The GameCube Nano Has Arrived

foreign [Applause] what you see before you are two Nintendo GameCubes but something doesn't seem right about one of them this one here is quite a bit smaller than your run-of-the-mill GameCube but don't let its size fool you inside this thing Sports authentic Nintendo Hardware custom pcbs all enclosed in a perfectly scaled replica shell this is the GC Nano and it's the smallest real GameCube in the world [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 an incredible project that shrinks the GameCube down by over 90 of its original size and even more incredible is that it doesn't rely on emulation or a Raspberry Pi like device but rather utilizes authentic Nintendo Hardware this is the GC Nano an impossibly small GameCube developed by wesk and crazy Gadget now looking at the GC Nano itself it's honestly hard to convey just how small it is so for some perspective here it is next to a regular GameCube a Game Boy Advance SP and a banana yeah it's pretty dang small at the heart of the GameCube Nano is actually a Nintendo Wii the Wii as we all know is backwards compatible with GameCube games but perhaps more crucially it lends itself quite well to miniaturization which is obviously crucial for a project like this now as I mentioned earlier the person behind the GC Nano is someone that I've previously featured on the channel wesk who you may remember from my ultraslim PS2 mod video actually presented the idea of a microsized GameCube to the bitbuild community as a sort of challenge to see if there was anyone crazy enough to take on the project and to his surprise he got a response crazy Gadget another modding Enthusiast took up the challenge West would work on the overall project design while crazy Gadget was in charge of PCB design and test builds now it may not come as a surprise but projects to shrink the GameCube is something that we've actually seen before but West and crazy Gadget would break the barrier of what was previously thought possible taking inspiration from Mad morta's incredible GameCube classic build which is currently the smallest GameCube on record West and crazy Gadget would further reduce the size by 16 making it the new smallest GameCube in the world with the footprint no larger than that of a regular Game Boy cartridge so in order to achieve that further reduction size the donor Wii motherboard would need to be trimmed down to its Bare Essentials so that it can fit inside such a small housing in the bit built modding Community there are several tiers of trimming that can be done to the Wii motherboard we have the OMG WTF the LMAO and the Omega trim which is the smallest and most challenging of the three the Omega trim is what enables the GC Nano to be so small and it's the Wii's unique PCB layout that allows it to be trimmed to such a small size additionally RV loader which is a software specifically designed for Wii Portables like the GC Nano it's extremely important to the build as it patches out Hardware requirements that a stock Wii requires to even boot the GC Nano project is the culmination of years of hard work and is nothing short of amazing so let's Dive Right In alright so in this video I'll be going over all the parts of the GC Nano that make this project possible then I'll do a brief assembly to show you how it all comes together go over all of its unique features review the pros and cons and of course provide you with my overall thoughts so I had to start by giving a huge shout out to Crazy gadget for sending over all the parts necessary to build the GC Nano these are mostly pre-assembled and ready to be put together for greater detail on these parts and the project as a whole definitely check out West's post on the bitbuilt Forum which I'll have linked down below anyway the first item I want to talk about is the shell which is what really brings character to this build and sort of sets the stage for the entire project it has incredible details such as the Nano logo on top the extremely accurate side vents a fully functioning rear handle very much like its larger sibling and even small memory cards that you can attach the attention to detail is really quite remarkable now in addition to the custom shell crazy Gadget designs several custom pcbs which are needed to allow the GC Nano to function which actually brings me to today's sponsor PCB way if you have an idea for a mod like the GC Nano PCB way provides you with the tools to make them a reality from 3D printing services and an array of materials such as the glass-like transparent resin that wesk used in his ultra slim PS2 build all the way to other services like CNC Machining injection molding and of course PCB and flex ribbon fabrication so when it comes to taking your retro mods to the next level PCB way is the place to make that happen check out the link in the description for PCB way to get five dollars off your first order and again a huge thank you to PCB way for sponsoring this video all right so the first custom PCB I want to show you is the top board this not only has the power and reset button but also contains the USBC port for powering the system a Micro SD card to hold all the necessary