light buttons which allowed me to have extra room inside taking what I learned again I completely redesigned it for the G boy rep 3 I modeled the case in the computer to be 3d printed so I could replace glue with screw mounts I also designed several custom PCBs for cleaner assembly and cool features like USB C charging with internal storage through all these years and iterations g-man has polished his design and assembly process his custom components made assembly so smooth an adaptation to a kit became more than feasible he sold early kits to experienced members of the community myself included to beta test and gather feedback with the hardware for the kit laid out he teamed up with a bit belt store to distribute the kids to anyone looking to make their own G boy it's currently available for purchase on the bit belt store for those unfamiliar the big belt store is a community run online shop for modders and portable icers as for disclosure I was not paid or asked by g-man or the bit belt store to make this video I offered to make this for them because I consider g-man a close friend and I believed in him and his project as of the time of posting this video I'm a moderator on the bit Bell forums but I am not part of the storefront I purchased and built the G boy featured in this video many months before coming up with the idea to make this video the other G boys in the package kit itself were lent to me by the bit belt store to help me record more diverse and interesting footage but they did provide me with an affiliate link which I'll have in the description so let's talk about the kid itself the kit includes pretty much everything you need to turn your Wii into a gene boy the 3d printed shell comes with all the screws battery contacts and 3d printed parts needed for assembly video is displayed on a crisp Verena 1/2 inch screen and included audio amp drives both the 700 mil watt speakers and the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack on the bottom the heatsink blower fan and copper cooling plate quietly dissipate the 6 watts of heat generated by the we through a carefully designed internal duct system but what really makes this kit amazing are all the custom circuit boards these included circuit boards were specifically designed and make some of the most complex tasks of building a portable trivial and straightforward the first custom PCB houses a GC plus 2.0 this open source project by the legendary Aurelio himself puts all the functionality of a gamecube controller onto a tiny chip and adds so many more features on top of it it's much easier less expensive and more versatile than harvesting parts from a real GameCube controller just wire up the sticks and the buttons and you're good to go it has a configuration app so you can use and calibrate any control stick with full range and easily customized analog shoulder button behavior the GC plus 2.0 sold in the fit belt store are universal with convenient labelled solder points but the one in the kit is on a different custom PCB made specifically for the G bully this custom board integrates many of the button contacts and uses connectors for the joysticks drastically reducing the amount of hand wiring needed on most portables one of the most tedious and complex parts of making the portable is wiring up voltage regulators and battery protection by hand using the hand wired regulators of yesteryear you needed to reference a chart to select and install the right feedback resistor to properly set the voltage then you would need to add input and output caps and wire power and ground every reg then for batteries you would need a lithium protection circuitry and to have an external lithium charger than you need to create and calibrate low battery indicator than wire up a charge and play circuit but not anymore g-man's power management system board included in the kit handles all the battery and our management just wire the batteries to your board and your board to the trimmed we motherboard in the circuitry and it's custom firmware handle the rest it also has a bunch of neat features like shipping mode and an RGB status LED it even includes a thermal sensor to automatically shut down the console in case it overheats something I wish I had on another one of my portables it belts USBC board which is also included in this kit serves two primary functions the first function is allowing the G boy to charge through USB type-c the same charging port used on most Android phones and laptops it can charge through any standard five volt USB source but it also supports USB power delivery quick charging the board's other function is to access the internal USB flash drive through the USB C port just plug it into your computer and it shows up and works just like any USB stick or external hard drive allowing you to easily manage the files without taking anything out of the G boi both this board and the power management system board are included in the kit but they're also available for purchase individually on the big belt store the last custom board the audio amp is much more than just a simple audio amp rather than grabbing analog audio off the Wii motherboard the special audio amp grabs the raw digital audio from the GPU before the audio/video encoder converts it to amplified analog audio this gives a much clearer audio signal with far less interference or distortion than an analogue amp the amp uses special software on the Wii to display volume information on screen and allows you to control the volume level with the face buttons the slick little stereo amp also has a headphone jack with automatic switching it's all integrated into a single assembly with spring contacts for the speakers the Pitt belt store also sells a similar general-purpose version of this amp called the UN it's designed to be Universal supporting digital audio for the Wii ps2 and Dreamcast an analogue audio for everything else this kit is a collection of custom parts used to turn a pre-existing we home console into a fully featured portable I feel it's also important to mention what is not included in the kit the G boy kit does not include a Nintendo Wii or N other official Nintendo hardware it does not include any Nintendo games software or intellectual property it does not include lithium batteries selling and shipping lithium batteries are another logistical hurdle 18 650 batteries are inexpensive and easy to acquire so it makes sense for them not to be included just be careful to get them from a trusted source as fake 18 650 cells are common and can be dangerous it does not include DS Lite buttons you can find them in a huge variety of colors all over eBay for less than five dollars so you can use whatever color you want without paying twice for them it does not include tools wire solder or other basic electronics necessities a good temperature controlled iron is an absolute necessity the fire stick and your uncle's garage is not going to cut it I'll leave a link to some recommended tools in the description while the kit does include a compatible USB two micro SD adapter it does not include a micro SD card compatibility varies from card to card so I'll have a link to the one I recommend in the description below this kit is by far the easiest way to get into building a portable but that does not mean it is easy it will require quite a bit of patience troubleshooting and very tiny soldering it's challenging built especially for beginners but with enough dedication even a beginner can build their own Jie boy g-man and Noah from the big belt store had poured countless hours into creating a comprehensive step-by-step G boy guide the guide uses information gathered from dozens of G boy builds from G man Noah and many beta testers the G boy guide is built on the guides and resources curated by the portable izing community on the bit belt forums the guides are by far the best way to learn but sometimes they don't have the exact thing you're looking for that's why bit belt has set up a G boy section on the forums as well as an exclusive G boy discord server the portable aizen community is an amazing and welcoming community the only thing modders like us love more than modding is seeing new people getting into modding themselves if you show you are putting in the effort to learn on your own before asking for help the community will bend over backwards to help you when you get stuck I've built a few portables since getting into the Hobby and the G boy is one of my favorites with all the details and quality of life features g-man baked into it it's the portable I normally reach for whenever I'm on the go with time to kill it's compact its comfy its sleek and it was the easiest build on this channel to date I get asked a lot how I got into modding the truth is I learned everything I know through the huge adventure that was making my first wee portable I knew next to nothing and there was almost no documentation when I started so it was several years before I had my first working portable but now that the foundation is laid and the forms are full of documentation guides and work logs things are different I've seen Electrical noobs come to the forums and go on to be electrical engineering students I've seen complete portables from people who just a few weeks earlier had never held a soldering iron if you want to learn electronics the best project to start with is one that you're interested and if the idea of a portable we interests you then the G Boy kit may be just what you need while this video was in a showcase of one of my own projects I have many more projects of my own creation in the pipeline my goal is starting this channel was to get more people into the Hobby and I hope bringing attention to the G boy kit will do just that the projects and videos on my channel are all really time consuming so I can only put out a video every few months in the meantime you can keep up with what I'm doing between videos on my discord server and social media my channels growth has been crazy and the support I've gotten is more than I ever imagined all the kind comments and messages really mean a lot to me and have really helped keep me motivated to make more videos thank you everyone who subscribed liked and shared my videos so far as well as all my patrons present and past I'm really excited to see this kit bring a ton of new faces into the portable Ison community thanks for watching and I'll see you next project [Music] you

