Worklog PIS2, a long overdue ps2 portable

[darkwing]

Thanks mate, yes it make sense. In this current setup I wired the same data lines, 1/3 and 4/6 from the PI2 to the transformer board and to the PS2 points. I added 1 more wire from pin 2 on the transformer board to the PS2 board which must be that 3.3v pin. I've also removed the caps as they are not needed.

 

[darkwing]

Actually, before calling it done there was a bit of fine tuning I though would be better to do.

First thing was the fan, which was solder on the 3.3v line.
This wasn’t really enough to cool down the board in my opinion. After a good 15min the case started to feel really warm so I solder the 5v line instead which is much better although sounds wise is a bit more noticeable.

Another thing that I had in mind was to do a bit of a stress test to see how low would the the battery and parts go. I also use this exercise to get a better understanding around the battery setup and get a bit of a feel for setting up the low battery indicator voltage.

So I started with a fully charged battery and turn on the device, put a game on and kept monitoring the voltage drop along with how hot the device was getting.

The portable perform better than I though, it started around 8.37v, then when turn on with all the parts drawing power it was around 7.50v.

Btw, should I be worried about this?

Then from there it took around 1:10h to reach the 6.30v with was supposed to be the PCB board cut out point ( 3.20v + or - 0.05v)… which didn’t happen.

So keep monitoring to see when the PCB board would kick off. went to 6v, dip under 6v to 5.80v where everything was still going strong ( LCD, PS2, audio).

This continue all the way to 5v and the winner was the LCD board which turn off first when the battery dipped under 5v. This is where I just turn off the device to avoid the battery getting seriously discharged.

This highly the fact that I shouldn’t rely on the battery PCB to cut the current off and this is then something to watch out in the future.

With that benchmark in mind I ended up setting the battery indicator at 6.50v which should give me around 20mins until the battery reach 6v and would be around 1:15h play time.

 

[fibbef]

You're doing the devil's work here, son.

 

[MRKane]

I just want to know what that game is - is that Raziel? lol

 

[darkwing]

You're doing the devil's work here, son.

Lol literally, didn't really thinking about it when I put it on for testing but it looked like a pretty good match at the end.

I just want to know what that game is - is that Raziel? lol

It's called Shin megami tensei Lucifer's call in PAL region and Shin megami tensei Nocturne in the US. I pick it up a few month ago and really enjoyed the story and gameplay so far. It's a bit grindy but the battle mechanics and the demon fusion system is pretty addictive.

 

[steliosem06]

Im trying to put a tp link travel router inside my ps2, by itself it worked great, but inside the ps2, with the ethernet port on both the router and the ps2 removed and connected together by wires it is not working, im seeing that youre adding some kind of capacitor or other component on the wires, what exactly is it?

 

[steliosem06]

@MRKane Thanks mate for the kind words, for sure that’s a bit disheartening when you are so close.
Sometime just taking a small break helps to comeback with a clearer mindset, at least that’s what has been working for me.

So on my side I had a fairly packed modding weekend, pretty much from morning to evening.
I did more testing on my board but couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it so I ended up going for door number 2, cutting a brand new board.

So this time before doing anything to it I tried soldering the RPI2 to the ethernet points directly and it worked straight away.

I took apart my second 79001 NTSC board which was from a sliver slim and was surprise when I saw the layout being different than my first 79001 NTSC.
Looked almost like a PAL board with that lid sensor on the top right corner.

Then I removed the ports from the board and traced the lines to square of the board

Cut it up, wired the different connectors, wired the memory card and wired the PI2 to the ethernet point which… didn’t work…
At that point this whole thing didn’t make sense, why would it work just an hour ago and stop working after the board was prep.

So fast forward to around 2 hours later where I had tried to rewire multiple time and tried different length of wires to the points where the Pi2 was only a few centimetre from the PS2 board but nothing worked.

Until I realised that all the direct wiring I did prior was to the ethernet point when the ethernet jack was still in. Solder back the jack and sure enough it worked straight away.

I work my way from there, desoldering pin by pin until it stopped working and what was missing is to have one of
the middle pin solder to complete the (ground?) traces on the back of the board. So for it to work I needed 5 wires to the PS2 board.

I then tried to remove the ethernet jack and solder to those point directly with the caps but again no go, so the transformer in the jack looks like are need for this to work.

Then I remember when I was trying to find out the PI2 wiring I took apart the RPI2 ethernet port and it looked like transformers in that ports where on a small board which looked more manageable that the big PS2 ethernet port.

Long story short, did some more testing and indeed the PI2 ethernet port board worked a treat and is quite small vs a full size ethernet port.

Before putting it all back I also looked at the fan which was bothering me from last time.
The fan which I had cut down around 4 years ago was way to noisy.