files and games as well as this chip here which allows you to actually transfer files to the micro SD card through the USBC connector this is really awesome because the SD card isn't really accessible when the Nano is all put together making this a really convenient feature additionally crazy Gadget designed the board to enable any power delivery compliant charger to Output 5 volts of 3 amps such as this tiny Anker power supply next up we have the controller board this is what interfaces the Nano to the original GameCube controllers via these trrs headphone Jacks it's a really ingenious design and I think it's just so cool that we're able to use real GameCube controllers on the Nano the controllers are connected to the headphone Jacks using these custom adapters crazygadget also Incorporated these pull-up resistors for the data line lens since the original resistor array was removed due to the Omega trim on the Wii motherboard okay now let's move on to the power supply board it features a set of five buck Regulators to provide all the necessary voltages to the Wii motherboard as well as 5 volts for peripherals again a very compact design and while the Wii isn't a very power hungry device it does need to be actively cooled so we have this tiny fan to keep air flowing through the system and lastly here you can see the Wii motherboard with the Omega trim again this is the most extreme of all the trims and just as a visual here's a photo comparison of an untrimmed Wii motherboard against an Omega it's absolutely insane and because the trim is so extreme the nand needs to be reintegrated onto the board since it lies outside of the trim this is done with a nand relocation Flex which is made by the folks over at four layer Tech here you can see where the nand is reattached on this fully built out Omega trim additionally to get video out of the Nano West and crazy Gadget utilizes the Ave HDMI mod from electron Shepard this HDMI kit is perfectly suited for the Nano and that it's incredibly small and Compact and allows for the removal of the Ave which is inherent again in the Omega trim and here you can see a fully built up Omega trim which has the nand relocation Ave HDMI mod heatsink and wires already attached and ready to go and with that let me give you a quick overview of how the GC Nano is all put together okay so the first thing I want to mention is that this is really just a top level overview of how the Nano is put together like I mentioned earlier on all the custom pcbs as well as the trimmed Wii board have been pre-assembled by crazy gadget for a more detailed set of instructions definitely check out West's post on the bitbelt Forum which I'll have Linked In the video description below anyway the first thing I'm showcasing here is the top Port being installed into the housing once it's in I grab the four headphone Jacks and press fitted them into the controller Port openings it's a pretty tight fit so I use my pliers to help out these connectors all have to go in in a specific orientation in order to work properly next I went ahead and dropped in the controller board which fits like a glove and goes to show just how well both west and crazy gadget collaborated on the design [Music] and here's a controller board all soldered in there are three connections that need to be made to the top board so I went ahead and wired it all up [Music] next I began pre-wiring the power supply before we install it into the Nano housing this board that I have here is a prototype which is why I'm soldering directly to some capacitors the final version will have dedicated pads for all the connections so you won't have to do this [Music] once all the wiring is complete I went ahead and dropped it in along with the fan it took a bit of finessing but it did go in Fairly easily [Music] now one thing that I did need to do here was expose some of the ground plane on the trimmed Wii motherboard so that it can solder one of the ground wires from the PSU I did the simply using my craft knife until I had enough material exposed then I went ahead and dropped in the Omega trim board ensuring that all the power supply wires weren't getting pinched in the process [Music] then I began to solder in all the requisite wires from the PSU to the Wii motherboard [Music] once completed it should look a little something like this next I began to solder in all the other wires to the top board as well as the controller board [Music] here you can see the data lines which connect the Wii motherboard to the micro SD card slot once the top and controller boards are all wired in it should look something like this and here you can see I used the FFC to connect the Ave HDMI kit to the full size HDMI port the HDMI port is then mounted to the Nano's handle with two screws once those are fastened the handle slides into the Nano's housing which actually holds it pretty firmly in place and here's a look inside before we button it all up but before we do that I went ahead and inserted my micro SD card with all the necessary files when closing the Nano make sure all the wires are clear of the edges and don't get pinched in between the top and bottom the Nano closes up really nicely