Tips for the affordable portable

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themadhacker
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Tips for the affordable portable

Post by themadhacker » Thu Nov 27, 2008 10:22 pm

With the recent crashing of the stock market, people all over are trying to save as much money as possible. Now making a portable involves a good amount of money. So how do you save money on a portable? Here's some tips I have thought of.

1. Saving money on screens. Zenith and Ps1 screens can go up to $40 on sites such as ebay. But to get one for way less, I recomend using composite signal portable DVD players. To get a cheap one, try getting one with a disk drive failure. A DVD player that works with composite is the Audiovox D1812. However, the drawback to DVD player screens are the fact that they are sometimes quite big, but this can be good for a laptop project. Keep in mind though that some portable DVD player screens ARE NOT COMPATABLE WITH COMPOSITE VIDEO.

2. Saving money on batteries/battery chargers. Sometimes broken DVD players are also packeged with the batteries that originally came with them. The Audiovox D1812 comes with a 3200 mAh Ni-mH battery. As for the carging circuits, they are already built into the DVD player.

3. Saving money on gaming systems. Keep your eyes out on ebay for systems for cheap. For a low price, try finding some with petty or fixable problems, such as a bad power switch, cracked/yellowed cases, or filthy cartridge slots. Also, ask around. friends might be willing to give you the system....for free. Or, constantly check yard/car boot sales. There are usually things for dirt cheap at them.

4. Saving on random parts (capacitors, wires, resitors, switches, tact switches). For parts such as these, try getting them from broken electronics. Keep watch as you pass by garbage cans, as sometimes there are treasures waiting in or next to them. I found an old cable box in the trash once. In it were about ten tact switches. Aslo, salvage that old crashed computer sitting in your closet. In it is a mass of ribbon cable, capacitors, resistors, switches, and other quite useful components. If you do not have an old computer, ask local biusnesses for some. I know a place that has 15 years of crashed computers sitting in the back room.

5. Saving on cases. Why go out and buy a $10 case from polycase, when you can Frankencase? A portable DVD player case is perfect for a clamshell design. Also, for systems on a chip, you could use the case of say, a busted gamegear or nomad.

Thanks for reading my tips. Hopefully if you read all of this, you can save some green while working on your next portable, or any project for that matter.
rest in peace, Ronnie James Dio! \m/

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Post by ShockSlayer » Fri Nov 28, 2008 2:12 am

To be honest, portables are only expensive if you buy EVERYTHING from the store. I make most of mine on a $200 basis.

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Post by gamemasterAS » Fri Nov 28, 2008 2:30 am

TLDR version

Portable dvd players=win

Only Problem I see is having to keep the motherboard of the dvd player.
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Post by Life of Brian » Fri Nov 28, 2008 8:02 am

Many online stores offer free samples. It never hurts to ask. One can often get free project enclosures or DC-DC voltage converters or similar items simply by asking.
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Post by bicostp » Fri Nov 28, 2008 9:54 am

Money-saving tip #1:

Be careful. If you don't break your parts, you won't have to go buy more.

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Re: Tips for the affordable portable

Post by Arrow--> » Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:48 am

themadhacker wrote: 4. Saving on random parts (capacitors, wires, resitors, switches, tact switches). For parts such as these, try getting them from broken electronics. Keep watch as you pass by garbage cans, as sometimes there are treasures waiting in or next to them. I found an old cable box in the trash once. In it were about ten tact switches. Aslo, salvage that old crashed computer sitting in your closet. In it is a mass of ribbon cable, capacitors, resistors, switches, and other quite useful components. If you do not have an old computer, ask local biusnesses for some. I know a place that has 15 years of crashed computers sitting in the back room.
themadhacker gets everthing from trash and it works, most people would be surprised what they'd find looking through other peoples trash

Another way to get old electronics is to "break" other people's
Themadhacker does this (don't denie it)
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Post by Kyo » Fri Nov 28, 2008 12:55 pm

Plus, it's just so much cooler to build a portable entirely from trash

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Re: Tips for the affordable portable

Post by themadhacker » Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:18 pm

Arrow--> wrote:
themadhacker wrote: 4. Saving on random parts (capacitors, wires, resitors, switches, tact switches). For parts such as these, try getting them from broken electronics. Keep watch as you pass by garbage cans, as sometimes there are treasures waiting in or next to them. I found an old cable box in the trash once. In it were about ten tact switches. Aslo, salvage that old crashed computer sitting in your closet. In it is a mass of ribbon cable, capacitors, resistors, switches, and other quite useful components. If you do not have an old computer, ask local biusnesses for some. I know a place that has 15 years of crashed computers sitting in the back room.
themadhacker gets everthing from trash and it works, most people would be surprised what they'd find looking through other peoples trash

Another way to get old electronics is to "break" other people's
Themadhacker does this (don't denie it)
I never meant to break your GBA. Actually, I gave you the parts. you took it home and you soldered it. So, you broke it. :D
rest in peace, Ronnie James Dio! \m/

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themadhacker
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Post by themadhacker » Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:19 pm

Kyo wrote:Plus, it's just so much cooler to build a portable entirely from trash
I know, I consider it using useless crap to make something way better.
rest in peace, Ronnie James Dio! \m/

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Re: Tips for the affordable portable

Post by Arrow--> » Fri Nov 28, 2008 8:06 pm

themadhacker wrote:
Arrow--> wrote:
themadhacker wrote: 4. Saving on random parts (capacitors, wires, resitors, switches, tact switches). For parts such as these, try getting them from broken electronics. Keep watch as you pass by garbage cans, as sometimes there are treasures waiting in or next to them. I found an old cable box in the trash once. In it were about ten tact switches. Aslo, salvage that old crashed computer sitting in your closet. In it is a mass of ribbon cable, capacitors, resistors, switches, and other quite useful components. If you do not have an old computer, ask local biusnesses for some. I know a place that has 15 years of crashed computers sitting in the back room.
themadhacker gets everthing from trash and it works, most people would be surprised what they'd find looking through other peoples trash

Another way to get old electronics is to "break" other people's
Themadhacker does this (don't denie it)
I never meant to break your GBA. Actually, I gave you the parts. you took it home and you soldered it. So, you broke it. :D
1. i wasn't talking about my GBA (other peoples stuff you brokestephen for example
2. you scrached up the already ruined circut bored
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themadhacker
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Post by themadhacker » Fri Nov 28, 2008 8:53 pm

@ Arrow- 1 I don't believe I boke anything of his before.
2 It was already ruined.
rest in peace, Ronnie James Dio! \m/

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Post by Kyo » Sat Nov 29, 2008 2:43 am

It's christmas! The time of loving, and caring and forgiving!

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Say, did you also find your screen in the trash? I heard you took it from a broken portable dvd player somewhere?

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Post by themadhacker » Sat Nov 29, 2008 9:50 am

The DVD player was my family's The disk drive went bad, and it wouldn't play DVDs. So I canniblized it. But look in the trash! People often throw things like that out.
rest in peace, Ronnie James Dio! \m/

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Post by Kyo » Sat Nov 29, 2008 11:27 am

I don't know about america, but in germany you wouldn't dare to look through trash

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Post by blackbox_dev » Sat Nov 29, 2008 11:37 am

bicostp wrote:Money-saving tip #1:

Be careful. If you don't break your parts, you won't have to go buy more.
+1

This is probably the best advice in this thread.
I'd imagine right now you wish you were a cuttlefish...

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