Worklog PiiStationU Portable

[Stitches]

I would really like a solution with a dial or wheel for volume control so that I don't have to cut holes into the case or find a location to mount it as I'm quickly running out of room for that due to having mounted everything around the case already. Is there anything in that respect that'd work? The last one was a PAM 8406 (or similar) and looking at it the chip is properly popped.

I have an idea for how to do that. First you'll need one of these or these PAM8403 amps. The first has a trim pot built in, but you can desolder it if you don't like it. Then you'll need some of these 50k ohm volume wheels. You might be able to use the wheel you have already if it's 45k+. The amp with the trim pot would be the easiest to work with IMO because of its pre-existing solder pads for the pot. You'd just have to use a multimeter to identify which two points are L, which two are R and which two are ground, desolder the trim and wire in the wheel. You can do the same with the barebones amp, but I don't remember if the wheel goes on the input or output side. (I think it might be the input side)

 

[MRKane]

Genius idea! I've actually been scratching around my scrap pile and wondering if there's enough pieces to build something, do you know which side the volume goes on? Before or after the amp? You've triggered a bit of a crazy idea

 

[Stitches]

Genius idea! I've actually been scratching around my scrap pile and wondering if there's enough pieces to build something, do you know which side the volume goes on? Before or after the amp? You've triggered a bit of a crazy idea

Going by logic I'd say it's most likely between the PS2 and the amp input. Putting it on the output doesn't make as much sense, you'd lose a lot of control.

 

[MRKane]

So after a bit of peering at the PCB through a loupe I concluded that it was between the amp and the source (as you said). I cut up the old amp board and wired bits and pieces into the tiny and really simple amp board I was going to use for another project, jumpered a few things that were missing thanks to the prior project and, well - I've just solved the amp problem. It can be scratchy when moved around but for the better part it'll be nailed down on final assembly. Thanks so much for that!

Oh, and no, you're not getting a photograph - I use to dissect animals for a degree and that was better looking than this mess!

 

[Stitches]

Shielding the wire between the wheel and the amp will help with interference at low volume.

 

[MRKane]

I've used some of that fancy interwound wire for the audio system which seems to do a good job of removing any noise in the lines. What I mainly meant was that it went snap, crackle, and pop while I was moving it and messing with it.

In other developments: As it turns out the screen needs it's own independent power supply (I don't think the other one provided sufficient current) to run, and I contacted the manufacturer who said that it should have up to 1.5A. Measuring it I found it consumed a more modest 0.6A but I think it occasionally peaks for no apparent reason. So that's forced a re-think for the internal layout as the options are to either get a bigger, bulkier, and hotter 5A step-down or use the little efficient one that I had for the Pi - I think I'll be able to squeeze the little board in but the headphone jack is going to have to go.

 

[MRKane]

Right, these last few days have been a challenge, but I've managed to get some time to push ahead with this project.

For those who like wiring this is probably the biggest mess in the whole damn thing, you can see the edges of the custom "button board" that I cut out of some copper shielding tape.

Making use of buttons and lights that come with the unit, because why not? I did think about lighting up the home button (which is reset) but had no super easy way to do it, knew nothing about the LED, figured it'd get annoying, and was frankly getting sick of soldering to things so tiny when I'd not even assembled it to test yet.

The whole thing, sort of together and only partially locked down. Less Ron Jeremy and more Sasha Grey please. I had to put in another 5V buckboost to power the screen, and typically it's overheating and causing the screen to turn off. I've another power unit on the way that should handle the whole system, but I might have to consider some system-wide cooling as the HDMI driver board gets hot too.

One with the HDMI board folded up to show the mess that I've created under this:

Needless to say that upscaled to HDMI it looks fantastic, I really hope that I can make this work. Bonus points for guessing the game

So from here:
I'm thinking about making the 5V power converter external to the main unit and mounting it on the side of the battery pack, which will also include the switches and perhaps a charging circuit. While it runs fine off of the PS2 PSU at the moment I'm wondering if 12V will blow up the PS2 or if it'll run fine on it. 8.5V is a really odd voltage after all. No idea how I'm going to do that, will figure it out as it happens

 

[MRKane]

As a question for everyone:
-Does anyone know where the points for the status indicator LED are on the SCPH 7900X board? I was thinking that I'd like to tap into it to monitor my power situation.

 

[fibbef]

Bonus points for guessing the game

Red Dead Revolver?

Just had to add that. Sorry, I can’t help with the board.

 

[MRKane]

Red Dead? Close, it's "Samurai Western" - I'm a sucker for Western themed games, and this was the smallest of all of them to put on a USB lol.

Talking about the lights I lose the trace while trying to track it through the board. Is the PS2 a four layer or something?

 

[Dave Mackintosh]

Red Dead? Close, it's "Samurai Western" - I'm a sucker for Western themed games, and this was the smallest of all of them to put on a USB lol.

Talking about the lights I lose the trace while trying to track it through the board. Is the PS2 a four layer or something?

It's a 4 layer board, check the PS2 Trimming Initiative for a voltage layer peek by @Gman and @Lightning has a full layer peek of a 79001, i think?

 

[MRKane]

Ripped out the power sections for the unit as having them inside the case as opposed to outside was just another thing to cool and get in the way. Heat sync finally arrived today (talk about quick!) and typically it doesn't leave enough room for the HDMI board.

So at this stage it's either "find another 5mm", "cut bits off of the heatsync", or "find another way". I might sit on this one and think about it for a bit. At the moment I'm leaning towards a "there are two chips that need cooling and they could each have their own fan". Now flipping it 180 from the photo would allow me to cut a few bits out and hopefully make that conformation work - I'm going to sleep on it however as I don't have a spare one least I screw something up. Am once again open to suggestions on this one.

