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

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 9:01 am

Ok, consider it done. PS1 case it is.

It still will give me some headaches no doubt, and things to work out, but after all, that is part of the fun!

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:41 am

Change of mind.

Decided to move in a different direction - I will have a stab at vacuum forming; it will make the difference between my systems being as good as I can make them using flat plexiglass, and having curved and shaped portables; in other words, to (hopefully) take my portablizing to a new level.

I have just bought two packs of this (8 sheets in total) as I will have quite a few rejects. This is the styro 0.80 material - on the item listing it points to their site with some good info on it:

styrene

and one of these:

glue

I will therefore have to make a vacuum forming table and hope I can make it well enough to succeed. I also have a powerful heat gun (costs Â£2 at a car boot sale), which may come in handy for the process, after the vacuum, if extra heat needs applying to finish off the job on the mold.

So...I am going to have a go at making my original design and make it gorgeous (here's hoping!); either that, or back to plan B with a PS1 case and a lot of wasted time!

I will document the vacuum forming making, etc in the Case Construction forum; then back to this thread again for the rest of the PS mod. As I said before, no rush, but will keep you posted with updates.

Assuming I can get good results, I may well re-house some of my previous works in time.

UPDATE:

Took loveablechevy's advice (following a PM) and bought some mighty putty; bought 2 packs:

mighty putty

Aguiluz · Post by **Aguiluz** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 9:54 am

bacteria wrote:styrene

ebay seller wrote:Please note: I do not supply to the USA or Canada.

GAH!

collinE · Post by **collinE** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 11:32 am

Good luck! I got my first satisfactory form on the fifth try. I used a gas oven at 425F. Lower temperatures gave me more time in the oven, but didn't form as well once it reached the proper sagging point.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 2:53 pm

This was the article I read on the site I ordered the plastic sheets (styrene / plasticard / high impact polystyrene, same item according to the site) from - link

My oven goes up to 230c which is fine (over 425f) and I notice on the site to not have fan assisted and only the bottom oven element working in the oven. No problem.

I will probably need to make a visit to my local hardware store and get some 6mm MDF, pine, couple of pieces of plumbing and pine strips. I am hoping to get the table underway before the materials arrive.

The vacuum table won't need to be that big as the plastic sheets are 220 x 325mm; which is good as a small surface will mean the vacuum cleaner suction will be better.

HBN · Post by **HBN** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 3:43 pm

Mighty Putty is awesome. BEYOND awesome, actually. I'll be using it in my SNESp.

hailrazer · Post by **hailrazer** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 4:21 pm

Just to let you guys know , all Mighty Putty is , is epoxy putty that you can buy for the last 10 years in the plumbing aisle.

It's alright but nothing spectacular. and the plumbing epoxy is cheaper

And it gets VERY bad reviews for bonding ANYTHING to plastic.

lovablechevy · Post by **lovablechevy** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 4:37 pm

hailrazer wrote:Just to let you guys know , all Mighty Putty is , is epoxy putty that you can buy for the last 10 years in the plumbing aisle.

It's alright but nothing spectacular. and the plumbing epoxy is cheaper

And it gets VERY bad reviews for bonding ANYTHING to plastic.

oh i know it's the same. i gave bacteria my two top choices. the first is bondo brand marine epoxy putty. this is my 2nd choice. i've used 4 different brands. this one sticks to plastic much better than the other two brands i got from auto stores. and, bacteria found a very great price deal for them.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:24 am

I will be using it as a filler rather than relying on it for strength. I may use strips of perspex or metal on the inside of the case and secure them to the casing by the glue mentioned in the previous posting as it seems to be rather tough glue.

If I am successful with making a working vacuum table and if I can make a quality mold and if it works properly (lots of "if's" as I haven't tried this before) I may need to reinforce some of the insides of the casing anyway; I discovered with perspex that 2mm is fine for a case, but it does flex a small amount when using the system; whereas 3mm doesn't flex at all (although it is quite hard to tool). The 0.80" thickness plastic for vacuum forming is the equivalent of 2mm thick, also by the nature of the process required of sucking the plastic onto a mold, in some places the plastic will be slightly thinner as it will be slightly stretched, eg the sides and any grooves in the case top. This might mean some reinforcement on the inside of the case is needed (I won't know though until I make one).

I figured the sensible way to making a mold would be out of soft wood - easy to cut and trim but also will resist shrinkage during the process and also heat resistant. To ensure there is a good chance the plastic will pop out of the mold, I thought I might cut the mold into pieces; secure them together by screws onto a backing board, then when the plastic has welded itself to the mold and cooled, I can remove the screws, take out sections of the mold in pieces, and should end up with the plastic unbroken. (?). This technique will be useful as I am hoping to have shaped sides, which obviously can't come out from a mold normally.

Anyway, lots of work to do; materials will take a few days to come anyway; and I need to get to the hardware store and buy some wood, plumbing piece and bolts. I can then start to make the thing!

