Converting an old Wii into an M1 Mac mini was the BEST IDEA

It's no secret that the Mac mini design is a little bit stale. While everyone loves its price point, size, and performance, we aren't exactly excited by the little aluminum square anymore. Today that changes. The other day I was looking at an old Wii and I thought HMM, that looks like about the same size to me. What if I put a Mac mini in there? An Apple Silicon Wii?!? heck yeah! Today we'll build a DIY Mac mini Wii conversion perfect for retro gaming on a Mac. Wii games, Nintendo Gamecube, even PS2 emulation through Dolphin and Aethersx2 in the package of a Wii? Heck yeah!

So many things used in this video:

time stamps
0:00 Intro
1:45 The concept
2:43 Tearing down the Wii
3:18 Tearing down the Mac mini
4:25 Wii case modifications
4:58 Custom power supply
7:15 Cooling solution
8:20 3D Printing components and assembling
10:13 WiFi/Bluetooth solution
12:23 The Final Product!
15:18 Playing 4K Wii games!

Gear:
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[lukemiani]

Legit my favorite thing I've ever done on the channel. Would you build a Mac mini Wii conversion?

[RatchetLive]

Recommended improvements: Wire up the front power button, add a second fan for exhaust and connect the blue lighting from the original wii drive for aesthetics.

[snazzy]

A fun build to be sure!! Absurd, ridiculous, certainly foolish. But fun! Great work!

[ralvolvi]

This is probably one of my most favrotie videos on this channel now. The amount of work that was put into this thing and the fact that ti came out looking absolutely fantastic, really fills my heart. I loved how it didn't look like one of those frankenstien PC's that have random cuts in the casing everywhere that make it look absolutely horrible.

[Monado.]

This is a fantastic project, and I absolutely love it.
One little thing though about the 4K, 16:9 Aspect Ratio. The Wii actually natively ran 16:9! You just needed to swap between 4:3 to 16:9 in the settings menu. But every 1st party game had both modes available for each of the games with no flaws! :)

[djditty]

I can’t tell you how many times I chuckled while watching you have a ton of fun building this project! These are the kinds of videos and projects I love seeing you do Luke! Keep up the great work! 🎉👍🏼

[TheEvilCommenter]

Okay, but now put the WII in the Mac Mini

[ezequielbraunstein]

It would be great if you could link the Wii’s Power Button to the Mac Mini’s Power Button! Excellent video Luke

[LukePollack]

The Windmaker 😂 16:15 but in all seriousness this was awesome to watch man. Love this type of content you produce!

[StopMotionMakr]

I can't believed you passed off the opportunity to call it the Mac Winnii 😂

[DiGi_FPV]

11:20 the connector is called UFL. It’s used for basically all wireless devices 🙂👍🏻

[Kapsb]

Great job! The Wii is one of the most beautifully designed pieces of hardware ever. It looks so nice sitting on a desk!

[agrpductions]

I would've used the Wii's original power button and also would've connected the Wii's disk LED but this is great!

[Tomd]

You should try putting the Wii’s electronics into the Mac mini case! 😂

[tiernankeane]

Dude these modding projects are so much fun to watch, hoping you’ve got more on the way! 🎉

[zaccariafrancescato]

Pretty crazy project. One suggestion: to increase thermal performance, you can 3d print a channel that goes into the M1 heatsink, like the stock fan did. It may be not very aerodynamic, but the Wii has 2 (stock) fan holes.

[JUKEr]

Dude, this is bad ass!
I told my wife I was going to disassemble her beloved Wii console and install a Mac Mini. Now I’m in the dog house. 😢
Btw… haako is a great soldering station. 👍🏽

[mattelder]

We use an older model Mac mini as an emulation computer running Batocera. I might have to look at doing something similar. Our mini is one of the models with a DVD drive in it, so I might even see if I can go a step further and incorporate that into the housing as well.

[iCaveDave]

This made me even more excited for my M1 powered Macintosh Classic II! In progress!

[SM]

When you said the mac need more than 53w I knew your buck converter was the issue. Perhaps skip the buck all togheter. I run my m1 mini on V-mount power, 11-16.8v and the internal regulators have no issue (so far) with it. Been using it daily for 6 months. To clearify, I run my battery unregulated into the M1 PCB. I use my M1 mini for live streaming IRL content and with obs running the unit pulls 7.5w of power of AC running via a 12v3ah power adapter. When using battery my 100Wh v-mount lasts a day easy. I have so far not run into any throtteling because of power. I built mine in Snazzy labs 3d printed case and I did almost instantly run in to thermal issues though. I salved that by adding the stock fan externally blowing into the case. Works and has never given me any issues. Thanks!