Channel: Shank Mods

Views: 1,674,423

Rating: 4.9421234 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 9LkZLFiFLd8

Length: 14min 45sec (885 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/soreyJr]

This is so cool.

[u/nachog2003]

It's expensive at 325$ not including the console and a few other parts, but it's a perfect Wii/GameCube portable, which is pretty damn cool IMO.

[u/license_to_chill]

Damn this is amazing! Have been following portables for over 10 years but never got around to building one. Now it actually seems manageable..! Sign me up

[u/[deleted]]

Nintendo is looking for you! 🤣

[u/Ikada]

I wanna buy the kit but I can't find where to get it. The Navy blocked Youtube so I can't access the video. Anyone have a link?

[u/StarWolf1112]

I’m willing to buy one completely made with games like smash, crazy taxi, and sunshine already put in. Anyone want to name a price?

[u/kingcheerio85]

As soon as I can afford it I'm ordering this (which might be never at the rate I'm going, unless I apply for another loan 😣) the only thing I've ever soldered is a couple points for an OG Xbox mod, but I'm definitely willing to give this a go, might grab a couple busted Wii's in case I screw up. Two questions though 1. I have not heard if this has any workarounds to make the motion control required games playable without motion controls, so is that a thing here? Would love to play Skyward Sword, Mario Galaxy, and Metroid Prime 3 on the go. 2. Would it be possible for a noob to solder in an Hdmi port, so if I chose to continue my adventures on a larger screen using this as both console and controller, I could?

[u/Leonard-DT]

Where can I buy a kit to build it?

[u/MikeHanger]

I wonder if they will have an option where its already built. I would definitely purchase it then. I dont have the skills or the time to do it myself