Bacteria's project - PSone portable: IntoPlay finished: PICS

ShockSlayer · Post by **ShockSlayer** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:31 am

I think my work area is much better than bacteria's, even if his is a bigger room!

Someone go revive that thread that said show us your workstation again, I need an excuse to take pictures.

Oh, bacteria, how did you get the words "memory card" onto your case like that!

That is sweet! Once again, awesome!

SS

khaag · Post by **khaag** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 1:13 am

He used inkjet waterslide decals. You know, the kind they use on model airplanes/cars/etc. It's all thanks to my creative genius.

When I get home from Australia, I'm gonna put all my aforementioned creative genius to use to actually fully finish a portable. To date, I've just partially finished them and then sold them as unfinished.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 5:58 am

Thanks SS for the praise!

Yes khaag, however the initial link I was given was to was the stickers I used initially, which were not good (and not suitable for wording); then the white backed waterslide sheets, which are fine but white backed only so not ideal for wording; so I found the clear waterslide decals and also white ones that can be transparent by applying clear varnish. You put me onto the right track, although it took a few purchases to get the right materials.

stephen0205 · Post by **stephen0205** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:12 pm

looking amazing so far, looking forward to seeing it finished, will be a great accompilishment, wow i shouldnt use big words

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:13 pm

Made some progress today, wiring up the console board to the system. I made life harder for myself by using 6 cells instead of 4; everything is really tight. In hindsight, I could have made my case base 2mm taller and that would have helped a great deal too and will recommend those who replicate what I am doing does this, however I will work with what I have and make it work! Updates tomorrow.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 5:30 am

Largish update:

When I mentioned about if the system had two sets of batteries instead of three to make the wiring easier, I meant the one on the second down on the left side and the orange on on the right side. This would allow for better wire bunching and less wire cramming, not having to be concerned with one of the capacitors laying on top of the right orange battery making it necessary to move the wiring around it, and also on the right battery, making it harder to get the extension plug (more on that in this post) in place. In saying that, although it would have been a bit easier with two sets instead of three sets, having 50% more playtime on a battery charge is a nice prospect, so worth the extra hassle if you can manage the tight spaces.

It would have been better to also have angled the right orange cell closer to the memory card compartment; but as it has a little hot glue keeping it in place, too late to bother with.

Moved the 3amp wire about as otherwise the board won't lay right against the cells.

Dremeled down the power plug for the CD drive and the data lines plug for the CD drive as they were pressing against the memory card holder, anyway, no space to have a port attached. Needs to be wired directly.

Two methods to do this wiring:

Method 1:

I tried this out, had two rogue connections on the CD drive cable, one I managed to resolve but the second one was being a pain. I ended up removing the CD mechanism, painting the top of another one and installing that into the system again, and therefore using method 2 (below). Up to you which one you try, Method 1 is fiddly, however with method you you will need to destroy a second PSone console mobo for the plug; or, if you are nimble enough, removing the plug from your board and not needing a second board.

Method 2:

This is the plug we need to relocate.

Decided to just destroy another board. Extravagant but I was a bit frustrated at this point having spent a while trying method 1 out and failing.

Pry off:

Made the extension cable:

Wired up the memory card. Used the wiring again from the PSOne console cable, convenient.

Also wired the positive wire from the battery packs to the switch; and also wired the L2 and R2 shoulder buttons.

This is what I meant about the benefit of not having the right orange battery - managed to squeeze it in though, barely.

Rewired the CD drive power (the 4 wires) directly to the board, and also pushed the wires from the memory card through the console board. I have a small space between the battery and the edge of the case so I can push the wires back through. Again, if this battery wasn't here, wouldn't have that issue!

Wired up headphone jack.

Important to cover any metal or contacts with electrical tape to prevent shorts.

I was going to wire up a spare PSone screen to the system to test, but thought it wasn't time efficient to do this, so rigged it up to the system case instead. This means I am playing Russian Roulette a bit, however if all works fine as it should, I will be close to completion.

Wired up most of it now, have the shoulder buttons, power, headphone jack and the controller to wire up yet. Apart from power, I will add these other items for final wiring until I know the system works fine.

Not going to try the system until tomorrow, gives me a chance to check things over before I test the system for any obvious errors. Time is short today anyway, need to go to work fairly soon.

This has been a massive project and involved a lot of modding work, some I have tested, some is untested. I am just hoping that the important things work fine and I just have tweaking to do and a bit of tidying up to do. What I don't want is a blank screen and smoke - worst case scenario!!

I have more confidence in my work than that, but let's face it, we all have that fear before first switch-on - you know if the months you spent working on a project is a blazing success or resounding failure!

