It looks amazing, good thing you're not going to ruin it with a color as bland as your past choices.

Bland? I think they looked very nice.
Bacteria's multi-portable is the only thing I've seen that looks good in beige.

I think you should leave this one white. Black looks really dark to me. Or, you don't even have to do black or white at all. Pick a vibrant color! Maybe a nice orange, or a shade of blue. Find something that will compliment the PS1 logo you'll have on there.

Thanks guys, pleased you like my work to date. Taken a lot of time and effort to get to this stage.

Black and white are both colours which show up imperfections. I am going to spray paint one of my failed cases to see how the metallic black looks; if it looks awesome then I can do it to my proper case, if it looks bad I will probably go and buy some white spray paint as I have got used to it being white now. I could just leave the case as it is, however it has some really light marks on it, so best to do it properly and sand and spray paint it. White is very nice but a bit cliche, black could look fantastic or bad; only one way to find out!

I don't fancy a vibrant colour, Mario, although it is tempting. If I were, I would probably go purple as I have a purple GBA which looks nice; however I prefer a base colour.

What I might well do is post pics of my scrap case, painted and finished, I can make some crude quickly-done holes in it to give the impression of a finished system, and see what you guys think of it. The process will take a couple of days to complete of course.

In regards to painting the logo and wording, haven't come up with a good solution as to how to do this yet. If it were on white, it would be easier, however I want to letter onto a black surface. Might end up just printing onto quality photo paper and do it that way.

For the logo, you could make a series of stencils, one for each color. Put one stencil on, then spray paint it. Line up the next color, and paint that. Repeat for all the colors.

EDIT: Here is a diagram if my words are a bit unclear:

^ Very clever idea.

Mario - Yes, I was thinking of doing it with enamel paints. Need to experiment with different options.

As to name, my wife came up with an interesting thought:

intoPlayStation
or intoPlay
iNto64
iNtoSNES

What do you guys think?

Personally, I'm a fan of Playboy for the name... the mags pretty okay too.

Those are actually quite bangin'. Go with intoPlay.

How is that pronounced? Is the "i" vowel short or long?

I think it would sound better as "in-toe" than "in-to".

Mario - Pronounce it as you wish, I just wanted to emphasis on the "PS".

HBN - Thanks, will let my wife know it has favour!

Ok, used a reject case and gave it two coats of plastic primer spray paint, then about five thin coats of the metallic black spray paint. This was to test the finish.

Looks really, really nice!

Camera flash rebounds a bit on the pics.





Decided, once the shoulder buttons are in place, to get the boards prepared and trimmed, then place my components inside the case, so I can then know the size for the case backing. I may as well make both casing halves complete, then paint them together and build the components in the case lastly.

Decided to get the case base done. Measured everything out (the relevant thicknesses, including any awkward capacitors or whatever that are in the way and can't be relocated):

4 button holder (taller than the d-pad) 9mm
Rubber contacts and board for 4 button holder 6mm
PSone screen mobo 4mm
-spacer- thin PVC sheet 0.5mm
PSone console mobo 5mm
-spacer- thin PVC sheet 0.5mm
Battery thickness and holder (thicker than the PSone CD mechanism) 22mm

Therefore, total thickness is 47mm for internals, add on the thickness of the Plasticard case, top and bottom; total thickness 50mm.

Internal size of existing top casing is 20mm, by the time it was trimmed and sanded, so the backing case needs to end up 27mm thick, so it needs to be 30mm tall in real terms.

Placed my finished top casing onto mounting board, traced the outside of it. Naturally, the outline needs to be smaller so as to compensate for the thickness of the plastic.

The pics below are for illustration; the various plugs will be cut off, the memory card slot will be relocated so a memory card can be inserted into the system.

There is plenty of space for the batteries, the positions shown are only for illustration. Three batteries could fit into the system if the CD ribbon is relocated and the power plug for the CD too, but it adds the the difficulties. Two batteries should be sufficient, 4000mA in total, it looks like the PSone console takes about 1000mA, the PSone screen, when audio is working is around 800mA, so therefore I should get around 2 hours 10 mins playtime - sufficient. Always a trade-off with size, weight and cost!



CD placed on:



Next job is to cut out the shape on the orange mounting board, and make a clay mold which will be 30mm tall and have suitable recess to take a CD and memory card.


One more thing to mention, decided will just use stock PSone speakers for the system, will just fit in case, with a couple of the corners trimmed down a little. Mylar speakers are a bit better on audio quality, but the PSone's speakers are ok: as one of the aims on this project is to sell cases to others who want to make their own systems, it makes sense to use stock items, and after all, all the official PSone screens come with the same speakers! (standardisation). BTW - my NTSC screen came this morning from the good ol' USA, waiting for my Retro Duo now!

The case if fantastic so far, bacteria. I was doubtful about your design at first, but as it gets closer to a finished form it's really growing on me. Well done!

Thanks LOB, it is hard for people to look at an empty case with an unusual shape and imagine how it will end up (I needed some imagination myself, and I had it in my mind how it was going to end up!); now most of the holes are in place and the parts have been placed in position, it is easy to see how the end system will look. The shapes in the sides of the casing now come into their own and look logical. Feel natural to hold too.

Pleased you like it! When the spray painting is done, the system will look quite dramatically different of course; i'm trying to go for the "wow" factor this time. The experiment of spray painting onto the scrap piece earlier came out perfectly; no sanding required either.

Spent about three hours this morning, trying to work things out with the layout, double checking thicknesses of components, etc.

Some of the considerations were:

* Keeping the design to something someone else could replicate
* Working out how to make a flat area for a CD to spin in without catching the sides, and also being as small as possible
* Distributing the weight of the system more centrally, onus on the bottom preferred
* Having a top on the system as a "spinning disk" on the back of the portable is not an option. Fingers will move over there when holding the case
* Space for the controller board

Came up with this design below. The CD drive assembly will need a bit of rewiring as the contacts (on a ribbon - see first pic) will need wiring to the contact pins on the console mobo. The ribbon cable is just not long enough. The contacts on the ribbon look robust enough to lay some solder onto (soldering fairly quickly) and rig some wires up to. If it isn't, then the option is to waste a PSone console board for the plug and relocate that to another board. Bit of a waste that way though!

The memory card will be removable and also located under the CD drive mechanism. It won't stick out as much as in the pic but will need to be removable easily.

The controller board has just enough room to sit in position (not in pic). The official PSone controller has two parts - the one with the joysticks on which also has the components on it; and the board which has the button contacts. It looks like this just sends button press signals to the other board; in which case, it isn't needed as contact wires can be soldered directly in place. I am hoping this is the case, the main controller board is about 55 x 80mm or thereabouts, which represents the same size I have to the right of the CD mechanism in the pic. Tight.





Still need to work a few more things out, to to redesign; it will take a few more days before the case backing is made, and hopefully it will be correct first time! The top and bottom sides back of the case will be far straighter than the front was as I need all the space at the back available; although the sides (handheld areas) can be curved a reasonable amount.

Can't wait to see both halves of the case together!