Zelda Themed Gamecube Log

[DRxAndy]

I've been working on this for a long while, probally since january - i procrastinated a lot, and finally have got on the ball, and started working on it again.

I planned to mod a gamecube (region switch, and paintjob, with the possiblity of some extras) to go along with my zelda pc case. However, I havent finished it yet, but took a break, and went back on this.

anyways on with the log!

this is pretty much what you need to work around inside a cube, the gamebit isnt the entire screwdriver, but regardless. I also like using one of the bigger phillips head bits that comes with that screwdriver, as it provides more leverage. The small screwdriver is great for getting at the heatsink though.

switch used for region changing, and some wire that was far too large of a gauge (i shouldnt have boughten it, but oh well, i ended up using some wire from a scrap 486 machine that i originally used for a pc powerswitch)

the insides of a cube, just after taking the 4 specialty screws out on the bottom of it.

the heatsink, below it is the magical area containing both the vpu and cpu, as well as some ram i'd imagine

after taking everything completely apart, here are the basic elements that will be painted (the only one i dont plan on painting is the handle, because black matches my theme)

I originally planned to use one of these pc fangrills instead of the gamecube jewel, but i ran into a snag.

the screw i would use to adhere the fangrill on would run into trouble with that area, so i decided i might as well just leave it stock.

I dremeled out an area in the little vents for the region switch, and it seemed to work great

 

[DRxAndy]

This was the first time i tested the switch i attempted to solder on (let me tell you, the first time i did it, i had no advice, and ended up going solder crazy and slighly ruining the first board.. first i tried the point method, which was incredibly hard because my soldering iron sucks, and then i went to the hole method. Unfortunally I soldered in one of the holes that you need to put a wire through doh!)

Luckily I finally got the switch done yesterday, and it was totally easy.

If you're interested in working on a cube mod, i've compiled a large list of useful links (which are hard to find, took me many hours of googling to find these)
take a glance here: http://www.drxandy.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16


I thought it'd be cool to have a controller extender painted up to match too, so i preped it and covered up the non purple areas with masking tape and a plastic baggie.

I used krylon fusion (i'm a huge fusion whore, due to its ease of use without prepwork, and nice finish)

Time for the actual case to be painted! whoo

The case and fusion

I used black vinyl dye for the front faceplate, it looks very nice in real life
the picture makes it look a little dull, but thats because its a matte finish

the bottom ports as well as the power,reset, and eject buttons

The main event, everything turned out excellent, as i have checked this morning - paint is pretty evenly distributed and very smooth. Looking great, too bad i'm going to wait a day or two to put it back together (for drying purposes)

 

[DRxAndy]

This'll give an idea of what it might look like completed.. i think it turned out awesome, practically stock if i were to keep it that way
however due to requests of the fangrill being used on top, i'm really really concidering it (because i do agree, it'd look great up there.)

Notice the black border around the area where the cube fits together, that'll be remedied as i just finished painting it half an hour ago

I also applied another coat of vinyl dye to the front panel, it looks a bit more washed out with more light hitting it - and more vinyl dye should fix that.

what'd you guys think hehe, should i be so bold as to not use the stock jewel and just go with the fangrill? i'm afraid to work with glue on the nice paintjob sofar, but i might concider it hehe

any reccomendations on a good glue to use that'll adhere plastic to metal properly (superglue is out of the question, as it sucks)

now i just need to get working on painting up a controller


I think i've decided to cut the screw mounts off the fangrill, and possibly paint it black, with a clear jewel underneith to show off the game spinning underneith - more progress will be noted in the near future

 

[TerryG]

That is one of the nicest gamecube mods I've seen. Almost makes me want to tear mine apart.

Have you considered doing a lid disc mod? Here's a pic of what I'm talking about.