Also got myself a 3D printer. So far I've stubbed my toe on it a few times, and generally been too afraid to touch it least I break something lol.

 

[Stitches]

Ripped out the power sections for the unit as having them inside the case as opposed to outside was just another thing to cool and get in the way. Heat sync finally arrived today (talk about quick!) and typically it doesn't leave enough room for the HDMI board.

So at this stage it's either "find another 5mm", "cut bits off of the heatsync", or "find another way". I might sit on this one and think about it for a bit. At the moment I'm leaning towards a "there are two chips that need cooling and they could each have their own fan". Now flipping it 180 from the photo would allow me to cut a few bits out and hopefully make that conformation work - I'm going to sleep on it however as I don't have a spare one least I screw something up. Am once again open to suggestions on this one.

Also got myself a 3D printer. So far I've stubbed my toe on it a few times, and generally been too afraid to touch it least I break something lol.

Mine arrived yesterday too. We must have got in just before the shipment. Internals are looking crowded, but good.

 

[MRKane]

I always knew this was going to be a very tight fit and was wondering why I take on projects like this, but figure I like the challenge. It's heartening to know from an expert eye that it doesn't look like something's about to go really wrong. To be honest I'm not far off giving up and doing something useful, like installing a dishwasher

I was actually able to peck a hole through the PS2 PCB that'll line up with the mounting point on the Wii U which would come in handy had I not had to cut the bottom off of the mount on the other side of the shell. I did a little housekeeping around the unit also, tidied and trimmed a few things to try and squeeze a little more space out of it, and also wired up the Wii U gamepad lights, just in case I found a use for them (and blew one of them up - turns out red wasn't 2.3V, I really should check datasheets instead of following my gut).

The cut I'm thinking of for the heat sink will keep the big hot chip covered, but only partially cover the smaller one - I'm still trying to think my way out of that, and figure out what more I can skim off of the "depth" of it to make it fit in the Wii U gamepad.

Finally: After an evening trying to find a trace point for the PS2 status light I still haven't found it. Will keep looking because damn it'd be cool if I could wire that up!

 

[Dave Mackintosh]

Finally: After an evening trying to find a trace point for the PS2 status light I still haven't found it. Will keep looking because damn it'd be cool if I could wire that up!

You mean the red/standby green/on LED? I think there's a little 6 pin IC by one of the 5v smoothing caps by the USB that controls that. I think it's 3.3v, probe the IC pins here (to the right of the image, left of the cap) (image screenshot from GMans's definitive trimming guide)

Those two through vias are 8.5v IIRC so don't connect and LED to those, lol.

 

[MRKane]

I've been sniffing around here, but the problem is that I've cut that bit off the board I'm using. There are a handful of vias along the lines that I'll try and follow it back to. Come tomorrow I might see about attaching wires so I can track things a bit better. Part of my gut says there's switching happening on the "button" (or would you call it LED) PCB possibly.

 

[Dave Mackintosh]

I've been sniffing around here, but the problem is that I've cut that bit off the board I'm using. There are a handful of vias along the lines that I'll try and follow it back to. Come tomorrow I might see about attaching wires so I can track things a bit better. Part of my gut says there's switching happening on the "button" (or would you call it LED) PCB possibly.

I don't think there is, there's a couple resistors for the LED, the IR sensor and a disk lid sensor but nothing clever enough to switch from red to green AFAIK. I'm pretty sure none of the resistors are a pull up/pull down logic either.

 

[MRKane]

I was more wondering if it might be one of those LEDs that was one colour at one voltage, and another at a different voltage. Turns out that it's not, and that it's driven by 1.7V (which won't be enough to get light out of the only LED I've spare on the Wii U board which is blue) but hey - it's another mystery solved.

The tiny purple dot indicates the only tiny solder point I've found for this one

So I finally fixed the issues with the control system - it turned out to be a bridge on the controller chip between two of the pins. Resolving that fixed the scrolling problems. I also had a crack wiring the rest of the Wii U controls into RDCs controller board and as he predicted it works like a dream.

I think the next challenge is making space for that fan and we might be about set on this one - I've now got this idea that I can use the battery pack to cover what could soon be a large gaping hole where the fan and heat sink are. So one more question: any idea which part of that heat sink cools best? I'm thinking having the fan over the main chip mightn't be the best solution here.

 

[MRKane]

Another question for everyone:
If you run padtest.elf what value do you get for "up" on both of the analogue sticks? I'm getting 255 (ish) for up and for right for both thumbpads but in the only game I've had to test on (Samurai Western) that seems to be inverted. It's looking like I'll have to doctor the Wii U thumbpads at this stage to invert that value unless I can think of a smarter way to do it, but before doing so would love to know what values people are getting for both sticks.

Oddly enough left/right still seems to be correct for the left stick at least. Go figure.

 

[MRKane]

So, nothing sprung to mind when it came to how to inverse the signals from the Y axis of the left thumbstick without making physical "modifications" so I opted to try and cut the different traces. Naturally they were on both sides of the board for prosperity. So one thumbstick desoldered, one desolder pump that decided to do the "explode into bits" thing, and surprisingly a soldering iron tip that burnt out...it's been quite an evening but I've only fixed up one stick. Still it works. I'm going to assume that both sticks need inverted, but most FPS games have the option of inverting right control so it mightn't be necessary.

The desoldered thumbstick board for your viewing pleasure. I'll probably not post the other one as lets face it, it's just another PCB.

How to flip the axis MRKane styles: Wire them to the other lines. Fiddly and ineloquent but it works I suppose.

While I've got these things open, does anyone have a favourite "make glowy sticks" mod that I could stick in here too? You know, because if you're going to overhaul something a little extra yards helps warm the gratification cockles in a modders heart.