GameCube 1Player Adapter #63

alastairbdoggett · 2021-08-19T01:58:53Z

alastairbdoggett
Aug 19, 2021

Finished my first BlueRetro build! Proof that even a complete wiring/electronics novice can build the project :)

In case anyone else is in the position of being a little intimidated by the hardware, I thought I would document the process briefly here:

Equipment:

HiLetgo ESP-WROOM-32 ESP32 ESP-32S Development Board
Male to Female Dupont Wires
Ssgamer 6ft Wii/GameCube extension cables
GKEEMARS SPL-1 (inline connectors)
Digital Multimeter

Steps:

Even though i'm not a Windows user, the process of flashing the firmware seemed much more straight forward from a Windows box so I went down that route. In addition to the instructions provided in the wiki, I manually installed the CP210x driver. I only had a single COM port to choose from but in Device Manager > Ports (COM & LPT) I saw something like CP210x USB to UART Bridge (COM3) which I made sure matched with what was available in the ESP32 DOWNLOAD TOOL. Since I was only interested in GC gaming, I used this guy BlueRetro_gc_spiffs.bin instead of BlueRetro.bin.
To be extra safe, I checked that I could pair the flashed esp32 board, I used the Web Bluetooth as per the instructions. Everything appeared to be ok 🤞
I then performed continuity tests with the multimeter to figure out which wire was connected to which component in the connector port (I asked a question about interpreting orientation in case it's not clear). I used the inline connector to connect the exposed wires from the controller cable to the Dupont wires (in my case, the controller cables were very thin so it was a little fiddly 😬). To check the connections were good, I performed the continuity checks once more, this time with one terminal being the Dupont wire.
Most of the work was done at this point. I then followed this advice to make sure (again) that everything was as it should be (I was a little worried about possibly bricking the console and am a complete beginner to this sort of stuff, hence the extra sanity checks!)
Finally, I booted up the console and using a PS4 controller paired without a hitch the first time. To make sure, I power cycled the console and the same controller paired again without a hitch.

Really enjoyed this project and massive thanks to @darthcloud for this awesome work and to @vaderag who assisted me with some tips and tricks that they had learned ☺️