I have recently discovered the existence of mini PCs and I found an old shell of a Gamecube in my garage, so I figured why not put two and two together.

This project will be fairly simple. Outfitting a mini PC with the shell of a Gamecube. I am thinking of making the 4 controller ports usb ports, the display port hole in the back HDMI (what the mini PC does natively) another hole in the back (not sure what it was but a working gamecube I have doesn't have it.. huh) for speakers and a microphone. Im still not sure what to put in the holes for the memory card slots. Maybe y'all have some ideas? The mini PC I am buying only has one USB port, so there will be some usb hubs going on in here. The whole thing will run off of the original Gamecube power supply, however I run it straight through a voltage regulator (hopefully to protect against surges,) then an arduino nano to get 5V out.

Any initial comments are welcome, I'll try to post pictures when parts come. I am likely ordering them tonight or tomorrow so if you see something that absolutely has no chance of working, please holler before then. I think this will be a fun little project and I'll get a portable little computer out of it so that's good. Looking forward to the actual construction and again, any comments or questions are welcome!

Sounds nice! I wish you luck with what you are doing. What specs does the mini pc have?

Windows 10
2GB RAM
32GB memory, but space for a micro SD card
one USB port
WiFi
4 Atom Z3735F processors at 1.33GHz.

Nice! What do you plan to do with it? Play games, or other stuff?

Well, maybe, right now the plan is just to have a portable computer that runs Windows as the only laptop I have is big, slow, clunky, and has a disk drive as opposed to solid state, so not car-ride friendly. I'll probably use it for some games, but maybe school work on car rides coupled with a mobile hotspot or something. Idk, time will tell

I've been doing some harder research cause maybe there's something I didn't find earlier when I started this project and sure enough!
I found this site explaining something that is similar to what I am making which also gives you a link to pictures of it on Flickr. This one is actually a computer motherboard and a real hard drive where mine will not be as explained above. This site does boost my confidence though. I ordered parts last night and thanks to the existence of Amazon Prime, they should be here tomorrow or Thursday. I'll be sure to update you guys when they come!

Older Gamecubes had an extra video port.

Ah! thanks for clearing that up. I got really confused and it's been bothering me
Got an order confirmation from Amazon... it's a little weird. It said 7 items have shipped and arrival date is Thursday... but I ordered more than 7 and they were all from Prime... confused?

Perhaps only 7 items shipped, and the rest are on hold. :shrugs:

Idk, I made sure they were all in stock when I ordered them. Maybe I'll get another one today?

Can you explain that a little bit more? I'm confused what the Arduino Nano is doing in there.

Im using the Arduino as a way to bring the regulated 12V down to 5 as I don't have a step-down voltage regulator, only a step-up.

That's a pretty expensive way to regulate 12V to 5V! You can get incredibly cheap switching regulators, for example this one from a cheap Chinese source that will provide up to 2A (how much current does the Arduino's regulator provide?).

I am worried about current with the arduino, but I'm not super worried about price (this Chinese arduino clone was like 2 dollars.) I definitely will find another solution as the arduino was never meant to be a permanent solution, and it's my last out of the 5 pack so no more mini projects till I do. I'll have to see if the current is actually enough to run the mini PC but until then I guess I'll look around for permanent solutions like the one you provided.

EDIT:: I have solved the mystery of the amazon prime confirmation email. Before I ordered the parts it told me the guaranteed delivery date was Thursday. The email they sent told me that 7 items have shipped... but i ordered more than 7 items. So, clicking over to see the status of the order, some parts had shipped and others hadn't. However, the delivery date for all parts is still Thursday (tomorrow) so everything is ok, it's just that the parts are coming in 2 boxes I guess

Aha, glad that that all got straightened out! Did you check that the Thursday delivery date is plausible given where the packages are now? Do definitely check the current requirements of the components.

That's a good point, but I'm not too worried. If they don't come tomorrow there's still Friday, so this will probably be done by the weekend if not sooner.

I assembled all the parts last night, and it actually powered on! here are some pics, I'll have to get a video of it actually working tonight.




Other than those places it looks like a regular gamecube. Please ask me any questions you might have, I'll try to get more pictures and a video when I get home today.

Looks really cool! Keep it up, Botboy3000!

very cool! It reminds me of a Raspberry Pi PS1 project I did a while ago. looks awesome keep up the good work!

A computer with a lunchpail design. Sounds like something I'd love.