Dr. KillGood wrote:First let me introduce myself, I live in the U.S. Georgia to be exact. I am 16 and really like Play Station because resident evil is fun!
I want to make my own portabol PSX.
So I dont really have much to work with here.
-Less then $50.00
-No soudering iron(could prolly barrow negibors)
-No PS1 (prolly get it cheep off of E-Bay 1-5 dollars)
-No small TV screen or anything.
-No idea what im doing
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So I was thinking about mabe gettin a cheep portabol DVD player with a clamshell design and using that as a case. Then somhow cutting all the holes for the controls and junk into it. Mabe get it off of E-Bay for cheep would need a large one so all the stuff frome the PSX would fit inside it.
So what suggestions you got for me?
PS:I have never done anything like this before should be fun.
Alright well if by PSX you mean the original Playstation, I highly would reccomend you use the PSOne console (the smaller version) instead. If you can up your budget to 100 dollars you can snap a PSOne portable together without any modification... technically. It wont have built in controls unless you make them yourself. But they make third party batteries to run the LCD and the PS1 at the same time for about 2-3 hours for around 20 dollars. Here is an auction on ebay for a pretty slim detachable battery:
PSONE Rechargable Battery Pack
Then you can find a refurbished PSOne on eBay. For example,
heres an auction ending in about a day that you should try bidding on. Then all we have left is the screen. I cant really help you too much there because ebay charges way too much for the screens. Your local EBGames or Rhino Videogames should have both the PSOne and a PSone screen. After gathering those three items you just attach them to the PSOne (self explanatory) and you have a portable PSOne. If you want to have built in controls, you can open up the PSOne's case and cut holes for the buttons. Open up the PSOne controller before hand to retrieve the buttons to make accurate cuts to the PSOne case. Then you must hack up the controller to work for you. Thanks to ShaolinDrunkard for this information:
Okay guys, there have been many questions asked about this, but I will tell you the easiest way I have found to do this. Mind you, I didnt say it was the best way but its the easiest way I can find. I had a lot of trouble trying to cut the controller and then solder the leds back together, it was two hard because they are so close together, so I decided to come up with another way. This method will work for almost any type or brand of controller and will also work for most other systems controllers as well.
when you press a button on almost any game system controller, all your really doing is connecting postive+ and negative- leds that tells the console what to do, like if you press square, you are making a circuit that tells the console that square is being pressed. So in reality if we can find any other way to connect the two leds momentarily it should work, and it does.
Heres what I do,
1. scrape a small amout of the black stuff on each button from both the positive and negative side(your controller may not have any black stuff on the buttons, in this case skip to step #2), just enough so that you have enough of the metal showing that you can solder to.(Sorry, I dont know what the black stuff is called)
2. Now, very carfully drill a tiny hole right in the center of the area that you just scraped of the black stuff. I use a #60 wire gauge drill bit for this, you should to.
3. Now, you need some telephone wire(not the kind to hook up to the phone, the kind you use in the wall) you can get it at any hardware store. Cut a peice probably around 10 inches to be safe, then pull the smaller wires out of the rubber jacketing. There will be a yellow, red, green, and a black wire. these are thin solid wires that will work well for this pupose.
4. Strip the wires on each end, i suggest you use two of the same colored wires for button, it will avoid confusion.
5. Stick the stipped wire through one of the holes you drilled earlier through the back of the board( you can do it through the front, but i find it works better to put the wire in through the back). then all you need to do is solder the wire coming up through the hole to the exposed metal lead, repeat the process for the other hole in the button.
6. When your done with each button, youll have two wires coming off each button, a positive+ and a ground-. For what were doing, it doesnt really matter which is positive, and which is negative.
7. The final step is to get some tact switches(you can use any kind of switch, but I reommend tact swithes) and some pc board. Arrange the tact swithes on the board in a pattern similar to that of a psone controller. Cut the pc board around the tact switches so that you have a small board for the direction pad, and one for the action buttons.
then all you do is solder the two wires from your button to the two oppisite terminals on your tact switch.
now plug the controller into a psone and start a game, if you made your connections right, then the tact switches will work just as the regular buttons, and since you used at least 10 inches of wire, you should be able to move your directional button board, as well as your square, circle, triangle and x board to anywhere in your case you want.( this will work with the start, select and analog buttons as well)
As for the analog sticks, simply desolder the the sticks, mount them on a piece of pc board and use thicker wire to reconnect each point you desoldered.
and for the L and r buttons just desolder the wires going to them(usually 3) and reconnect them using longer wires.
Hope this info helps someone, this method should work for just about any portable system controller.
If any of this info seems wrong or stupid, or if i've made a lot of spelling mistakes I apologize, but this method works for me so I figure I'd share it for anyone who needed it.
Then just place the boards where you need them. Reseal the case and there you have it. And if you want a little extra battery life, go to
Portables Of Doom and you'll find an LCD backlight mod which should give you a nice boost in battery life.
So there you have it, a fairly simple PSOne Portable.
P.S. If I have any errors, please feel free to correct me.
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