I tried greasing it but that didn’t do it so I had to cut up a brand new fan and go through the
painstaking job of removing the bottom part of the fan which is made of one solid aluminium piece. took around an hour only for that last part but at least now I have a quiet fan.

I wired all up along with that PI2 ethernet board and…

It is finally alive and working as it should!
Will be posting this in the complete section soon but I might do a video first when I get some time.

So without the ethernet port on the ps2 this cant work?

 

[MRKane]

So without the ethernet port on the ps2 this cant work?

The magnetics can be bypassed by putting pullup resistors on the Mango/Router to RX0 instead of 3.3v - this was something I did accidentally at the beginning and spent ages trying to figure out why it wouldn't work later on.

 

[steliosem06]

The magnetics can be bypassed by putting pullup resistors on the Mango/Router to RX0 instead of 3.3v - this was something I did accidentally at the beginning and spent ages trying to figure out why it wouldn't work later on.

So uh.. This is what I've been working on, I'm a noobie so excuse the, well everything..

Am I cooked? I tried doing the wiring with the ps2s ethernet port still attached, and when testing continuity I was getting nothing, so i guess the port has some kind of on/off switch? Well now the port is gone and nothing, some people have told me (people that haven't done something similar) it could be a noise issue with the exposed ethernet wire and the missing Ethernet port which is why I just put some aluminium foil there to imitate the cables shielding lol , op posted a picture with a diagram that showed some kind of diagram with this connection that included some resistors/caps but he said on top of the pic that this diagram is not valid and will not work, so what should I do?

 

[MRKane]

Hey dude,

Step one would be starting yourself a thread for this as it'll be a lot better than sitting on top of a finished projects thread
Step two: read heaps, then test heaps, cry in the shower, read and test some more! So it looks like the router you've got is different from the one I used and I can't see the header pins that were on the board (different revision?) but to get a successful ethernet connection you need the RX/TX pairs connected correctly and your resistors - thus you really only need 4 wires.

Figuring out the RX/TX pairs:

• Keep everything open on your workbench. Never assume you can go straight to putting everything inside a case first
  Get it working over an ethernet connection <= important to do this step first because you never know what'll be cooked
• So part of the read/test process is establishing things before you remove your ports - I know that might sound backwards but if you connect to the underside of the ethernet ports I've found that things generally work with the PS2. This'll give you the pinout you need to use to wire things up when you're making your portable, and there's about three different configurations it could have (from memory) and this is because of the orientation of the different ethernet ports
• On the different Ethernet ports: depending on the negotiation chips the unit has you might be able to wire directly, require pullup/pulldown resistors, or even have to connect the resistors to the RX0 point on the board to get successful communication through ethernet - there's a lot that can still thwart your efforts here, but if you've got everything open on your desk it's a lot easier to do instated of hoping for the best

Troubleshooting is a hard-won skill, and there's frustratingly little information out there on establishing communication with hardware that was made in the late 90s - if you go over my Junkstation project you'll see I even gave up at one point and used MS4SIO which is actually a really good idea, especially if this is your first portable, or you want to save space/battery.

 

[steliosem06]

First of all thanks for the reply, as for why im just commenting here instead of making a post is because this is a new account and the forum wont let me post something yet

• So part of the read/test process is establishing things before you remove your ports - I know that might sound backwards but if you connect to the underside of the ethernet ports I've found that things generally work with the PS2. This'll give you the pinout you need to use to wire things up when you're making your portable, and there's about three different configurations it could have (from memory) and this is because of the orientation of the different ethernet ports

I dont understand how wiring to the underside of the board makes a difference but i will try, the cable might be too thick though for that, idk how ill do it. Or do you mean soldering to the underside with the port still attached on the top? Because I did try that first and it didnt work, and I was even testing continuity between the mini travel router and the ports pins and was getting nothing which is why i think it had some kind of on off switch. Right now ive removed the port, and have short of destroyed it, so this is all I have. The reason I destroyed it is because I was trying to tear it down and solder the wires inside it, but I ended up destroying it, while destroying it i did see some tiny components inside it, which is why I think I have to add some components to my connection as well (resistors as you said)


Also I have tried the ms4iso and while I think its great theres one little thing that many could look over but it really pisses me off, the memory card situation, I dont want to deal with vmc, and the only right way to save is to get up from my sofa after launching the game and manually remove the fmcb card and put a plain memory card on its spot, it really bothers me, I guess a memory card pro would help in this situation, Im looking to buy one

 

[MRKane]

Start a new forum post for help. I'm not going to keep helping you if you're just posting on someone elses completed project

With the components still on the PS2 board and the router the magnetic decoupling will still correct the signal, allowing you to get an idea of what the wiring should be.