This might be more suited for the hacks thread, but I figured I would continue my tradition of showing off mods over here. I recently installed an AVE-HDMI kit from Electron Shepherd in one of my Wiis and it was a really fun project! This was my first time installing a flex PCB quite like this, and I have to say Voultar’s video about the process helped immensely. I’ll cut to the chase and show the finished product, sporting a slick transparent red case I got off eBay and running Metroid Prime in lovely 480p:
Here’s a shot of the underside of the Wii mainboard with the kit installed:
The trickiest part (other than dealing with the 800 screws of 36 different varieties that are inexplicably necessary to hold this tiny console together) is interfacing the main flex PCB of the kit with a small cluster of vias, each of which needs to be carefully stripped of solder resist mask (thanks @antillese ) and tinned:
The appropriate side of the flex PCB (two different clusters of connections are present, one for each revision of the mainboard) then needs to be carefully aligned over the vias and secured in place with little dollops of solder. I was pretty pleased with how these came out, just had to make sure I used generous flux (paste actually worked better for me here than the no-clean fluid):
The other tricky part was creating a little opening in the case for the Mini-HDMI port. I like to avoid destructive mods on original cases, so this was part of the reason I opted for the aftermarket one. I couldn’t find a file, so I had to improvise…but I think I…uh….nailed it:
Other than dealing with aspect ratio weirdness that seems inherent to the Wii, the output looks quite nice, plus audio is also routed through the HDMI port. My next step is going to be hacking it to get the homebrew channel on there, which I’ve never done before. Seems straightforward enough, though! Mostly, I want to finally play Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth…
