Simple $7 Product Makes Installing the Pluto GC HDMI Mod Easier

foreign [Applause] the Nintendo GameCube is an incredible console that was released just before HDMI became the standard HD medium thankfully we have some great products to fix that external adapters such as the Carby are convenient but for those that want an internal solution for HDMI your options are limited the Pluto GC mod is a fantastic HDMI kit but it requires modders to solder a ton of individual wires however with the introduction of helder's quick solder Flex installation is now easier and cleaner [Music] hey everyone how's it going my name is Tito and welcome to another episode of retro renew today we'll be taking a look at a product that makes installing the Pluto GC HDMI mod a bit easier this is the quick solder Flex from Helder this little ribbon allows us to install the Pluto 2 xfpga board into a GameCube without the need for soldering tons of individual wires which is what was previously required the flex ribbon while it doesn't add any new functionality instead makes the Pluto GC HDMI mod feel more in line with modern HDMI kits that we've seen released recently like the N64 digital Flex ribbons have become ubiquitous in the modding Community resulting in cleaner and easier installations now for those of you who don't know the Pluto 2x is a commercial fpga development board meaning it was not custom made for the sole purpose of enabling HDMI video output for the GameCube the Pluto 2x essentially serves as the platform for the open source GC video project to run on which was created by Ingo Corb this is the same software used in other internal GameCube HDMI mods like the GC dual as well as external HDMI Solutions such as the Carby they all use the same open source GC video firmware anyway the Pluto GC video mod has been out for several years but this is the first time I ever installed one let alone any internal HDMI mod for the Nintendo GameCube so let's Jump Right In alright in this video I'm going to show you all the parts you need to perform the Pluto GC video mod then I'll demonstrate how to put it all together I'll go over some of its features review the pros and cons and of course provide you with my overall thoughts so the first item you need is hilder's flex ribbon like I've stated numerous times already these are designed to make installing the Pluto board a lot easier and look overall more professional you'll also of course need the Pluto board itself you can either purchase it individually from the knjn website already loaded with the latest GC video firmware or you can purchase it in a bundle from Helder along with the ribbon cable pre-soldered to it as well as a 3D printed aligning bracket which was designed by a laser bear Industries all right so that's everything needed to get HDMI video out from the Nintendo GameCube internally now I have to say that this mod did not go smoothly for me mostly because of mistakes that I made that were completely avoidable so I definitely recommend watching the installation tutorial in its entirety so you don't make the same mistakes that I did anyway without any further Ado let's go ahead and install this kit all right as usual guys we need to tear the GameCube down all the way to the motherboard the GameCube is one of those consoles that just has a ton of parts and screws so be sure to keep track of everything as it will make it a lot easier to put it all back together later on foreign [Music] now you'll notice this console is Pretty Dirty since I'm taking the whole thing apart I do plan on giving it a deep clean off camera which I strongly suggest anyone doing this mod do as well so with all the screws out we can now lift off the optical drive and then begin to remove all the screws securing the heatsink foreign using a spudger I like to start off by prying the motherboard off at this point here which is right next to the power board connector once the connector is unseated the whole motherboard can easily be removed now before using my hot air station I just warm it up a bit to loosen the thermal pads adhesion however despite my best efforts the GPU thermal pad tore off so I actually ended up removing all the pads and I will be replacing them all with new ones Hilder actually has a set of replacement pads already cut to size listed on his web page in case you tear yours and do want to buy some new ones okay now we need to proceed to removing the digital port from the motherboard this is definitely the hardest part of the whole installation and where I ran into a few issues so first before proceeding I used some capped on tape to protect all the surrounding components from the hot air I also added for a solder to all the pins to Aid in the removal process then I began hitting the connector with my hot air station set to roughly 400 degrees Celsius using a sweeping motion after several minutes the connector was still not budging the ground plane that these support pins are attached to is pulling a lot of the heat Away really making it difficult for the solder to melt on those pins after getting a little impatient I thought it would be a good idea to apply some chip quick which is an alloy that has a very low melting temperature and helps removing surface mounted components or connectors with a lot of pins like the digital port the issue I ran into was using chip quick with hot air at the same time which leads to a huge mess so I wouldn't recommend using the two together unless you really lower the airflow rate so that you don't get liquid metal blown all over the place anyway I did manage to get