The how-to can be found here

 

[DRxAndy]

yup, i have seen that, but i'm probally not going to do that
i decided instead of that, i'm thinking about clearing the jewel (taking it apart like the methods for that, then sanding it clear) and probally gluing a black painted zelda fangrill (minus the screw points) to that - i'm a bit nervous thinking about cutting into the lid of the case (as i just finished painting it nicely..) but yeah, might take the plunge

i just completed a good 3 hours worth of work, i'll leave an update tommarow

 

[KoZLop]

sweet mod so far

 

[rayman2k2]

if you hadnt done anything yet, i'd cut the screw ports off of the grill, then paint the lid gold or black, then put the fangrill on and spray green back over it. That way you would have the shape of it painted on...just a thought.

 

[DRxAndy]

thats another thing i concidered for a moment rayman, but the chance of it moving during the painting would be a risk... however it would look awesome
ah well

Update time:
I worked for many hours last night basically screwing everything back in and a bit of touchup painting, as well as work on a memorycard

here we go

The front, everything screwed in - memory card slots look brighter because i cheaped out and used a sharpie on them instead of actually painting. I actually like the contrast, haha, i hate dealing with spring mechanisms, they're a total pain

The back, with switch. It was incredibly hard to get that switch in there properly - it took me several tries, firstly because it wouldnt stay on between the holes - and secondly, it was too close to the digital av port

Finally managed to get it on, buy just pushing the panel in with the switch not screwed in, then pulling the switch up and screwing it in. Worked great, and fits perfectly.

fun fact: the gamecube wont boot if the switch is touching other metal (or maybe it wont boot if something is pushed against the digital av in *shrug*)

Taking apart the jewel is pretty tough too - managed to do it, but now i'm having second thoughts about it haha, regardless i could just get another one from nintendo for $2

Before anyone comments that 3rd party memory cards are rubbish, let me just say I know I got this one in trade with the cube, and wouldnt ever use it normally- so i formatted it to JPN and use it for my import saves. For the record, i have 3 other nintendo brand memory cards, 2 251's and 1 59 (came with animal crossing)

I didnt want any of the mad catz logos or any of the other writing, so i first used some 400 grit sandpaper, and took them off, then i finished up with some 1500 grit

I didnt just want it blank however, i had a plan to make a triforce so i masked off the area with professional masking tape (the other kind is rubbish for painting, dont even bother with it) and cut out triangles with my exacto knife

I like the results, and i think they pretty much speak for themselves:

Thats all I have for this update, hope to do more today

 

[awdark]

Wow nice. Now what about that Zelda PC?
Guess you just have teh gameboys and N64 left to mod for the consoles and yeah.

Makes me want to do a Perfect Dark Mod
awDARK <- Thats why my alias is what it is. PDark was the pwonage zelda was okay definitely played more perfect dark okay.. link's awakening took me forever to finish so yeah.. (Was a gaming n00b with links awakening my first zelda, second gb game)

 

[SlickJesus]

Man, this mod keeps getting sweeter and sweeter!
how is the PC case coming along anyway?

 

[Godlovesaterrier]

Here is my pic of my lid disk, I would have one in the GC but my stoner friend kicked the damn thing and the lid came off

 

[DRxAndy]

The zelda pc is still in progress, albiet slow (i made a new update that happened while the [h] was down, but i think it got bumped to the 2nd page)

nice lid godlovesaterrier! how'd you do it, might i inquire


Update:

Tonight I completely finished piecing the cube together, putting all the stickers back on and screwing things in.

The Lid was probally the worst part, as the spring mechanisms were insanely hard to remember how they went back on. After trial and error (over an hour of it.. grah!) and taking apart my main cube to figure out how the spring mechanism pictured above worked, I finally got it back together properly.

Here is the magical secret LED color (its going to be the lighting scheme of my zelda pc case as well, whoo) It looks spectacular with the green and black, but my camera isnt the best, and it shows up blue.

The led was originally positioned a little far back, so i decided to open it back up and reposition. This became very frustrating, because i ended up messing up the lid switch.

