PSone screens

[Cyberblade]

I know that a white LED modded PSOne screen will use far less power, but I'm afraid of ruining the only PSOne screen I have. Is it possible to build the portables in the book without modding the LCD? I can live with a slightly shorter battery life, but I'm not made of cash.

[HK-47]

Yep, just skip the mod.

[Dave]

I can live with a slightly shorter battery life, but I'm not made of cash.

It'll be more of a heavy than a slight difference seeing as the regular bulbs sucks a lot of juice

[Cyberblade]

How much will it really effect battery life? I've been using a 2000 Mah battery from radio shack to power my mishmashed half completed portable for about an hour and 15 minutes. Which for homemade isn't bad imo. I have 2100 mah AA's from radioshack so they should run for about the same amount of time on the SNES portable in the book if I don't modify the LCD, and I can always switch out other AA's on the go. The main reason I don't want to mod the LCD is risk. My soldering skills are still fairly bad, and I'm fairly clutzy. A bad combination around a bare LCD glass.

[jgibson]

I emailed Ben and asked him that same question and he said

Ben Heckendorn
Modify it! That screen uses almost 1 amp normally, and goes down to about 350 mA with the mod. So it's a BIG savings. Your portable might not even fire up without it.

So, if you don't mod it, the battery life will be signifigantly shorter.

[Cyberblade]

I would modify it, if I wasn't so darn afraid of breaking the thing. Tis the only one I got, and I don't have another 70$ to buy another one. =\ I know it'll fire up without the mod as my rechargable AA's are 2100 Mah, and I can by others with even higher amperage. How difficult is this mod really? On a scale of 1 to 10 for someone with very little experience.

[egomine]

Well I am about as green as you can get (read I had no experience doing anything before I bough Ben's book), and the soldering is not as hard at it would seem. Modding the screen to use LCD lights was scary but that part was pretty easy and took me less than 20 mins. Getting the solder to stick to the board has still posed quite a problem for me though. My PSOne screen looks like it's been coated in some kind of clear stuff that keeps the solder from melting. So far I have had little success in getting anything to stick. One note though, there is a part you have to remove off of the top of the screen. Since I couldn't get the solder to melt I simply cut the metal leads. This exposed an end without the coating which allowed me to heat up the metal lead and melt the solder very easily.

As someone new to soldering (as myself) I highly recommend making any of the custom board (There are 2 for the handbuild NES) first. These pieces are a lot cheaper, easier to work with as they are all larger. I developed quite a good "feel" for what worked best for me.

I cannot stress enough how much the "helping hands" piece that Ben recommended (see tools chapter) has helped. Especially for someone who has little experience. It is much easier to hold the board and wire into place than to manage holding the wire, solder, and then the soldering iron in place at the same time.