Worklog Chunchunmaru - A PS2 Portable

AFE123

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8/11/22

Hi,

It's been a hot minute. I made some good progress:

-The PCBs arrived from china. For cheap shipping, two weeks isn’t bad. So, here are the pcbs in their full glory.

As mentioned before, This board will hold the regulators I’m using. It’s a pain to wire up the regs, so I put them on the PCB instead.I was foolish and got rid of the Through hole pins on the regs and it’s backfiring on me now. I’m selling the PTR and PTH reg that’s not on the board, so if you’re interested, PM me. If I don’t get anything by next week, I’ll keep them and try to make them work.

This is for the charging system. It’s based on the ashen's charge or play circuit so It had 3 modes: battery, charging and wall power mode. I utilized the TP5100 module and some random BMS off amazon. I haven’t been able to test it with batteries, but it works as intended. Also, I won’t have to worry about someone plugging it in while running on the batteries since the TP5100 will not be connected to anything.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to take a small hiatus from this project. 1st, I’m running a bit low on funds. I fortunately have a university job lined up, so that shouldn't be a concern for too long. I’m also underequipped. TBH, the Plusivo iron is inadequate. While it does have a temperature knob, it doesn’t maintain the temperature and soldering becomes difficult. It is far better than the Walmart fire sticks, but it’s not good enough for portablizing. I’m planning on designing a soldering station based on this guide.

On a different note, does anyone have any tips on removing the solder/pins from these holes? I tried using my solder sucker, but it didn't work very well.



Also, does anyone have any tips on scrapping the usb traces on the PS2. What kind of knife should I use, and should I invest in a microscopic camera?
 
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I love your idea for creating a series of carrier boards for the power electronics. I did something like that once. Anyway as for scraping the solder mas from the USB traces, I would refer to the old PSP Undiluted Platinum installations. That mod chip required soldering wires directly to the data lines, and I think it even came with a special tool to help guide the exacto knife.

Small picture, but you can see what I mean:
 

Stitches

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8/11/22

Hi,

It's been a hot minute. I made some good progress:

-The PCBs arrived from china. For cheap shipping, two weeks isn’t bad. So, here are the pcbs in their full glory.

As mentioned before, This board will hold the regulators I’m using. It’s a pain to wire up the regs, so I put them on the PCB instead.I was foolish and got rid of the Through hole pins on the regs and it’s backfiring on me now. I’m selling the PTR and PTH reg that’s not on the board, so if you’re interested, PM me. If I don’t get anything by next week, I’ll keep them and try to make them work.

This is for the charging system. It’s based on the ashen's charge or play circuit so It had 3 modes: battery, charging and wall power mode. I utilized the TP5100 module and some random BMS off amazon. I haven’t been able to test it with batteries, but it works as intended. Also, I won’t have to worry about someone plugging it in while running on the batteries since the TP5100 will not be connected to anything.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to take a small hiatus from this project. 1st, I’m running a bit low on funds. I fortunately have a university job lined up, so that shouldn't be a concern for too long. I’m also underequipped. TBH, the Plusivo iron is inadequate. While it does have a temperature knob, it doesn’t maintain the temperature and soldering becomes difficult. It is far better than the Walmart fire sticks, but it’s not good enough for portablizing. I’m planning on designing a soldering station based on this guide.

On a different note, does anyone have any tips on removing the solder/pins from these holes? I tried using my solder sucker, but it didn't work very well.



Also, does anyone have any tips on scrapping the usb traces on the PS2. What kind of knife should I use, and should I invest in a microscopic camera?
I just use a solder braid with heaps of flux
 

AFE123

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9/24/22

I’m back from my small hiatus. Turns out that I have a lot more time this year than last year. Due to particular class placements, I find myself free from the tyrannies of a grad level orchestra. After trimming my first PS2 a few months ago, I bought another PS2 just in case I fucked the trim up. I decided to do the standard trim on the second PS2 because it’d be easier for a beginner like me.
I haven’t been able to test my first board because soldering PTH regs on my custom PCB was a pain in the ass, and I’d need to buy new regs with pins. I’ll probably create a custom board based on readily available ICs.

With that out the way, I have good and bad news:

Bad news, it turns out that my charging module pcb based on ashen’s charge or play circuit isn’t usable on my project. Why? The TP5100.

The TP5100 is a charging module which will use a DC power source, and it'll handle all of the charging stuff. It features short circuit protection which is great, but it’s also my undoing. To power up the PS2, you need to shorten the reset pad with ground. The TP5100 sees that as a short and refuses to provide the voltages. I then used the PS2 power adapter to the input points directly.

