Potential hardware mods ?

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Zi0v4_

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Hey,
a few weeks ago, I started replaying my CFW Old 3ds XL and by being aware of the current hw mods, some ideas came to my mind and I was wondering if some of you may answer my questions :
Can a USB-C/A mod to transfer files to sd card by cable be possible ?
Same for a USB A OTG (to connect wired controller, headphone, USB Key, etc..) ?

If you have some more ideas for potential HW mods, write them below so maybe we can have answers and further researches..
 

kijetesantakalu042

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But I was wondering if connecting a USB C breakout to the sd card slots test points or anything like that could allow file transfer
USB and SD card are completely incompatible, you'd need some form of micro controller (or most likely FPGA) to allow them to communicate. I also don't even think there are test points on the 3DS's motherboard.
 
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Zi0v4_

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USB and SD card are completely incompatible, you'd need some form of micro controller (or most likely FPGA) to allow them to communicate. I also don't even think there are test points on the 3DS's motherboard.
Still is it possible ? For sure it's not gonna be light work, but my initial question was if the 2 mods I thought about were possible in a way or another
 

kijetesantakalu042

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Still is it possible ? For sure it's not gonna be light work, but my initial question was if the 2 mods I thought about were possible in a way or another
This issue also is race problems where a game wants to write or read something but the hardware won't allow it because it's writing data into the SD cards.

if you wanted to make it, you probably could, but don't expect someone to do it for you

"Everything is theoretically impossible until it is done." -Robert A. Heinlein
Said it perfectly
 

The Real Jdbye

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USB and SD card are completely incompatible, you'd need some form of micro controller (or most likely FPGA) to allow them to communicate. I also don't even think there are test points on the 3DS's motherboard.
But I was wondering if connecting a USB C breakout to the sd card slots test points or anything like that could allow file transfer
Wire a USB MicroSD reader internally, it should be quite doable (of course never plug the USB in while the 3DS is turned on or you may have corruption)
Hey,
a few weeks ago, I started replaying my CFW Old 3ds XL and by being aware of the current hw mods, some ideas came to my mind and I was wondering if some of you may answer my questions :
Can a USB-C/A mod to transfer files to sd card by cable be possible ?
Same for a USB A OTG (to connect wired controller, headphone, USB Key, etc..) ?

If you have some more ideas for potential HW mods, write them below so maybe we can have answers and further researches..
USB OTG is a lot harder to do. Headphones are easy enough, you can wire an adapter internally. Controller support would need to have wires running to each button pad and you could probably use a Pi Pico or similar to accomplish the translation between USB host -> button inputs. But to support both through the same port, you wouldn't be able to use a simple audio adapter. Perhaps the Pi Pico is powerful enough to also act as a DAC for USB -> analog audio so it can accomplish both things. In any case it would not be a simple mod.
USB drives are probably not feasible, there's just no mechanism for connecting secondary storage to the 3DS, or mounting it in the software. And homebrew wouldn't know how to access it anyway. IIRC an adapter exists that allows you to plug a USB drive into a SD slot, but it's unstable with very slow data transfer rates and essentially useless, and even with an adapter like that, you wouldn't be able to use a SD card anymore. So the only way that it could work is by having a microcontroller handle both the USB drive, and the microSD, and merge the file systems, pretending to be a SD card to the 3DS so what the 3DS sees is the combination of both of their files. It's possible in theory but writing the code and making it all work reliably (and with decent speed) is a problem. This might be best done with a FPGA, I'm not sure if a Pi Pico could handle it. The PIO on the Pi Pico is powerful, but it only has 12 pins and you're already asking it to do a lot of things. I think asking it to do even more might exceed the capabilities. Any other microcontroller (that doesn't have an equivalent to PIO) would have no chance, they're only capable of connecting SD cards in the much slower SPI mode which is too slow for any significant data transfer.
 

TheStonedModder

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Wire a USB MicroSD reader internally, it should be quite doable (of course never plug the USB in while the 3DS is turned on or you may have corruption)

USB OTG is a lot harder to do. Headphones are easy enough, you can wire an adapter internally. Controller support would need to have wires running to each button pad and you could probably use a Pi Pico or similar to accomplish the translation between USB host -> button inputs. But to support both through the same port, you wouldn't be able to use a simple audio adapter. Perhaps the Pi Pico is powerful enough to also act as a DAC for USB -> analog audio so it can accomplish both things. In any case it would not be a simple mod.
USB drives are probably not feasible, there's just no mechanism for connecting secondary storage to the 3DS, or mounting it in the software. And homebrew wouldn't know how to access it anyway. IIRC an adapter exists that allows you to plug a USB drive into a SD slot, but it's unstable with very slow data transfer rates and essentially useless, and even with an adapter like that, you wouldn't be able to use a SD card anymore. So the only way that it could work is by having a microcontroller handle both the USB drive, and the microSD, and merge the file systems, pretending to be a SD card to the 3DS so what the 3DS sees is the combination of both of their files. It's possible in theory but writing the code and making it all work reliably (and with decent speed) is a problem. This might be best done with a FPGA, I'm not sure if a Pi Pico could handle it. The PIO on the Pi Pico is powerful, but it only has 12 pins and you're already asking it to do a lot of things. I think asking it to do even more might exceed the capabilities. Any other microcontroller (that doesn't have an equivalent to PIO) would have no chance, they're only capable of connecting SD cards in the much slower SPI mode which is too slow for any significant data transfer.
Loopy has schematics online for a PCB that allows an external GameCube controller that attaches to those test points
 
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Hayato213

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Hey,
a few weeks ago, I started replaying my CFW Old 3ds XL and by being aware of the current hw mods, some ideas came to my mind and I was wondering if some of you may answer my questions :
Can a USB-C/A mod to transfer files to sd card by cable be possible ?
Same for a USB A OTG (to connect wired controller, headphone, USB Key, etc..) ?

If you have some more ideas for potential HW mods, write them below so maybe we can have answers and further researches..

USB port I only seen for charging, and capture card purpose, not SD card, I seen people done wired controller connected to the 3ds.
 

Zi0v4_

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in fact the mode is pure qol improvement for a small issue, but brings phone file transfer when either a laptop nor a SD reader are in your pocket. I plan on trying to code a microcontroller and maybe if it needs to, designing a pcb to connect every ends. Do you think a manual button switch could make the usb c reachable when the 3ds is on, the button would then switch from usb c wire, to 3ds wires
 

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