the connector off and clean up the mess that the chip quick left behind in hindsight I think it would have been immensely helpful to use the desoldering gun on these four anchor points and then hit it with hot air oh well I'll do that next time anyway now let's prep the Pluto board by attaching hilder's quick solder Flex to it you'll first want to place it onto the 3D printed bracket as this will help keep it flat on the table surface and easier to solder to you'll want to align the ribbon as shown then to help keep everything in place I used a piece of cap on tape to hold the ribbon down while I tack in a few points I first tacked in the bottom leftmost point [Music] and then another point on the opposite side using tweezers I ensured that the ribbon was flush to the Pluto board after making sure the ribbon is still all aligned I went ahead and tacked in a few more points I then felt comfortable enough to remove the tape and began soldering in the remaining points on the board [Music] [Music] now as you can see here a lot of these points are not fully seated against the board and thus aren't making a solid connection so again with my tweezers I am ensuring that the casillated edges are flush to the through holes on the Pluto board and then I proceeded to add more solder to ensure a very solid connection foreign [Music] and this is what it should look like when you're done now we can go ahead and remove the Pluto board from the aligning bracket the next step is to install the other end of the ribbon onto the motherboard where we removed the digital port so what you want to do is align the cable to the digital port through holes I again use some capped on tape to hold the ribbon in place but I did make a pretty big mistake here can you see it well let's keep going I'm sure you'll notice the mistake pretty soon I continue to solder in the points on the ribbon thinking everything is going smoothly I mean just look at those welds the soldering came out looking great but there's one big problem but as you can see I still haven't noticed the issue and I proceed to The Next Step which is removing this post on the bottom shell which is situated next to the digital port location it's only when I put the motherboard back in the bottom shell that I realized I installed the ribbon cable upside down it takes a while for it to register but I noticed that the Pluto board is folding over the analog Port which it absolutely should not be doing after a brief moment of frustration I proceed to removing the ribbon from the motherboard I had to be extremely careful and take my time so that I don't rip off any of the pads you absolutely do not want to make this mistake always triple check before you solder anyway after removing it I began to solder it back on this time the correct way here you can see the proper orientation of the ribbon which has all the silk screen text clearly visible I started off by first soldering the two ground points on either side to Anchor the ribbon once those were solid I proceeded to soldering all the other points I was thankfully able to recover from this mistake but always triple check things before soldering it makes life a ton easier now we can go ahead and install the aligning bracket once it's in place we need to reuse two of the GameCube screws to secure it then use the dotted line on the ribbon as a guide to fold it and then place the Pluto board into the bracket and screw it down [Music] next we need to Tap 5 volts from this point here to power the Pluto board so add some solder and then attach a wire to it I'm using a piece of 28 gauge stranded wire for this [Music] then solder the other end of the wire to this pad on the ribbon labeled 5 volts [Music] this is what it should look like next solder another wire to the pad labeled control here I'm using 30 gauge kinar wire now we need to Route this wire between the two RAM chips and the GPU as shown I'm using a couple pieces of capton tape to secure to the motherboard to keep it out of the way when we reinstall the heatsink and this is what it should look like next we need to solder the other end of the wire to this pad here [Music] great so all the wiring is done and it should look a little something like this now go ahead and grab the optical drive and remove it from the RF Shield it's held on by six screws we need to remove this section here since the Pluto board now occupies that space the way I did it was by first making a cut here using my Flush Cutters [Music] then with some pliers I bent the entire section I wanted to remove up and down repeatedly until it fatigued off this metal is pretty thick and does require a lot of effort to do it this way but you end up with a pretty clean cut if done correctly I was actually pretty surprised how cleanly it came off [Music] anyway I then use the file to smooth out the sharp edge [Music] before putting it back together I did a test to make sure everything works and found that it wasn't getting a picture and that was because I needed to bridge this jumper here apparently not all TVs require you to do this but the two displays I tried it on didn't work and I did need to bridge this jumper on the bottom of the Pluto board anyway once I confirmed everything was working I put a piece of cap on tape over these pads to ensure it doesn't short against the RF shielding then I put in a new set of thermal pads the GameCube uses different thickness pads for different chips so make sure you're using the correct ones [Music] now it's just a matter of putting everything back together [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and