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

Twilight Wolf · Post by **Twilight Wolf** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:38 pm

Congratulations on finishing an excellent portable! You're an inspiration, bacteria.

I look forward to seeing pictures of the whole thing buttoned up.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:34 am

Thanks Twilight Wolf!

Update, just got home after work (earlies shift), first thing I did was pop in one of my 200 or so PS1 games, one that would need the joystick and various buttons - choose "Bugs Bunny Lost in Time" - it uses left joystick, d-pad, the four action buttons and shoulder buttons.

Pleased to report all works great, I wired the start and select buttons the wrong way around and although the shoulder buttons work fine they work on a "sweetspot", the middle of the button - I want the button to register when you press it off center too, so that needs a little tweaking - at least it works fine though!

I also want to use thicker screws if I can to give a more powerful connection between the two case halves - they meet fine but there is about a 1mm gap at the moment on one of the sides, using thicker screws will give far more closing power and should hopefully mean the case closes completely on itself, which would be ideal. I will also check for any small raised areas (eg hot glue blobs or strands) that might be contributing to this too and resolve it.

Anyway, expected a few teething problems and issues, frankly I have hardly any to address, which is ideal, especially as I had done quite a lot of work untested before turning the system on for the first time. System works great, audio is nice (speakers benefit in being in a bigger case than they came from in the result of richer sounds), case is easy and comfortable to use, controls work, just need to spend a couple of hours or so "perfecting".

Realistically, I have half an hour now for project work today, no time tomorrow, a morning on Thursday and Friday and a couple of days next week for project work. This means by the end of this week I intend to have completely finished my system, made at least one kit (for Stephen0205) and hopefully by the close of next week, time permitting, make some videos and post them here with pics, after of course finishing my guide on my site. I already have a new signature banner ready to use!

EDIT - opened up the system by removing the four screws, only took about 30 seconds in total.

* The slight elevation was two trapped wires in the case halves.
* One of the shoulder buttons is fine, other needs attention.
* Screws are fine and work fine, however I need to hot glue the perspex they screw into as they have a small amount of play, which means of course you cannot get that last small gap to close. By securing the perspex properly I won't have that issue.
* Will remove some of the surplus perspex to give everything else more room
* Have a couple of glue spots to reduce, that will help too.

All are easy fixes, but will probably take up to Thursday lunchtime (off to work then) to resolve. Friday I can get the kit(s) ready.

Sun-Wukong · Post by **Sun-Wukong** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 11:12 am

You are a portable GOD! Congratulations.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:42 pm

Thanks, very kind of you.

Just got a PM from Ben, I asked him about the differences in the wiring in his book from mine and the fact his used 9 wires and mine 8 and the pins connected differently; both of us using the same looking official Sony PSone controllers. It looks like there may have been different revisions of the controllers possibly over the years.

What this means is someone making a PSone portable will need to use a multimeter to confirm their connections before wiring - simple process, so no issues.

ShockSlayer · Post by **ShockSlayer** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:06 pm

I cant see it, but YAY!

SS

footinmouth · Post by **footinmouth** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 7:20 pm

bacteria wrote:My case will take a few types of console systems, (normal boards or mini boards or NOAC type: PSone, N64, SNES, NES, Genesis, Dreamcast (?)), so it isn't a one-trick pony; however some systems have large boards. People thought my Multi system looked big and the screen in comparison looked small - it was precisely for the reason that I allowed for larger boards to fit - eg MegaDrive II, Jaguar, Amstrad GX4000, etc. Making dedicated cases to specific consoles is not practical given the huge time outlay and costs involved (after all, i'm running this as a hobby not business), although I may make a bigger case in several months time to take a GX4000 board - way down the line of projects to do.

the genesis 2 board is small though.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 11:23 pm

footinmouth - this is a classic situation of differences between UK and USA systems. In the UK, our system - MegaDrive - came in two board revisions, MKI which has a big board and MKII which has a smaller board but still quite big. In the USA (the system was called Genesis) you had a MKIII which was far smaller. You also have the equivalent of the Retro Duo (can't remember off hand what its name is, some Chinese made re-make) for the Genesis taking USA carts.

This means that yes, you guys probably have a couple of options for having a Genesis into my casing, whereas, being in the UK, our boards are far too big. Unlike the Retro Duo, I can't just use an NTSC screen and play my PAL carts on it (and my NTSC SNES games) as the Genesis with small boards only play NTSC and I only have PAL Genesis/MegaDrive carts.

If anyone knows how to mod an NTSC Genesis with a small board into taking PAL games, full screen and correct speed, please let me know - otherwise my only option will be to use a Radica and hope I can mod it to take game carts, which I understand is not easy, and I think the guide is gone anyway (anyone got a link please??).

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 5:29 am

Ok, finally got the sucka down and finished, the only tiny thing I didn't correct was the select and start buttons are in reverse still, wasn't worth the effort to remove the screen board and move things about a bit to just solder two wires to swap their connections. Doesn't matter anyway, used logos to represent start and select, to not an issue. If I ever need to open the system up for any reason in the future I will do that at the same time too.

Spent a bit of time making my new avatar and new sig, however the one posted now is only half shown as my new sig has a pic of my system in it, you see...

Those of you familiar with games may recognise part of my logo's and sig pic I got the idea from - Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. That is my favourite game of all time, so makes sense to use it as inspiration for my design. I have changed the colours a bit and removed some of the stars and changed their position a bit, so therefore no remote possibility of any copyright infringement

Tomorrow I will make some cases and check they come out fine. I will make as many as I can with the plasticard sheets I have in stock. I'm going to need about six sets for myself for my projects, the extras I made will be for sale. No more time today for project work, off to work soon.

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 12:48 pm

your graphics always look upscaled

deviouskoopa · Post by **deviouskoopa** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 1:32 pm

How about spending a little bit of your graphic-design time to post pics?

Nice work on the sig

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 6:13 pm

Resized sig from 600 x 177 to 600 x 150; looks better now.

I use a bit of a blur on the wording and also 75% transparency, to get the effect.

Just held my system again, gorgeous! All buttons including the shoulder buttons feel really good now, and case is shut well. Boy, this has taken a lot of work for a project!

Anyway, tomorrow morning, going to get the vacuum forming system out and to work! I have some time next week for my website modifying, so my personal timescale of launch by end of next week is perfectly achievable; maybe sooner.

mmoshkowich · Post by **mmoshkowich** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 6:59 pm

I liked the old sig better!

exploding.monkey · Post by **exploding.monkey** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:35 pm

Nahhhh....

timewarp · Post by **timewarp** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:16 pm

bacteria wrote:Resized sig from 600 x 177 to 600 x 150; looks better now.

I use a bit of a blur on the wording and also 75% transparency, to get the effect.

Just held my system again, gorgeous! All buttons including the shoulder buttons feel really good now, and case is shut well. Boy, this has taken a lot of work for a project!

Anyway, tomorrow morning, going to get the vacuum forming system out and to work! I have some time next week for my website modifying, so my personal timescale of launch by end of next week is perfectly achievable; maybe sooner.

You might want to try moving "Fancy making your own portable?" down a bit, and putting your website url under it. There's just too much space on the right side of the image.

exploding.monkey · Post by **exploding.monkey** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:38 pm

Or just a portable underneath it.