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- May 17, 2025
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The idea is pretty stupid, but I started looking at what it would take to make a Playstation TV portable. If you don't know what this is, I don't blame you. It's basically a ps vita that you plug in to your TV and play using Playstation 3 controllers. I think they advertised it like once and then shortly after gave up on the entire vita line lol (RIP in peace). And you might be wondering, why bother when the regular vita exists? Well, I thought it was a funny idea. That's it.
I also thought it'd be a good first step into console modding since it's a single compact board that I wouldn't have to cut down to size, do a lot of soldering on, or worry about heat management since it is a passively cooled device. I'm thinking I'll be able to take off a few components and get a (more or less) credit card sized cca that I can shove into an enclosure. It also uses a standard controller port (USB), has normal hdmi output, and has low power requirements (5V @ 1.6A) so even though I still have a ton to look into, overall I'm feeling this won't be too bad for a first attempt.
So far I've looked into these topics...
I also thought it'd be a good first step into console modding since it's a single compact board that I wouldn't have to cut down to size, do a lot of soldering on, or worry about heat management since it is a passively cooled device. I'm thinking I'll be able to take off a few components and get a (more or less) credit card sized cca that I can shove into an enclosure. It also uses a standard controller port (USB), has normal hdmi output, and has low power requirements (5V @ 1.6A) so even though I still have a ton to look into, overall I'm feeling this won't be too bad for a first attempt.
So far I've looked into these topics...
- Attaching a controller to the USB port
- The Playstation TV works with a PS3 controller and a PS4 controller.
- I wanted to emulate a PS4 controller because the touchpad lets you emulate the Playstation Vita touchscreen, but after some research I learned that the PS4 controller has some kind of security chip in it that lets the console know that it's a real PS4 controller (?) and won't work if the chip isn't present. Something like that.
- Playstation 3 controllers don't have this security feature, and the USB descriptors / messages for those are already publicly available. I found a nicely commented one on someone's github, but I haven't tested it yet. I also vaguely recall some kind of feature where you can click in L3 or R3 on a PS3 controller and it'll give you that same touch emulation that you get with the PS4 controller but when I tried that with my Playstation TV it wasn't doing anything, so I dunno. That would be a nice feature to have since there's software patches that allow a PS TV to bypass the blacklist for games that require the touch functionality.
- I also don't know if the PS TV even implements the "security chip check" for the PS4 controller so that option might still be on the table. I remember seeing that those USB messages are also available online, just need to get around to checking if it works.
- I'm hoping to just remove the USB port and directly hook it up to a controller CCA to make the motherboard thinner.
- Controller CCA
- I'm not exactly sure what needs to go into the CCA at the moment, but I do know that I'm going to put a microcontroller on it and hook the microcontroller up to the USB port to emulate the controller.
- I used an STM32L0 series microcontroller in a previous project, so I will likely stick with that series for this one too. I got an L053R8 dev board to try the USB communication out and got it to emulate a mouse click on my laptop so it works at least.
- This microcontroller has some built-in ADCs and a bunch of GPIO, so it should work for the 17 controller buttons plus the four analog stick axes.
- I'm having trouble finding the speed of a PS3 controller. This microcontroller has a USB 2.0 FS port, but the PS3 apparently has a USB 2.0 HS port. I don't know if this will cause any issues... worst case I'll just have to find another microcontroller that does HS
- Voltage input
- The back of the Playstation TV says that it accepts 5V @ 1.6A. The included charger says 5V @ 2A.
- I took the board out of the casing and probed around a bit while the system was on
- My scope was showing more like 5.5V at the input, going into what looked like a 3.7 V switcher.
- I saw the 3.7 V used in a few spots
- There's some kind of debug header (?) on the back of the board that was producing 1.8 V.
- There were also a bunch of smaller voltages. The LDOs for these seem to be on the back of the board where a little sticky / heat pad was. It felt like the pad was not going to rip off nicely, so I didn't take it off to probe under there.
- I didn't see any more instances of the 5.5V, except for the cap next to the USB port. I'm pretty sure USB can run without the 5V if the other device is already powered, so the cap might not be needed. This is one of the taller components on the board, so it would be nice if I could remove it.
- The 3.7 V switcher and whatever was producing the 1.8 V remained on even when the unit was turned off
- Controller PCB design
- I've never done a controller PCB before. Some things to look into will be...
- SMT pushbuttons vs membrane buttons / bare pads
- Is debounce circuitry used for the buttons or is it usually debounced in software?
- Should the buttons be normally high or normally low? (or does it matter at all)
- I don't know what kind of joysticks or buttons to use yet
- I've never done a controller PCB before. Some things to look into will be...
- Case design
- I've also never designed a controller case before. I don't really know what it's going to look like, I was originally wanting to do like a PSP go design or a DS flip design but I felt like that would be biting off way more than I could chew, especially since I'm not mechanically inclined at all.
- The motherboard is around 3.84" x 2.34" x 0.33" not including the ethernet port (0.15", without the HDMI / USB connector / USB cap), and has a lot of low profile spots, so there's a lot of possibilities for the case
- HDMI connection and screen
- The HDMI connector seemed pretty bulky compared to the rest of the system
- I couldn't find any really thin HDMI cables, so I was initially thinking of removing the HDMI connector and replacing it with one of those FFC connectors and a ribbon cable. I'm thinking it'd probably be fine because it would run a very short distance, but I haven't done enough research to know if this will actually work or not. It also seemed like a giant PITA to get the connector off because there's components around it and below it. I also don't have a hot air gun or a board preheater and the little ground legs around the connector don't look like they have thermal reliefs so I would likely wind up destroying the connector or damage the board trying to get it off.
- There are probably HDMI to FFC adapters out there that'll work with the existing port, but that'll just make the device bulkier...
- I need to research what kind of screens are typically used for stuff like this (power usage, resolution, etc)
- I need to research what kind of speakers would work for this
- Batteries
- I am going to probe around some more to see if 5V is really needed. It could open up more battery options if it isn't.
- I need to research what batteries would be good for this. 5V 2A doesn't seem like a lot to me, but I really don't know a thing about batteries, charging, or battery safety...
- This topic scares me
- Heat
- The Playstation TV came with two removable metal shields. I'm guessing they were both there for heat dissipation because the thermal pads on both sides came into contact with them.
- Not sure what to do with this yet.
