Jeffslot's Easiest Portable Ever for Newbies
Hello, I've been a member of the Benheck.com forums since June 2005. As of the writing of this web page that is only 4 months, that probably still qualifies me as a "Newbie".
Several times since I joined I've seen questions about what is the easies portable project to build for a beginner (I think I even asked it one time).
Well I think I've got the answer, in my opinion it's a PlayStation one Portable. As a coincidence, I think it will also have the best graphics of the bunch (Atari, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and PlayStation).
A good place to start is probably what with what tools and components are needed for this project (I'll also estimate the expense of each item if I know it).
Stuff that is needed.
A working PSone of course! When I say PSone I'm referring to the newer smaller unit (Please see picture below).
I got mine on ebay. They shouldn't cost too much, I got mine for $35 ($25 dollars for the buy-it-now, & $10 for shipping).
2. A Working Psone Screen. www.ebgames.com is an awesome place to get these. They usually get them in every so often. If they don't have them, do not panic just keep checking they should get them in within a couple of weeks. The reason this is such a great place is the price. When they have them, they are only $29.99 (You may be able to enter the coupon code PPLAY15 to get 5 dollars off).
3. A 7.2 Volt RC battery. The real important part is the 7.2V - as we do not want to fry our psone or psone screen. You're best bet would be to get a Ni-Mh battery as they last longer than Ni-Cd. I picked one up on Ebay for about $23 ($16 for the battery and another $7 for shipping).
4. Solder. You will need some solder. I got mine at Radio Shack. The solder I used is 64-005 E .032 dia. 2.5 oz
light-duty Rosin-Core solder. It should cost about $4.19.
5. Soldering Iron. I got mine at Radio Shack. The Soldering Iron I used is was a 15-watt with a pencil tip. It should cost about $8.39.
6. Helping Hands (Optional), if you can find a friend you may be able to get by without these. As you will see I needed them. I got mine at Radio Shack for about $13.
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7. RC 9.6V Battery Pack Connector Repair Kit. You can pick these up at Radio Shack for approximately $3.
8. Wire Strippers. I had these one already lying around the house.
9. Electrical Tape. I had this lying around my house.
10. Original Sony Power Cord. Mine came with my PSone auction, hopefull yours will too (Don't cut it yet - be patient).
Ok, now that we've got everything that we need we're ready to create our PSP. This is so simple, thanks to the Psone Screen attachment we really only need to do a power cord modification
1) Cut the power cord. I cut mine at approximately 10 inches from the little yellow connector tip (see picture above). The main thing here is that you want to make sure you leave enough cord in case you make a mistake.
2) Take your wire strippers and strip the recently cut end of the power cord (with the small yellow connector tip).
a) Now, once you get get this wire stripped it should look similar to the photo below:
There are actually 2 wires inside the power adapter cord. The outer wire (both of these wires are "Stranded"). If you've never stripped this type of wire before, the outer wire may look like some frayed silver wires. What you need to do is move all of the silver wire strands together & twist them between your fingers to make a good connection for the outer wire (Outer wire as in outer wire of the adapter cord.
b) Now that the outer wire is stripped & twisted, we are going to strip the "inner" wire. This can be accomplished in much the same way as the outer wire so grab your wire cutters and get stripping.
Once the inner wire is stripped twist it in a similar fashion as the outer wire. You will want to make sure that the wires are twisted tightly so as to avoid any issues later on. When both wires have been twisted, they should appear similar to the picture below:
c) Now it's time to plug in that soldering iron. I must warn you now getting burned by a soldering iron hurts. Please be careful, if you need have an adult supervise you with this part of the process. What I did (& it seemed to work for me was to put some solder 1st on the stipped ends of the Battery Pack Connector Repair Kit wires (If these are not stripped yet, you may need to strip these in a similar fashion to how we stripped the wires from the power adapter). I actually put quite a bit of solder on the end of these wires. I ended up putting enough solder on the ends of these wires that I was able to pretty much insert the power adapter wires into the blobs of solder once they were heated up again. Once these (The Battery Pack Connector Repair Kit wires have solder on them, they should appear similar to:
d) Ok, now its time to connect the power adapter wires to the Battery Pack Connector Repair Kit wires. Here is where I should mention that if your wires start to get any fraying, you will want to make sure that they are twisted pretty tightly before we begin. Ok, here is where I have to give some "props" to atkafighter on the benheck forums. I got the idea for this project by visiting his website. I also learned this modification technique from the following link on his site: http://www.oocities.org/atkafighter/battery.html. What you will want to do is to heat up your little solder blobs on the Battery Pack Connector Repair Kit wires and then insert the power adapter wires into them.
Important!! DO Not Mes This UP
Make sure you connect the inner wire to RED (+), and the outer wire to BLACK (-).
(Note: This picture looks like the soldering iron is touching my skin, It isn't or I would be screaming in pain!)
Once this is completed you connection should look similar to the picture below (we're almost done now):
e) The last real step is to wrap all of the exposed wire with electrical tape. Each wire should be wrapped independently, then you can wrap them together. If you can't figure this out, you've got bigger problems than I can solve, but here is a picture anyways.
Guess what? We're done. Just connect the Yellow tipped power adapter plug into the back of your PSone, then plug the Male Battery Pack Connector Repair Kit tip into your battery. Power up! Hopefully if everything went right, you should see something similar to:
Note: I'm going to attatch my battery to a side of the playstation with some heavy duty velco at some point, but I ran out & need to buy some more. If you have any questions, feel free to email me @ snljlot@verizon.com or search the benheck forums. Thanks for reading this.