A note to all possible cube modders - when you put the top part back together with the bottom, make 100% sure that the lid is ejected up, because you will crush the lid switch (the switch that recognizes if the lid is closed or open).

After anger subsided, i decided i might as well waste some more time fixing my mistake. I took the entire switch assembly out, and found out my problem - the switch's internals opened up and the 2 little tiny metal pieces inside fell out. I fixed this, and with a sigh of relief got it working properly again.

After finally finishing up with the lesson in frustration, I sat down to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Now to work on the jewel, and do up a controller, and this mod should be complete

I think i've decided not to do a window, or actually adhere the fangrill to the case - but instead paint its silloutte on the jewel... i'll let the pics explain it better than i can later hehe

I hope to complete it by june 7th in lieu of four swords. As of now, its completely operational and looking great in my opinion.

 

[Godlovesaterrier]

ya I got it from the same jackass that kicked the gc, he got it from xport1.com...not sure how much he paid for it

 

[DRxAndy]

update:

This won't be that big of an update, because i've been lazy hehe, but its a slight one, and i thought this was a nice touch to the overall system.

I saw the power plug sitting lonely, and thought to myself, hey wait a tick, this brick can be taken apart!

so i did

and added a dash of paint to the equasion

i also decided to fill in the letters with a fine tipped perminant marker - of which i didnt have the steadiest hand, but it worked out none the less (had to keep cleaning the tip of the marker off heh)

thought it had a nice touch to it, all the details count

 

[DRxAndy]

update:

Well I originally intended to get this done today (or yesterday) but i ran into a snag based on my own idiocy (and not taking my time).

I cleaned the jewel to a nice clear shine, and all was well. There was a faint scratchity look, but not bad at all, very faint (i went up to 2000 grit sandpaper, then used some rubbing compound thats supposedly 10,000 grit) very smooth.

Then i taped off the jewel with the professional masking tape (i love this stuff) i even got around the edges so it'd look like the original jewel, with the paint only on the bottom.

and ended up forgetting to tape off a section for the design i wanted.. doh!
ended up looking like this - which was totally unsatisfactory in my opinion

so i decided meh, lets remove the gold
and stupidly, i tried using nail polish remover. it was non-acetone.. but ended up really screwing up the jewel. So I decided to give up on this one, and visited nintendo's good ole' online store and picked up 2 new jewels for the price of $6.24 shipped.

When they get here, i'll keep one in storage for swapability (can always return to stock if need be) and one to mod up with the logo.. not sure how this will turn out, but i'm hoping for the best.

Expect a new update when I finish this bugger

 

[awdark]

I learnt that rubbing alcolhol works good on cleaning permanet marker.. doesnt get rid of all of it (least I dont think so) but it works well..

I like to use nail polish remover only in extreme cases.. that stuff tends to be dangerous hehe.

 

[Pherret]

I don't own a gamecube, so I don't know if the lid does anything to aid holding the CD, but..

Maybe try cutting out the jewel area and cover it with the grill so you can see the spinning cd through it. Maybe some leds to light it up in there.

 

[CrimandEvil]

Sweet, Link Green!
I've tried the pen trick but no joy so I think I'll get a gamebit and pickout a color (maybe metallic blood red or maybe a theme too?) Awesome job man! I sort of like the window idea that Pherret suggested myself.

 

[DRxAndy]

I don't own a gamecube, so I don't know if the lid does anything to aid holding the CD, but..

Maybe try cutting out the jewel area and cover it with the grill so you can see the spinning cd through it. Maybe some leds to light it up in there.

yeah that was what i originally planned, but i scrapped it in lieu of another plan (i didnt want to cut up the lid of something that i had painted so nicely haha

i got replacement jewels in the mail the other day, now to get to work

 

[CrimandEvil]

i got replacement jewels in the mail the other day, now to get to work

Pics?

 

[ness1469]

Sweet ass job Andy.

I think it would be cool, when you get the new jewel, to trace the fangrill over top of it and paint in the triforce gold, the pheonix red, and leave the rest black.