This fixed the immediate problem the TP5100 caused. I then tried turning it on again, but I didn’t get any video. While this was the case, I did notice that the chip was heating up, so I had a feeling that there was a problem with the 5V line.

I had a feeling that there were other things on the PS2 powered by 5V. I then came to the conclusion that I need to connect 5V to the LDO’s output pin. After doing that and pressing the reset button, good news emerged.


The board works!!!!

Next, I’ll have to design a new PCB which will manage the following
*Voltage regulation (8.4V and 5V)
*Charge and play
*Battery protection (Might just use BMS circuit I already have).

I’ll also consider designing a breakout board for external video and controller stuff.

This brings up a few questions:
*For charge and play, I’m going full out with fancy shit. For charging a 2s battery pack, what’s the modern solution to charge and play besides the red board? I’m aware that Gman’s PMS utilizes the bq25895M IC, but I don’t think it supports 2s battery charging. I'm familiar with one of the solutions, but it seems to be cumbersome and it's 5 years old.
 
Last edited:

AFE123

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10/4/22

I finally relocated the controller.


I also got to testing it.

Another important thing to mention:

Third party controllers like this won’t have DAT, CMD on the pcb. Here's a note that should help others:
VDD: 3.5V
D1: DAT
D0: CMD
CS: ATT
And everything else speaks for itself.

Thanks Spectrum Speed!

I’m also starting work on the case in Fusion 360. I’ll probably design a landscape styled portable.

For charging, using a battery charging IC might be a little too advanced for me. Instead, I’ll try to come up with a system using a mosfet.

Board Scans:

Okay, so I want to utilize the old fashioned technique of cutting up a controller. This way:
*I don’t have to waste stuff I have
*Authentic feeling buttons.
*learning how to do basic board scans
*I may do more complex projects involving this technique.

Shockslayer’s ben heck submission Briefly goes over the process:

Step 1

Scan the board (Kept solder mask since I want to cut it


Next, draw the traces and stuff:
Not the prettiest, but it works. I verified the important connections with a multimeter.

Finally, incisions:

On paper, this should work. I have no intention of implementing rumble into my project, so I won’t be relocating the 7.5V line. Also, relocating the shoulder buttons will be straight forward. Finally, I have convenient test pads I could use , so I don’t need to scrape as many traces.

I then scanned the joystick board and did the exact same thing:


Note about board scans: I used them for my needs. They may suck, so use them at your own risk.

With this cut, I’ll have convenient relocation points.

I’ll do some testing and verify that everything works.

I then went to actually cutting and wiring everything together.



When I tested it, I had no luck. The PS2 didn’t respond when I shorted the buttons to 3.5V. If I were to guess, it may be the fact that I don’t have the joysticks wired up. If that doesn’t change anything, I’ll then check my wiring and make sure I have everything wired up correctly. Based off these pics, Does the wiring look okay? I tested continuity and ensured that everything was connected, but there may be shorts.
 
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Looks great! Yes the PS2 controller needs joysticks connected or it won't work properly.
 

AFE123

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12/28/22

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this worklog, but I’m not dead. I’ve been busy with school. The semester ended, giving me a lot more time. Knowing that the ps2 works, I’m almost ready for the final assembly. Before that, I need to design the case. There are a ton of challenges that I’m facing with case design. For starters, I don’t have my own 3D printer. This means that I need to make sure everything is correct before getting them printing. It took two revisions before getting a case I liked.




This is the first version of the case. I got inspiration from Ashens PS2P. I remember watching his PS2P video and Rated E Mods video featuring him when I was a kid. The problem is, It’s massive (G-wii for comparison). There are many issues with this setup: Finding someone with a printer big enough would be hard and it’d cost a lot to make, and it'd be uncomfortable.


1672851439639.png

This is my second attempt at a case. I got the idea from Gman's modern ps2 portable. I also put the text from Chunchunmaru onto my portable, because Chunchunmaru.

I realized that implementing shoulder buttons would be difficult and outside my skill level, so I decided to use tact switches. I also decided to not implement speakers and use a bluetooth transmitter instead. I have speakers but I want to use them with a u amp on my next project. Before sending it off, I'll make a new file, put the parts in the appropriate places to ensure everything is right

I finally found my FMCB card, So I’ll have to get to testing the relocation. While working on it, I witnessed some strange shit: The PS2 motherboard is acting weird. When I wired up the ps2 power cable to the motherboard, it didn’t work. I checked the voltage of the wires going into the system and it is not showing anything. The 5V reg has an LED, but it’s blinking on and off. I checked the PSU voltage and it showed 9 initially, but went down to zero. I’ll have to do some work, but I’ll leave it until I get to the final assembly.

That’s pretty much it for now.
 
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