Worklog [2025 Contest Entry] Playstation 3 Portable

[jose_Leo12]

Well, I thought about how I should start this topic in several ways. The Playstation 3 is a console with several portability problems, including fans, heat dissipation, it is power hungry, components are too far apart, etc. But let's see what I can do, no promises, of course.

First, what I decided to do was to buy a dead PS3 motherboard that was not displaying any image at all. I removed the components from the motherboard and scanned it at 1200 dpi. I started sanding it. In total, it took me about a month to sand the motherboard to reveal all the layers, which are 6 in total. I won't make them available yet because I'm currently studying and mapping the motherboard (spoiler alert: I already have a basic cutting guide ready. I'm planning an advanced guide later on).

What I can tell you is that I already have a model of the case planned. As you know, I like to make my cases by hand, and the one for the Portable PS3 will be no different.

It will have a 9-inch screen (I'm going to use composite video on it at first, but I'll switch to HDMI later).

I ask that you do not judge me, I am still in the learning process and this is all very new to me.

Another important point that I wanted to solve on the PS3 is heat dissipation, a problem that I had to face because the PS3 fan is huge. How can I make it portable? First, I thought about modifying the entire heat dissipation part and using a small notebook fan, but without success. Soon after, I came up with the same idea as the YouTuber who made a portable PS4 using his own heat dissipator and the original fan. So I used the original PS3 heat dissipation, but the fan, as I said before, is huge. How did I solve this? I bought a notebook fan that I found with the same specifications as the original PS3 fan, as shown in the photos below. However, there was another problem! It was small, but it still wasn't what I wanted. So I activated PVC mode and completely remade the fan the way I needed it. See the photos below...

and surprisingly it worked extremely well, the temperatures remained slightly stable as if it were the original fan.

I played GTA V for 50 minutes with the aim of stressing the console and the temperatures do not exceed 61° on the GPU and 60° on the RSX, which for me is more than enough.

I wanted to post a video but unfortunately I couldn't, but that's okay, I'll keep updating this topic over time.

Another question I'd like to ask is for an ADM to tell me if I can post my scans, all done by me, without any problem. None of the scans are leaked or stolen content, they're all done by me from scratch.

I hope you enjoyed it, and when I get more responses I'll update the topic.

I will post my success or failure here, until next time

 

[Lecisco]

Hi,
a very interesting project.
Do you know how much power it needs in watts ? What is the amperage consumption ?

 

[jose_Leo12]

Olá, tudo bem? Seu consumo de energia fica entre 80 W e 130 W em funcionamento e 2 W a 5 W em standby, e a amperagem fica em torno de 10 A em uso normal e 0,42 A em standby.

 

[Lecisco]

Wahhh 10A in game.! It's huge as for xbox360 with the CORONA motherboard (the last one from Microsoft) it's 6A
My PS4 Slim Portable it's 6.3A in game but my PS4 Fat Portable it was ~12A, Sony have done a great job with the slim one !

For my PS4 slim portable the pbm is it's stop at 9.7V. And I have not freespace enough to put a Step up module to give 12V everytime until the cells are at 2.5V and moreover this kind of hardware (the step up or boost converter) is getting warm a lot because the current (ampere) is high (about 6.5A) and needs its own fan as a passiv dissipator is not enough...

 

[jose_Leo12]

yes, but I'm still studying the motherboard to know how to reduce it, and also these measurements are not precise, I already have a basic cutting guide defined, I'm still studying and mapping to make the cut, but the plan is to last at least an hour and a half with 6 21700 lithium cells of 5000mah, I believe it is totally possible, one of my difficulties was the fan, but I managed to solve it by making my own fan and it worked perfectly.

 

[jose_Leo12]

Hi guys, time for the update, after a tiring job sanding and unraveling the internal layers of the Playstation 3 motherboard I developed a very basic cutting guide, which practically does not affect anything on the Playstation 3, with only some tracks from the 3rd and 4th internal layers that need to be relocated as per the images that I will leave below.

The images look bad but they are not. The image was taken from my cell phone and the camera is not very good. The plate was scanned at 1200 dpi so it was very clear. I have also cut it and made some reallocations that will be necessary.

I also made progress on the laptop case, I added the analog sticks from the Xbox One because I find it more comfortable, the rest will be from the PS4 controller, I had to find a way to adapt the L1 and R1 so I made the buttons myself, as for the L2 and R2 I will use the triggers from the Xbox 360 controller... it will literally be a Frankencase

I will use the controller of a parallel control as it will be lower cost and easy to maintain if necessary,

I'm still in the testing and more testing phase, I could make a much more advanced cut, it wouldn't be that complicated now that I have the mapping of the internal layers, but I would need custom PCBs and components for the modification, which are not available in the country where I live, so I would need to export them, but I can't afford them at the moment, so I'll stick with this one, it's a good size for me,
As I progress I'll update this topic, I only posted photos taken from my cell phone of the mapping because I don't know if I can post them here, if you can or not, I ask that someone help me, if so, I'll make them available as soon as I'm done, thank you very much and see you next time.

 

[jose_Leo12]

Hello everyone, since I decided to enter this year's summer contest, nothing better than a good update, I'm sorry that the board is not fully working yet, these days have been busy for me, but this update will be about the case of our Portable Ps3, and I also had to make a small modification to the fan, but we'll talk about it more below, in the meantime here are some photos of the case and some components that I'll be using.

For analog sticks I decided to make the PCBs myself, then I will use the manual wiring method with thin wires, I believe this will fit well with the console and I was already forgetting I will use analog sticks from Xbox Series S because I found them much more comfortable because they are a little longer than those on the PS4 controller.

