The miniaturization of retro tech has all the time been a significant obsession for modders, from the one who match an authentic NES right into a Sport Boy-sized transportable to the one who made a mini-er model of Apple’s Mac mini.
One mod on this storied style that caught our eye this week is the “Quick Stack,” a scale mannequin of the Nintendo Wii that packs the 2006 console’s inside {hardware} right into a 3D-printed enclosure roughly the scale of a deck of taking part in playing cards.
“You may match 13.5 of those inside an authentic Wii,” writes James Smith (aka loopj), the individual behind the venture. All of the design particulars, customized boards, and different details about recreating the mod can be found on GitHub.
Like many space-saving console mods, the Quick Stack requires a cut-down model of the unique Wii’s PCB, retaining (and sometimes relocating) the unique console’s CPU, GPU, RAM, and NAND flash chip. Energy supply, USB, the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, and GameCube controller ports have been all relocated to separate customized PCBs, which additionally allowed Smith so as to add HDMI output and a microSD card slot (the unique Wii used a full-size SD card and did not assist digital video output).
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The Quick Stack cleverly hides its GameCube controller ports behind a sliding panel on the facet.
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A headphone jack-to-GameCube dongle preserves GameCube controller compatibility whereas saving house within the console itself.
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The cut-down Wii PCB, that includes the unique console’s CPU, GPU, RAM, and NAND flash.
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The Quick Stack subsequent to a deck of playing cards.
Some sacrifices have been made within the title of miniaturization. The console’s disc drive is gone, so any video games will have to be loaded from a microSD card as an alternative. And the 4 GameCube controller ports are literally headphone jacks that work over a particular adapter. Smith made these headphone-to-GameCube dongles pin-compatible with an earlier mod known as the GC Nano, a venture that did for the GameCube what the Quick Stack does for the Wii.
Smith additionally designed customized entrance and rear PCBs for the console to deal with issues like the facility button and the glowing blue mild across the Quick Stack’s (aesthetic, non-functional) DVD slot. A customized heatsink (Smith makes use of aluminum, although it will also be made with copper to enhance warmth switch on the expense of weight) and a tiny fan preserve the console cool.
Nintendo launched its personal Wii Mini towards the tip of the Wii’s life in 2012, but it surely got here with important compromises: no on-line connectivity, no GameCube controller ports or recreation compatibility, and no SD card slot. The Quick Stack loses the optical drive for space-saving causes however in any other case retains the entire options of the unique Wii.
Smith says that the Quick Stack might in all probability be as a lot as 20 to 30 p.c smaller with out giving up options. However one of many targets of the Quick Stack venture was to make a scale mannequin of the unique Wii, and additional shrinkage would make the venture “difficult to assemble.”