there you have it the Pluto GC video HDMI mod installed with the help of helder's quick solder Flex cable so despite a few hiccups I was thankfully able to get the Pluto GC HDMI mod up and running I have to say that I absolutely love the results and really like that the mod itself is internal to the console now I won't be going over every feature of GC video since it's been covered extensively over the years wildlife in gaming has a great video that covers many of the GC video products out there so I highly suggest you check that out anyway when it comes to Features the most important is that you get fantastic 480p video out of the GameCube through HDMI as you can see it looks fantastic especially when compared to the composite video signal pulled from The Av analog Port now one thing to keep in mind is that if you're experiencing audio issues like no audio at all make sure that the enhanced DVI mode is enabled which allows audio to pass through and you should be good to go to get to the settings you need to open the on-screen display which is activated by pressing and holding the l r trigger along with the X and Y button for a few seconds here you can make changes to different settings such as solution but I think the vast majority of people will be interested primarily in 480p at the end of the day this is a fantastic internal HDMI solution now before we get into the pros and cons I want to talk about helder's Flex ribbon cable the ribbon itself is a fantastic addition to the Pluto HDMI mod and it makes the mod a lot simpler and overall provides a much cleaner insulation just don't be like me and install the darn thing twice I'm really glad we have a product like this available since it really should help people perform this mod moving forward okay so after playing around with the Pluto HDMI mod what are some of the pros and cons well starting with the pros obviously the biggest one is that the installation of the Pluto 2x mod is significantly easier with helder's quick solder Flex it's a great solution and I'm happy that we have it available with regard to the Pluto GC mod itself I really like the self-contained nature of it especially when compared to external Solutions like the Carby while the Carby is an incredible Plug and Play solution it does require the use of a separate remote to change settings while not an issue at all it is an extra thing that you need to keep track of where on the other hand we have the Pluto which uses the controller to open the OSD menu and adjust settings requiring no additional peripherals the self-contained nature of the mod for me gives a slight advantage to the Pluto over external Solutions another advantage of the Pluto is that adapters like the Carby can put extra strain on the digital port due to how far they protrude from the console which potentially could cause issues down the road while there are products to help alleviate this problem like retro frog support brace these again are extra things that you need to keep track of the internal Pluto mod is a clean setup and is ready to go without any additional accessories needed for operation which makes traveling with it a breeze and the last Pro is price helder's ribbon by itself costs about seven bucks not bad and to get the complete kit which comes with helter's flex ribbon pre-soldered to the Pluto board costs about eighty dollars which seems pretty inexpensive in comparison to other HDMI kits we've seen to date anyway those are the pros but now let's get into the cons for me the biggest con of this whole mod is the required removal of the digital port while not the most experienced when it comes to hot air I do think this will be the part of the install that most folks will have trouble with I was warned to not use a desoldering gun due to the potential risk of damaging traces but in hindsight I think it would have been helpful to use a desoldering gun on the anchor points connected to the ground plane additionally I think it would have been awesome if the ribbon cable connected to the bottom of the motherboard under the digital port so that we could retain it much like how the GC dual is installed this would remove a step from the insulation and make the overall mod a lot simpler I think it was a missed opportunity and the last con is that this isn't a no-cut mod the Pluto requires us to trim a post from the shell internally as well as remove a large section of the RF Shield if preserving your console and stock condition is a priority this mod is probably not for you and sticking with adapters like the Carby is probably the way to go but if you don't mind a bit of shell trimming then this is a great internal HDMI solution so there you have it the Pluto 2x GC video mod installed with helder's quick solder Flex a great internal HDMI mod for the Nintendo GameCube well I really hope you enjoyed this one and if you did I think you'll like this video too so check it out and as always thank you so much for watching and I'll see you all next Thursday [Music]

Channel: Macho Nacho Productions

Views: 170,330

Keywords: macho nacho productions, macho nacho, macho nacho tito, tito macho nacho, gamecube hdmi, gamecube mods, gamecube hdmi mod, modded gamecube, hdmi gamecube, gamecube hdmi mod comparison, gcvideo gamecube, gcvideo firmware, gcvideo hdmi, gcvideo mod, gcvideo hdmi adapter, Helder flex ribbon Gamecube, Helder HDMI gamecube, helder, helder gamcube, Helder HDMI Flex, gamecube hdmi mod kit, gamecube hdmi cable

Id: o0VOgJk0JgA

Length: 19min 3sec (1143 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 26 2023