Wii U Defuse Guide (Work in Progress)

Started by tzirf, Nov 22, 2024, 04:47 PM

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tzirf

This is a work in progress guide. I want to demystify using Defuse as there appears to be much confusion out there and my aim is to have a guide to provide enough information that others who want to use Defuse will be able to do so even if they are not necessarily tech savvy.

What is Defuse?

In a nut shell Defuse or rather (de_fuse) and sometimes referred to as Pico Defuse is a Wii U modchip that allows advanced diagnosing and recovery of the Wii U system. You can find the github page for defuse here and the original more in depth write up of its original work/discovery of this method here

How to Setup Defuse on a Wii U Console Video Guide

For those who prefer a written guide, you can find it below. The written guide is not complete yet.

What you will need to have to use Defuse? 

Components:
-Raspberry Pi Pico
- 1GB or 2GB SD Card (Cannot use SDHC card), must be an original SD. Size cannot be larger than 2GB. Smaller sizes may work. For those who don't want to rely on getting lucky, purchase a 1GB or 2GB SD Card that was officially licensed by Nintendo for the Wii Console. If you plan on rebuilding the MLC or dumping the SLC you will need a 2GB Card. A picture of one is below for example.
IMG_9122.JPG

-Wii U Console (A given, but I thought I would mention it)
-Computer (Windows, Mac or Linux) Although this guide uses Windows since I assume most people will have access to a windows computer. 

Tools: 
Soldering Iron (To Solder wires to Wii U/Raspberry Pi Pico)
Screw driver (Phillips head (#00 size)/Triwing (Y0 Size)
Scissors (to cut wire)
Microscope/Magnifying glass (optional)

Supplies:
Flux
Solder
Kapton Tape(To insulate wires/Raspberry Pi Pico to prevent shorts) 
Isopropyl Alcohol 90% or higher
Q-Tip/Cotton Swab for cleaning up flux


Step 1: Installing Defuse firmware on Raspberry Pi Pico... 

Before soldering anything, I recommend you flash the pico defuse firmware to the Raspberry Pi Pico. This can be done by copying the file to the USB Mass Storage Device that appears when you plug the Pico into your computer. If you do not see a storage device, unplug the Pico from your computer, hold the white button on it and plug it in again. You can download the firmware from the github page. It is the file named "pico_defuse.uf2" in the zip that you download.

unzip the zip file using 7zip on Windows/Linux or The unarchiver on a Mac.

Inside the zip file you should find the following files/folders:
Foldertree.JPG

As stated above plug your Raspberry Pi Pico into your computer, when the USB Mass Storage shows up open it and drag and drop the "pico_defuse.uf2" file to it. The Raspberry Pi Pico should then automatically disconnect from the computer, indicating that the firmware has been flashed successfully. 


Step 2: Soldering to connect Raspberry Pi Pico to the Wii U board... 

First off Defuse requires advanced soldering, where wires must be soldered to 14 specific points on the Wii U console and then those wires must be connected to the correct pins on the Raspberry Pi Pico. The diagram that showcases the correct pinout is below:

Picopinout.JPG

Additionally here is a wiring diagram. This can be found on the github page and credit for it goes to JadeStrike.

wiring.png

Below is a video I made showing where to solder on the Wii U Board for those who prefer to see it done rather than read a tutorial. My original post for this can be found here should anyone need to reference it.

As a reminder: It should be noted that TP122 on the Wii U can be ignored if you are powering the Raspberry Pi Pico from a computer and plan on using a serial console aka Putty on Windows for example. If you are not sure about this my recommendation is to skip solder point TP122 and plug the Pico into a computer.

A couple things to note:
-If your Wii U consoles doesn't output a display you should use a serial console on the computer so that you can view and control the menu. This is extremely handy instead of blindly trying to diagnose/repair the Wii U. So if you are in this boat you can skip Solder Point TP122 as you will be plugging the Raspberry Pi Pico into a computer and it will get its power from there.

-If your Wii U console does output to a display, then you can power the Raspberry Pi Pico using the Wii U console by soldering the wire to TP122. This means you will probably just be using a TV and the power/eject button to navigate menus. The advantage to this method is you do not need a computer or usb cable to power the Raspberry Pi Pico
.   

Following the diagram above and make sure to double check that all wires are soldered to the correct pins on the Raspberry Pi Pico. You can choose to either solder short wires or longer wires depending on where you want to store the Raspberry Pi Pico. I chose to do longer wires so I could wrap it around to be able to easily plug it into a computer to use the serial console.

My console looks like this:

Note: You can view a much higher resolution image by right clicking the image below and selecting "Open in new tab" from your browser

IMG_8877.JPG


Step 3: Setting up Memory Card (to be inserted into the front of the Wii U) 

After downloading the zip file from the github page and extracting it you should see the following files:

Foldertree.JPG

The first thing you will need to do is flash boot1.img to your 1GB or 2GB SD Card. As a reminder it must be a standard SD Card SDHC or SDHX will not work. Since the boot1.img has a MBR header you may need to format as FAT32 after flashing. I recommend using balenaEtcher to do this. Also I recommend checking out my video on this section to help clarify any confusion. The link to that specific part of my video is here

After flashing boot1.img you will need to use Disk management in Windows to format the SD Card as a FAT system. This will allow the SD Card to show up in Windows so that we can move to the next step of transferring the necessary files that are required for Defuse to work. 

Again grab the files from the zip you downloaded earlier and transfer the following files/folders to the SD Card:
fw.img
wiiu (Folder)
  -ios_plugins
  -wafel_core.ipx
  -wafel_debug_exts.ipx

Note: that the 3 files under the wiiu folder should be inside the wiiu folder on the SD Card.

At this point the memory card should be setup correctly and if you have followed all the other steps in this guide Defuse should be ready to use on the Wii Console.


Step 4: Starting Defuse

If you have followed this guide, you will need too plug the Raspberry Pi Pico into a USB Cable and then plug that into  your computer so that it powers on. Then take the SD Card we created and insert it into the front of the Wii U console. After that power on the Wii U console.

If everything is working properly the power LED on the Wii U console will flash and turn purple. A few seconds later you should see the minute menu appear on the serial console or TV depending on how you have the Wii U hooked up.