I have some e-bay bids on watch at the moment which might give me some 7" widescreen screens at a cheap price, from dead DVD players. If I win some, and if I am able to make a successful mold which works, I am hoping to be able to make a couple of extra PlayStations and N64's and sell them. The N64 will just, barely fit, in the proposed case, but will fit. Anyway, pipe dream at the moment, have to make the vacuum process work first before expanding my ideas. Bottom line is that once the molds are made it will be quick to make cases; modding the consoles is not that hard (once you have done one from a given system you know what you are doing on similar ones) and takes only a day or two of modding to complete; what takes the time is making a case to custom fit and working it all out after all - solved if a standard casing is easy to make. also, people are more likely to buy a nicely molded system than one made out of cut perspex!

Right, off to the hardware store now...hope to start the planning and build tomorrow or Thursday...

BoomBox-Creations · Post by **BoomBox-Creations** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:52 am

It is possible to open up the li-lon batteris and flatten it out, but i wouldnt really recommend it, its like hardmodding a PSP battery to make it pandora, it could blow off your hands, or leave a really bad burn on ur face and spray acid over ur arms.

So it is possible, just, id get someone to help you, so nothing major goes wrong....

And also, if you do this, and it starts to smoke black, RUN LIKE YOUVE NEVER RUN BEFORE!! or i dont think we will be hearing from you again....

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 4:25 am

Thanks for the advice. I wasn't going to try flattening a Li-ion anyway, but that definitely confirms it is not a good idea! The mere fact that it might explode is not a chance worth taking; especially as I will have to secure the cells inside the portable and wire them to an external contact to recharge them.

Bought some materials for the vacuum forming table, so started a new thread in the Case Construction section. When done, or it fails, I will come back to this thread again with postings of the Playstation portable - on hold of course until I experiment with vacuum forming!

Valium · Post by **Valium** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 5:08 am

Inside those 7.4v batteries are just 2 3.7v cells in series. Which ARE individually wrapped to keep them from shorting each other. It's perfectly safe to open them up if you know what you're doing.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 3:44 pm

Valium, that makes sense; however, these Li-ions are sealed in a tough plastic casing with no obvious way to open them up. I certainly wouldn't dremel them open! No screws to undo, nothing to pop off, look quite sealed to me.

Fortunately, they are only 20mm high, less height would be nice, but if that is the best I can get, so be it. These cells I use (Canon 911 / 915 camcorder) last a long time and seem good quality, even though they are 3rd party cells.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:46 am

Back on this thread, spent the last 2.5 weeks off this thread working on building a vacuum table and making a casing for this PSone project!

I will be doing a detailed step-by-step tutorial here, as when I end up with my finished system I plan to sell the empty cases to anyone who wants one; you can then build your own system, from the tutorial, and have a pretty box to put it into! (case making is the hardest part of console portablizing, as I said before, you can get all the electronics for a working system done in a couple of days, or less; however making the casing and construction of it can then add weeks!

Right-e-oh, here we go!

The vacuum case top, from the Case Construction thread:

Turn it over:

Trim off the excess with a Dremel; cutting from the underside so as not to damage the casing:

Pop out.

To get a straight line, I used a CD marker pen. A box of playing cards was the right height to rest the pen on and run it along the case top.

Result:

Use Dremel again above the line:

Used a sanding drum on Dremel to trim to line edge, then after light sanding to edge got result:

To give a perspective of size, in the pic below is a PS1 original case, above it is a PSone and on the top is my case - as you see, it is quite a bit shorter than the PSone and only a little wider (for the controls).

Onto working out the precise position of the screen; cut out paper to represent the screen part of the PSone screen.

I also traced paper over the PSone screen mobo and placed the screen cutout in the right position. Using cutouts stops any chance of scratching the case unnecessarily.

This is only illustration, accurate, but an illustration. I need to make sure the screen is precisely in the centre of the case, needs to be over to the left by a couple of millimeters in the pic below.

The pencil filled in area above the screen area represents the top of the PSone screen mobo after trimming, to make it fit.

Here may be the downside of making the system so small that the PSone board just fits, and having sloping sides - the PSone screen's mobo needs a little trimming, top and bottom. The alternative is to do the LED mod on the screen, but I much prefer to keep the florescent light from the stock PSone screen.

Areas to trim:

The pic below shows what connects to what, should just need a little rewiring:

I may need to trim off the bottom of the board too, from my old (dead) PSone screen mobo, I lifted off the contacts; just grounding strips underneath; so about another 3mm can be trimmed here, if needed. I won't know if I need to do that until I fit the board in position, may get away without needing to.

Oh yes, the other modification needed due to the small casing size, I can't use the front of the original PSone as the backing to mine, with a nice popping-out CD section; I will have to make a custom mold (with clay) to recess in the case a little, have a finger hold to remove the CD, and keep the CD safe whilst spinning during use. More modding!!

sonic4freedom · Post by **sonic4freedom** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 10:00 am

Bacteria that looks sweet! so it's a flip screen? can't wait to see the finished product!