It's all about efficiency. A switching regulator is more efficient at lowering the voltage than a linear regulator, and therefore wastes less energy and increases your battery life. However, if a linear regulator is good enough for your purposes, there's nothing wrong with using one.

Yay! My batteries and case arrived today;however, the batteries still scare the crap out of me. What, if anything, do I have to do to the batteries before I wire them up to the portable? I read the sheet that came with them, but it doesn't make any sense to me. If someone could explain in layman's terms, I would appreciate it. Also, can I just cut the cables and mount the charger jack that came with it?

I hope to start the batteries tonight so I can start getting things wired up to figure out placement, which would then lead to case work.

How specific do you need the instructions to be? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have two 3.4v li-po cells, a protection PCB, a charger, and a charging jack, right? When you connect wires to the leads of the batteries, be sure to not leave any loose ends flopping around. Tape them to the table if you need to - that's what I did to make sure nothing shorted while I was wiring them up. Follow the diagram provided on batteryspace.com for the protection circuit, and just be very careful. It's not like you're handling dynamite - just use common sense and be patient.

lol, I'd hope it's not dynamite...

I was more referring to discharging the batteries or fully charging them before use. I plan to use the diagram that came with the PCB (same as the pic lovablechevy had on her WIP)

+1 I've used both velcro AND hotglue.

SS

Since they're li-po's, you don't have to worry too much about charging or discharging them before using them. Check them with your multi-meter. They might already be charged.

Well, the batteries have been charging for a little over an hour and haven't exploded, so I assume that's a good sign.

Now I'm trying to place things in the case to see how much room I'm going to need. My problem is the top of the PSOne screen (where the transformer was) doesn't fit. How much of that can I cut down without ruining the screen? My hope is to get everything to "fit" inside the case so I can start the cart slot and more case design.

you can cut down around all the grounds

You can pretty much cut it flush with the flat portion on the top of the board.

Well, the LCD board is trimmed and still works! Hurray for that! I also went crazy with the epoxy on the front of the case. The screen hole is set in and the recessed ends of the ZN-40 case have been dremeled out and epoxied. I was going to work on sanding it only to realize we don't have any sandpaper in the house (my mom does some woodworking so I figured we'd have some). I realized I don't post many pictures which make reading kinda boring (who reads this stuff anyway?) so I have a picture of my case at the moment....

Go go gadget epoxy!

Excuse the ugliness, it will get better...

I don't know how much I'll get done this weekend (hopefully some sanding at the least) but I've got a busy weekend ahead so who knows...

That's a lot of epoxy. How many sticks did you use?

Oh, and nice inspector gadget line. I used to watch the cartoon all the time.

I wasn't sure how much was necessary to make it hold well so I used a lot. Inside and out on the case it was 2 1/2 sticks. Just looking at it and how sturdy it dried, I probably could have eased up a bit but oh well, this is a learning experience for me as well. I'm just worried about how long it's going to take to sand down....lol

And Inspector Gadget was awesome, the theme song was all like "Dodahdodahdo Inspector Gadget dodahdodahdododooo whoohoo"

All that matters is that its seamless in between the case and the screen plastic. Use a dremel with a sanding bit to get most of it down, and then follow up with a couple sifferent grits of sanding paper. Ah, and you might want to try applying your epoxy wet next time, I'll never apply dry again, believe me.

SS

It's Mighty Putty, how do you apply it wet, add water? I just followed the instructions, knead, place, dry.

You make me full of facepalm.