Now I had a small problem with the fan that I manufactured previously, as it was not able to dissipate the heat from the RSX very well as it was poorly positioned, so I made another, longer one but keeping the size reduced to fit inside the console and I was successful, I will leave a photo compared to the original fan.

I really hope you are enjoying this project as much as I was already being challenging before, now that I am participating in the contest even more, but I will not give up I will go until the end, as soon as I have more updates I will post here until next time

 

[MRKane]

Frankencasing is a lost art! I love it!!

 

[jose_Leo12]

Frankencasing is a lost art! I love it!!

Yes... I believe I am one of the last to use it, but when done well it gives very good results...

 

[cy]

As someone who's done quite a few PS3 repairs, I've got a ton of respect for you for even attempting this! I'm really excited to see where this project goes. And as people here have said, the frankencasing work is looking great! We really don't see enough of that now that 3d printing is the meta. Beautiful work so far!

 

[jose_Leo12]

As someone who's done quite a few PS3 repairs, I've got a ton of respect for you for even attempting this! I'm really excited to see where this project goes. And as people here have said, the frankencasing work is looking great! We really don't see enough of that now that 3d printing is the meta. Beautiful work so far!

yes yes, later I will make my mappings and motherboard scans available here, I believe it will help those who do Ps3 repairs, the color mappings are not complete but it is already a lot

 

[jose_Leo12]

Well, hello everyone. Today I will give a brief summary about the PS3P, first I would like to say that the console's casing is already painted and with the wiring of the controls all finalized and tested (all functional), I also made a small change in the solid state drive, I will use a 250gb Kingston (it was the only one I had) obviously I will change it later and already thinking about it I would integrate it directly to the motherboard but I decided to put a connector that you can find in notebooks, I also relocated it to the top where the board will be because in the original place it would make it difficult to allocate the batteries.

I'm also doing tests and more tests with the aim of stressing the console to see how the new fan behaves after being on for a long time, I haven't cut the motherboard yet because I'm waiting for the batteries to arrive, I'll use 21700 5000mah batteries, from the Tesla brand,

I'm waiting for some components to arrive, and others have already arrived to me, for example the LM2596 Step Down voltage regulator module for the 5V that the board needs, and the 250W 10A DC DC Step Up voltage converter because I want to maintain a continuous voltage for the console, I had ordered a smaller one but by the will of fate and the seller this absurdly large one came (laughs) maybe I can use it because it's more powerful than the previous one, but I will have to make some modifications... I had ordered the two on the right previously but they are VERY unfeasible or I'm ignorant enough not to be able to use them, so I won't use them.

Well, for now, that's all, when my batteries arrive I'll do consumption tests, etc. My next post here will be the board cut and working

And if you want to see the case better, I have a short video posted, I'll leave the link to the video here, until next time.

Playstation 3 Portatil, Reta Final!!! #playstation #nostalgiaplaystation

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[jose_Leo12]

Hello everyone, I bring great news, the cut board works, I was very happy, but some unforeseen events happened... the voltage converter that I was going to use to stabilize the voltage at 12v and 6A was absurdly large, so I tried to reduce its size and relocate the MOSFETs on the sides with the intention of reducing space... and it ended up burning the converter so I ordered the first converter mentioned earlier again, I hope that this time the seller sends the correct one so until then I will have to wait, but I brought some photos and even a video of it working already.

The charge meter and a decent charger for it still need to arrive. At the moment I won't risk connecting the batteries directly to the motherboard without the converter, so I don't consider this topic as concluded yet. I'll leave the link to the video of the Console working, I hope you like it...



As soon as the missing parts arrive I will finish it and conclude the topic, and I am looking for a way to upload my scans of the motherboard to the forum... as soon as I can I will try to make a separate topic that links to this one like @Y2K guided me on discord, Until next time

 

[cy]

This has shockingly few wires for what it is - all of which are routed masterfully! I seriously hope you win the competition with this! I've repaired so many sketchy PS3s over the years that I'll always see it as the most easy to break console (it is pretty well known for that after all). That, the fact this thing actually has good battery life, the fact that this really is the first of it's kind, and the fact that you got this together stupidly quickly only further drives home just how INSANE it is to see this!

I've got nothing but respect for you dude! I'm rooting for you! You've earned it!

 

[jose_Leo12]

This has shockingly few wires for what it is - all of which are routed masterfully! I seriously hope you win the competition with this! I've repaired so many sketchy PS3s over the years that I'll always see it as the most easy to break console (it is pretty well known for that after all). That, the fact this thing actually has good battery life, the fact that this really is the first of it's kind, and the fact that you got this together stupidly quickly only further drives home just how INSANE it is to see this!

I've got nothing but respect for you dude! I'm rooting for you! You've earned it!

Thank you very much my friend, this was challenging for me, as time and a lot of money was spent on it, which was sponsored by myself, and man, there are some wires so specific at the bottom, but so important that they are eliminated even though it is a very simple cut that without them the console would have a black screen that would be almost impossible to know this without the board scans, I believe this is just the beginning for the Ps3

 

[Mister M]

Great work, brother. It's great to see people with the courage to challenge themselves and seek something new for the portable console scene. Looking forward to the mappings and a possible new PCB.

 

[turknatr]

@jose_Leo12 this is an awesome project, and I appreciate all the high quality photos. Keep it up!

 

[jose_Leo12]

@jose_Leo12 this is an awesome project, and I appreciate all the high quality photos. Keep it up!

Thank you very much, I will continue (laughs)... there is very little left to finish the project, I will post a better video than this later.

 

[Lecisco]

It's really great ! Impressiv ! Good job !

 

[moahdib]

Awesome build! It's nice to see ps3 made portable!