Playstation 1 Fat Portable Guide

[Mawile]

Hi it's me, Mawile, and here I am today going to show you the basic steps for putting together a PlayStation 1 fat portable. First up some materials and tools:

1. Soldering iron
2. desoldering pump
3. rosin core solder(lead or lead-free)
4. flux
5. PlayStation 1 fat(any revision)
6. Phillips head screwdrivers
7. Pliers
8. Tact switches
9. Hot glue gun
10. Hot glue
11. Battery(Li-ion, Li-Po, Ni-Mh, Ni-Cad, Alkaline)
12. Screen(PSOne, Zenith, TFT Backup)
13. DPDT switch
14. Charger for battery(unless using alkaline)


Step 1:
Removing the Ports:

To remove these ports simply heat the contacts and use the desoldering pump to suck up the solder. Continue until all solder has been removed, then grab the port with the pliers and ently rock it and carefully pull the port off the motherboard.

The large black colored port on the far right hand side is the parallel port which is useless unless you plan on using the PSIO which as of writing has not yet been released. However if you do want to use it when it is released it may be easier for a beginner to leave this port on.

The smallest port in the middle is the serial port and can be used for a PS1 game shark or a Game enhancer which allows you to play imported games. However all games can be played anyway with a mod chip so this is only needed if you want to use a game shark with your portable. Otherwise simply remove the port.

The last port is the A/V port which is used for video output to your screen and sound output to your speakers. You must desolder this port.

Step 2:
Removing the Transformer:

If your planning on making your portable run on batteries you probably want to remove the transformer board. The good news is you can!

To remove the board simply unplug the ribbon cable and desolder the socket on the motherboard and solder the three wires in this picture to the bottom of the motherboard.

Use the following picture to wire up the power.

and follow this picture to connect it to the batteries.

Step 3:
Wiring the A/V:

The pin out can be found here. If you want mono sound then simply follow this diagram here. For stereo sound simply make two amplifiers and use both of the audio lines to the separate amps.

To connect video to a Backup screen simply get a connector and solder the wires of video and video ground to the connector and plug it into the screen. If using a PSOne screen it is a bit more difficult. Follow this picture for pin out.

 

[Mawile]

Will post more info tomorrow.

 

[Mawile]

Hi I'm back and today i will show you how to set up the controller for your portable.

Step 4:
Connecting the Controller:

To start you need to take apart your controller, being careful to not put pressure on the PCB. For anyone who has previously portablised a console, this is pretty simple.

There are two ways to do this:
1. With tact switches
2. Without tact switches
I personally prefer using tact switches but you can choose what you want. Some links:
tact switches
"mushy" tact switches (for that real controller feel)

Some materials you will need are:
a Dual-shock 1 or 2 controller
10 tact switches
protoboard/perfboard

For the the first method you need a piece of perfboard and you simply need to solder wires to the gold colored pads on the controllers PCB to the correct spots on the perfboard.

Then simply place the rubber membrane pads from the controller on the perfboard. Carefully hot glue the edges to the perfboard and then repeat with the other button groups.

Method 2 is similar to method 1. First check the continuity of the tact switch contacts then stick them through the holes in the perfboard. and solder them on the underside. solder wires to the controller PCB and the tact switches. Repeat with all of the button groups and then you are done with the buttons.

To extend the L1/L2 and the R1/R2 buttons simply desolder the wires and solder longer wires to reach where they are needed in the case.

To extend the analog sticks simply repeat the L/R button procedure for the analog stick board. if you need to move the two analog sticks apart then simply cut the analog stick PCB and rasp the traces that are broken. Now solder wires between the broken traces and you are done with the analog sticks.

Desolder the controller and memory card ports from the controller daughter-board. If using an official Sony controller then, strip the cable of the controller and follow the pictures below to connect it to the daughterboard.

If you have a third party controller check the PCB for numbers and wire them like this:

Controller
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
| | | | | | | |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Daughter board

If there are no numbers then search Google for the wiring diagrams.

And if you still can't get answers then you are out of luck and will have to ask another member for information.

Once you have done all of this then simply connect the daughter board ribbon cable back to the motherboard and you are done!

 

[Mawile]

I will not make a case-making guide but here are the instructions for putting it all together.

You will need:
1. Insulating material(foam, paper, cardboard)
2. Case for portable
3. All the guts of you console

To start ensure that there are no short circuits and test that your portable turns on. IF your disc drive is on the back glue it in place first and then glue a piece of insulation to one half of the case and then carefully lay the motherboard in on top of it and glue the corners down strongly. place another layer of insulation.

Get the other side of the case and drop the buttons into the button holes and then glue the perfboard on to the sides of the button spots. Connect the screen into the screen spot and glue around the edges to ensure a tight fit. Place the speakers over the speaker holes and then glue the edges to the case. Glue a layer of insulation over all of that and place the main controller PCB in between the the two case sides. Connect the two sides together and turn it on.

If it works congrats! If not then recheck all the connections and try again.

 

[Mawile]

Um... Bump?
Oh Well.

(Note to self: don't write guides unless requested.)

 

[Mawile]

BUMP!
Why isn't anyone replying to my topic

 

[monkeyinamansuit]

Hi Mawile I have only just registered, but had to really as I have found little info on Google for the ps1 and found this really helpful and I just wanted to say thanks .
Got an old ps1 knocking about and with car reversing LCD's being so cheap now it seemed like the perfect project to try.

 

[Mawile]

Thank you for replying i was going crazy waiting for a reply!
Hope it goes well i can give you more information if you need any

 

[arena slicer]

So just wondering are you gonna show how to trim the board? (is it possible to trim the fat ps1?)

 

[Mawile]

As of yet there is no official guide to trim the motherboard but I am working on one.

 

[arena slicer]

Nice that's gonna be really useful

 

[Spoleyo]

Very useful and informative guide. Many people don't build playstation portables as they can be played on a psp full speed. Those that do make them tend to use the psone rather than the psx anyway. Great guide though I found it very useful!

Spoleyo

 

[thecasperrojas]

nice guide , i was looking for some info on the ps1 and found some very useful info here thenks

 

[DK]

I was planning to make one for a while. If you find one of the later board revisions, they're actually a smaller surface area than the PSone board. Managed to squeeze one into a Game Gear case.

Edit: Might fins this guide from the BenHeck forum useful
http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37804

 

[jaybrokers12]

That is very nice.