Oh well, wish me luck for tomorrow! If all works fine, I will have the project completed before the end of the week. If I have problems, who knows...

Not had rumble motors yet from the USA delivered, so that is another thing I need to complete, also want to have a crack at Mario's low-battery LED mod too. These are the last parts of the work to undertake, neither will take more than minutes to do - I will test Mario's mod with AA batteries as I have many of them and they are at slightly different voltages, so by changing one or two cells I can test the LED at 6.9v - 7.5v to make sure it does what I want; ideally, I want the system to light the LED at 7.2v or 7.1v as the screen dies at 6.89v.

Oh, just as I was typing this post, postman arrived - got my rumble motors from the USA, as well as the 1 watt resistors; yesterday I got the transistors and the LED's. This means I have the extra components!!

The rumble motors aren't that powerful, but anyway, how can they be - they are only 21mm long end to end. They do rumble ok though and they also make a noise, so the combination of both factors should be adequate: anyway, no space in case for bigger ones.

deviouskoopa · Post by **deviouskoopa** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:13 pm

Nice work on the update...

What are those Zener diodes for?

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:23 pm

Going to try to put a low battery LED circuit in there; if it fits...

jjhammerstein · Post by **jjhammerstein** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:30 pm

bacteria wrote:Going to try to put a low battery LED circuit in there; if it fits...

You sure have a few spares of those.
Once you figure it all out, would you mind sticking one or two of those in the mail headed my way?

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:20 pm

I should be able to oblige...

jjhammerstein · Post by **jjhammerstein** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:09 pm

What a guy.

A question about low battery indicator LEDs:
Do the resistors and zener diodes vary depending only on voltage of batteries used, or are there other variables?

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:26 pm

I don't know the answer as my electronics knowledge is basic, to say the least.

I believe the zener diodes are the main things, so for example, if you want the LED to light at 7.2v then you hook up diodes to that value, eg (3.6v + 3.6v) or (3.3v + 3.9v). If you then need fine tuning you can adjust the resistor between the positive wire and the first diode. (is this right)?

Assuming the factor is the voltage and not the amperage, it should be possible to just rig up five AA alkalines; as new they are 1.5v each, so you get 7.5v; it would be easy to check anything between minimum useful at 6.89v up to 7.5v max just by changing one or two alkalines for ones with a little less charge. If I recharge a couple of the non-rechargeable alkalines up to 1.7v I could get to 8.3v with five cells, which is the maximum from my Li-ions. The draw is only up to 40mA so doesn't matter for this testing on the batteries themselves, or what their amperage is.

Mario or someone else should be able to confirm if my assumption is right or wrong; otherwise I will do the mod and return my results.

jjhammerstein · Post by **jjhammerstein** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:36 pm

I'm using 7.4V(8.3V) Li-polys too, and I'd be interested to see what works.

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 5:02 pm

Correct, Bacteria. You have everything okay. Sorry you got 1W resistors, I didn't know they didn't have to be that size.

Hopefully it fits!

Hammerstein - I wrote a tutorial for this. http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?t=27829

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:22 am

Thanks Mario for the reply - don't worry mate, probably not a bad idea to have 1 watt anyway, because you mentioned that 1/2 watt resistors "get a bit warm".

Onto the update you have all been waiting for - testing the system.

Crossing my fingers, after wiring up the power to the system, turned system on, got the audio and video (so my pinout for the audio and RGB works (horrah)) going from the PSone console board, so proved that worked too inspite of my modding to it, then two icons - saying no memory card and no CD drive. Rats. Not surprising no memory card present, not wired it up, nor the controller for that matter. The no CD drive was more of an issue as of course I rewired the CD data lines by an expansion cable with no idea if it would work. Turned out, first thing I did to check was the CD present button - remember I posted this pic before:

Should have been:

Basically, the CD drive wasn't getting ground.

Simple fix, turned system on, no message about memory card, no CD issues, CD mechanism made its usual noisy whirr and got to work - PS logo, audio, started game, into game screen intro.

IT WORKS

I now need to tidy up some of the wiring, try and cram things a bit smaller if I can, install the rumble motors (they might be small but I am seriously pressed for room), wire up the L2 and R2 and controller and memory card; then time to test this baby out properly to make sure left=left on the controls, etc. I will probably have to remove the perspex piece above the joysticks as it is likely that I need that 2mm saved, in which case the joystick will rest on the back of the PSone console mobo - I planned this before, hence one of the reasons the console board is upside down, giving a flat top.

I also want to try the low battery LED mod too.

Back to work

Bottom line is it works

and I can see the finish line now, although I have more work to do....