PS1P Micro!!!! (maybe a record breaker)?

[blaze3927]

Well its not really micro, but If i get it done right it should be smaller than anyone else's (please correct me if i'm wrong)
heres the expected size

130mm long
85mm wide
30mm high (more likely 20mm)

*(If everything goes according to plan sizes will be roughly %10 smaller)

compared to the psone which mobo size which is roughly

175mm long
130mm wide

the screen is gonna be a 2.5" eye squinter, probably a pustom el-cheapo one,

the portable will not include analog sticks unless Im/someone's able to get a psp analog stick working on a psone controller (I want this thing to be As small as possible within reason)).


unfortunatley I"m only planning on this thing to have a 45min play time due to battery sizes, and It wont be able to have anything fancy like charge protection circuit, so I'm gonna go with a small NI-CD battery, and If I can get those flexible slim solar panels, I can double the panels as a charger and as the case decor thingo .

the portable will have the cd spinning freely like ben's first PSP.

The cool thing is about the design is that I will only have to solder between 20 - 30 wires in the process of making the mobo smaller/relocating a chunk of it. And it's relatively easy so if I can get it to work I'll post a tut.
( I could make the mobo 90mm long by 70mm wide by 20mm high but it would be roughly 80 more wires with harder to trace traces)

The case will be shaped more or less like the gameboy colour

I will begin to get hands on tomorrow when I get my 30 awg wire from jaycar.

Feel free to ask any questions

BTW
does anyone know If mini cd-rs work on the ps1? I've got heaps of them (roughly 50 blank ones) and I'm wondering if anyone's successfully managed to run a compressed/ripped iso on the psone (using mini-cd's)

[Mario]

Compressed? I seriously doubt it. But if the game ISO can fit on it, it should work. Problem is, most good games far exceed the 300mb limit of those CDs.

[XCVG]

Good luck, and that'll be sweet! Try the PSP sticks, because no analog is a bummer, even on a PS1.

[bacteria]

I don't normally make such comments, but you won't succeed in this. Anyway, if your system is 85mm wide it doesn't matter as a CD is 120mm across, you also can't say 30mm thick with external spinning disk as that has to be factored into the dimensions and the CD mechanism takes about 20mm in itself. If you know how to make a wafer thin CD drive or mini-CD drive work on a PSone please share, but from what I read, we can't. You also won't be able to hold the portable, due to spinning disk in small case unless the disk was spinning a lot out of the case, your fingers underneath (bad idea); Ben's system was big (and flat) so was manageable with a free-spinning disk. I enclosed mine as otherwise your fingers get in the way of the disk too much. Ni-CD batteries a bad idea for various reasons too. I think the PSone board might be multi-layered (not sure though) so that would be a problem in reducing it (ie forget it). So, your system will end up more like 60-70mm thick, including the CD, which you have to include; which is certainly not 30mm.

Sorry to rain on the parade, please have a go and prove me wrong (I hope I am), but I rather think it is doomed to fail.

[blaze3927]

yay constructive critisism!


with the case being the size that it is:

130mm long
85mm wide
30mm high

I knew that the size of cd's woud have to be taken into the equation so thats why the cd drive will be on the top of the back still inside the case, (I. e the Cd's will only go down max 80mm) If I find that to awkward then I'll have to break the budget on the high level and I'll have a go at angling the cd drive so My hands can fit comfortably* underneath .

*comfort isn't really my goal for this project, It's more about getting a working ps1p as small as possible

and with the cd drive being 20mm high (not including spindle and cd) theres plenty of room in a 30mm case, I always thought the cd drive wa sonly 12mm (dont know where i got that from ) so 30mm will have to be the minimum for height.

As for chopping up the mobo well... I'm not actually using a Psone, im using a super un-massive ps1 scph 9002, which im 90% sure only has 2 layers (top bottom), and the relocation process is dead easy, the point I've chosen to make the cut is right down the middle of a chip (im not cutting the chip just relocating), which forunatey has the largest solder pints on the whole board . I accidentaly desoldered the wrong side of it today and after counting the ones on the bottom, It'll be more like 80 wires to be reconnected.

so...long night ahead,

notice to anyone: Although my plans may be far reaching, I have no high hopes on the success of this project, so please feel free to point out any technical problems/hurdles, that will prevent me building it to the specs i mentioned,

[XCVG]

Cutting a board in half is not a good idea. First- you may inturrupt timing- or capacitance-sensitive traces, which screws stuff up. Secondly, it makes it thick as hell if you fold it. A better idea is to trim and relocate (if necessary) things near the outside. Firstly it's thinner, and secondly the stuff near the edges is generally less important and less timing-sensitive.

[blaze3927]

hmmm, thnks for the info, I"ve nearly finished the wiring, I'll see how it works when I'm done.
To trim and relocate around the edges of the ps1 board is gay tough, cos theres heaps of the "easy to lose track of" smt components, plus where I"m cutting the majority of the wires look like there going to the serial port which generally is completely useless.

[Basement_Modder]

This may just work out. After all, some PS1 boards are the same size as PSone boards...

[misjah]

There`s a bunch of ripped games that are only about 30-40 MB (audio songs removed), you can find them at snesorama forum.... you can even make imbnes emulator and play a lot of nes games..... so it`s not a bad idea to use mini cds.... good luck with your project and provide us with some pictures on the way....

[Mario]

yay constructive critisism!

BTW I absolutely love this line!

[XCVG]

yay constructive critisism!

BTW I absolutely love this line!

Sigworthy!

[blaze3927]

UPDATE:

fried 1st ps1 board (1 down six to go), I was doing It wire by wire testing as I go, when testing the 7th wire I accidently rested the mobo on the psu, zapped me fingers a bit aswell, However It's not a total loss, as now I know that the relocation process will work and I've figured that I can skip roughly 20 wires as there going to the serial port which I won't ever use. I'll post pics later tonight when I've started the chopping again.

[palmertech]

Just so you know, there is another solution to the disc problem. Mini CDs can actually fit most of the PSX library, but for ones a little bit bigger, you can trim CDs. I have done that with the old VideoNOW player hacks, and grinding away the edges of a CD works fine. Just make sure to only burn games in a laptop drive.

Been thinking about that myself, maybe make a "disc shield" that can be fitted when needed.

Good luck! You will need all of yours!

[samjc3]

yay constructive critisism!

BTW I absolutely love this line!

Sigworthy!

when you say that, you are supposed to go to the control panel and put it in your sig!!

[blaze3927]

Just so you know, there is another solution to the disc problem. Mini CDs can actually fit most of the PSX library, but for ones a little bit bigger, you can trim CDs. I have done that with the old VideoNOW player hacks, and grinding away the edges of a CD works fine. Just make sure to only burn games in a laptop drive.

Been thinking about that myself, maybe make a "disc shield" that can be fitted when needed.

Good luck! You will need all of yours!

Trimming CD's I've heard of that and i've got a laptop cd burner ,so I'm set, but is the amount you trim dependent on how much you burn (probably is). Also how can you tell how how far you can trim off the cd? is there a visible difference on the cd where its been burnt data to/ free?