and cleanly and all that's left to do is secure the top and bottom half by fastening the two screws on either side of the handle and there you have it the world's smallest GameCube I honestly have to say that the GC Nano is a really incredible project I know I say that a lot on the channel but what people are doing in the modding Community is nothing short of amazing and that definitely applies here to the work that West and crazy Gadget did on the GC Nano anyway let's do a quick rundown of all the key features that the GC Nano has to offer first and foremost the most obvious feature is its size it's crazy that we basically have a fully functioning GameCube that fits in the palm of your hand on top of that it outputs crisp video using electron Shepherds Ave HDMI kit which utilizes icorps GC video digital AV converter which is the same GC video standard that's found on devices like the Carby of course it has four player support via the four trrs headphone Jacks around front but unfortunately this particular unit did not support my wafer controller as it did not have the MX chip installed due to the Omega trim this is something that currently requires relocation on every Wii trim for proper wavebird virtual console and real-time clock compatibility I do however have it on good authority that most of these issues will be patched in an upcoming version of RV loader without the need for the MX chip relocation now that'll be really cool anyway around the top of the console there are of course both the power and reset buttons both of which perform as expected however there is a third button which on the original console is for opening the CD compartment however again in my particular unit this button is non-functional in the future this button will activate Bluetooth pairing Bluetooth relocation is only used for syncing Wii modes and is in general considered optional as RV loader has a feature called GC to Wii mode which allows you to map WeMo controls to the GC controller to play a vast array of Wii games that never supported the original GameCube controller speaking of which you can also play Wii games on the unit while it's primarily intended to play GameCube games I still think it's pretty cool that Wii games also run on the console so I guess does this make this technically the smallest Wii in the world too anyway the last feature I want to highlight I think is also one of the most interesting this USB port around back not only Powers the console but it also allows you to transfer files directly to the SD card inside this is fantastic because once you put the Nano together you really don't want to take it apart every time you want to access the SD card this really makes using the GC Nano extremely convenient and I really like that this feature was integrated into the console also the mere fact that you can run the console on a power brick the size of an iPhone charger is also really neat yeah so that's pretty much it the GC Nano is basically a fully functioning GameCube that's smaller than a Game Boy Advance incredible stuff okay so now that we took a tour of the device let's go over the pros and cons starting with the pros I have to say that this is just a really cool project folks like wesk crazy Gadget red herring 32 and many many more are always pushing the limits of what is possible so if you're thinking that the GC Nano is just a small GameCube and nothing more then I really think you're missing the point the amount of work that goes into projects like this especially when you have such polished results really Show the incredible Dedication that these folks are putting into their craft and the GC Nano is no exception as far as the cons are concerned there really aren't any of course this is an extremely difficult project if you ever wanted to undertake it yourself trimming the Wii motherboard coupled with building each individual custom PCB as well as the advanced soldering and Fabrication work required to pull this off is no small feat however for those brave enough to take on this challenging build West can crazy Gadget have made this project completely open sourced with all the documentation files instructions all available on their bit build post which again I'll have linked down below also be sure to follow wesk and crazy gadget on the bitbuilt Forum and their social media as I'm sure we'll be seeing some very interesting updates to the GC Nano in the near future so there you have it the GC Nano project from wesk and crazy Gadget the smallest real GameCube in the world now if you enjoyed this video I really think you'll like this one here so check it out and as always thank you all so much for watching and I'll see you again next Thursday [Music]

Channel: Macho Nacho Productions

Views: 777,892

Keywords: macho nacho productions, macho nacho, macho nacho tito, tito macho nacho, nintendo gamecube, gamecube mini, wii mini, gamecube mods, rvloader wii, the smallest gamecube, worlds smallest gamecube, the smallest wii, GC Nano, Wesk GC Nano, CrazyGadget GC Nano, Tiny Gamecube, gamecube, nintendo gamecube mini, nintendo wii mini gamecube

Id: 4P26n_SopYA

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2023