Category electronics

Wow, I just read on Matrixsynth, the synthblogger who posts all he can, that someone is selling x0xb0x artwork based on my design. You can see it’s… unique stylings here.

There is one on eBay for £25 which strikes me as absurd, because more than what I was charging for the artwork, red keycap, and postage to the entire world. Also, they are printed vinyl which tends to delaminate over time.

I guess I don’t care that much, but maybe if I get bored tomorrow I’ll try faxing over the paperwork to eBay to get the auction pulled.

I just can’t get over how ugly / low budget rip-off it is… Wow.

Starting at $1, my Sequentix P3 is up for auction. I hope it finds a good home… I simply didn’t use it enough to make it worth keeping around.

The auction itself can be found here: auction number 290157675079.

Well, the goals for tonight I posted earlier were completed. I got the SCPH-1001 properly fitted with top-panel buttons which act as Play/Pause, Stop, Prev Track, Next Track, Rewind, and Fast Forward. I once again ripped into a SCPH-1080 controller in order to do this, but this time I learned from the past mistake and did things right.

I’ll write more about that later, I just wanted to share that things actually got done.

I was also able to add the power consumption information to the Millett Hybrid Maxed write-up, which makes it pretty much complete. I might make another one of these with a slightly different case (silver, wood end panels), and a different output stage. I’m not sure yet, though… next is for me to get back on to the Honda Music Link firmware rewrite thing. (That’s going to be a huge project…)

Anyway, now it’s bed time. Maybe tomorrow I’ll write up a project page about the SCPH-1001 modifications. I don’t think I’ll include much info about how it sounds (beyond “pretty good”) because I’d like to see some objective tests done on it, and I don’t have the facilities for that.

Yes. Bed. Goodnight. :)

Yay! The Sequentix P3 MemX board came in today. That means I can install it and then get the auction listed. Maybe I can get it listed Sunday on a 10-day for closing sometime the following week.

Yesterday I picked up another SCPH-1001, OEM controller, and two third-party controllers. Inside of one of the third party controllers is a larger-than-the-Sony IC for converting button presses to the Playstation controller protocol. (The other is completely potted.)

I’m going to document that board (it’s very simple and not all the pins on the chip are used) and hopefully lift the chip and place it on a new, smaller board which I’ll make up. On this board I can leave large enough pads to solder to so that I don’t have the problem I had last time. Well, the soldering problem… The root of the problem is because I documented the Sony controller at around midnight, then didn’t double-check that documentation yesterday. I had counted some pins wrong. :(

I also have to rip out the shiny cabling that I put in place the other day and replace it with… whatever the new stuff is. I might also use random salvaged flat cable to save headaches, or just some de-jacketed CAT5. I’m not sure about this yet.

Cut Down SCPH-1080 PCB and Pushbuttons
(Click for huuuuge image…)

Last night I spent a while cleaning the plastics on the SCPH-1001 that I was putting buttons in, reassembled the lid and closing mechanism, mounted the buttons and ground bus, wired up the signal lines, connected the signal lines to the pcb, and… screwed up. I’m not completely sure where I went wrong yet, but I *think* I miscounted the pins on the IC late last night when making up these notes, and possibly counted pins wrong. I still haven’t figured out what is wrong, but I think this is where things are off.

I confirmed that the connection to the rear of the controller jack is right, and things connect right to the PCB. I don’t see a short between any of the signal lines, and the Playstation does boot to the CD player screen without error. So, I’m kinda thinking I screwed up something with the PCB. I’m just a bit frustrated because I secured the wires to the board and then secured the PCB into the enclosure with hot melt glue. It’ll be a hassle to rip out, and I won’t be able to reuse the PCB. That means I’ll have to find another Playstation controller. Oh well. :(

And here I was quite happy over how it had all fit into the enclosure. I’ll just have to work on it a bit more, I guess.

SCPH-1080 Playstation Controller PCB, Cut To Size, With Test Wire
(Click for more photos…)

A little while back I posted something which showed me using a SCPH-1001 Playstation as a CD player with my recently completedMillett Hybrid Maxed headphone amp. Well, after taking the SCPH-1001 apart over the weekend I picked up some overpriced buttons from Radio Shack (so I could get started on things today) and… got to work on it.

I don’t have much to say yet, as I’m only about half-way done, but I think it should work. Basically, I’m taking the PCB from inside a controller, cutting it down to around the minimum needed (as seen above), and wiring it up to some buttons on the top of the case to act as the controller buttons needed for CD playing. The buttons will be Play/Pause, Stop, Prev Track, Next Track, Rewind, Fast Forward.

Yes, it’s a massive hack, and I normally don’t like the cutting-down-the-PCB idea, but I just wanted this done quickly and cheaply. I thought about lifting that IC and making my own board for it, but that wouldn’t provide any benefit, and would just be more effort. So, I’m doing it this way.

More pictures of this can be found here (photo gallery retired). Tomorrow I’m hoping to finish it up, and I think it’ll be possible. I’ll post more photos and maybe do one of my cheesey project writeups then.