StayWitMe

“I am whom i am. Love it or Hate it ”

Tuesday, September 18 || 3:37:00 PM

OMG!!!!!!!!!!! i just cam across something that i find it superb cool...

people who are like me, owns a PSP (slim or normal) should try it out if they find it cool too...

dont blink...

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you can do yourself if you want to.

PSP Push-Activated Shoulder Button Lighting

Intro

Sony decided to make the PSP shoulder buttons transparent, leaving modders an excellent opportunity to make the device look way cooler with lighting. Llamma has done a write up on adding lights to the buttons. I wanted a similar effect, but not for the lights to be on all the time—I wanted the buttons to light when they are pushed. This is how I did it.

First Try

My first attempt at this can be seen here. I finished lighting the left button and left the right for another day. As you can see in the old writeup, I got a lot of my information from Llamma’s write up, with some obvious changes. When I opened the PSP back up to do the right side, I decided to completely re-do the left (I wasn’t optimistic about the durability, and I also ran into some shorting issues with the wire I used. It turned out that the varnish insulation was unreliable, and it occasionally shorted to the metal frame it ran through, which was grounded.). The second time around, I deviated from Llamma’s instructions even more.

The Plan

I used blue surface-mount LED’s to light the buttons, and I took them from a junk cell phone. Here you can see my technique for removing them. Use a small sewing needle to gently wedge under the LED while you alternately melt the solder on either side until the LED lifts up:

At first, I tried to light the buttons following Lllamma’s instructions, where you drill a hole into the button and put the LED inside. This method does a good job of transferring light to the plastic, but it forces the wires that connect the LED to flex every time you press the button. I tried this method at first:

I was unhappy with the durability of this method, and it also caused the button to be more difficult to press. The wire I used is plastic-insulated solid-core wire-wrap wire. Finally I settled on lighting the buttons from beneath, so the LED would not have to move. Also, I needed to switch on the light when the button is pressed, but without affecting the existing electronics. To do this, I used a couple of small limit switches taken from a CD-ROM drive. Electronically, the LED’s get +3.8 Volts from the nearest point on the board that will supply it, and they use the switched ground connected to the green power LED. This ensures that they will only work when the PSP is on (I got this information from Llamma). The mechanical challenge is in fitting in the switches so that they will be pushed by the shoulder buttons, but not affect their action.

The Left Side (the easy one)

The left side is the one I did first, and the only one I did on my first attempt, because there is a perfect place to put the switch. It is explained in the first try page. With the switch in place, the LED sits right next to it, facing up.

Power comes from the plus side of the memory stick indicator. To get it there, run the wire under the plastic d-pad piece. This requires that a small notch is cut at the bottom edge.

From there, the wire must be bent to run along the edge of this plastic piece to the left, so that it avoids the piece of the metal under-screen frame (which I removed for doing the work). Then it is bent down and curves to connect to one side of the current-limiting resistor for the orange led. It is glued to take stress off the solder joint.

The other side of the LED connects to the switch, and the other side of the switch runs to ground. Here is the path it takes (it is the yellow wire)

The wire runs along the board, right next to an existing black wire that is taped down along the path. It runs underneath the Δ □ O X button board, and comes up through a hole near the bottom. It is glued at that hole to take stress off of the solder joint, where it connects to the resistor for the green power LED. That completes the wiring for the left side. Here, everything is in place:

The PSP is powered on and the wiring is checked:

The last step is to use a knife to scrape the white paint off of the underside of the button to allow light through. This is done only on the slanted section. The switch is put in place and the left side is done.

The Right Side

The right side is more difficult because there’s no space right around the button to fit the limit switch. First, the LED is wired up. The ground connection is the same as the left, but another source of +3.8V is needed. Probing around leads to the discovery that this spot on the board is directly connected to the + side of the battery:

A small spot on this section of the board is scraped to remove the coating and tinned. This time, I learned my lesson with the solid-core and made some pre-bent wire shapes. This one connects the plus power point to the LED, leading around the white charging connector.

Another shape is pre-bent to lead away under the Δ □ O X button board, and the LED is soldered on:

The whole assembly fits right into this location and is glued with hot glue underneath. It is observed that there is plenty of room under the R button at this spot, even when it is depressed:

Next, the switch must be placed. It is observed that this entire area is EMPTY! I found it quite surprising that Sony left this whole area unused:

There is plenty of room for the switch here. A wire is connected to the existing ground wire underneath the board, and this and the wire from the LED are run through a hole in the plastic ground plane thingie. The button board is removed to make this whole process easier:

Next, the switch is connected to the wires and glued in place. It has plenty of room in this spot, the only consideration for locating it is a few plastic posts that come up from the underside when the battery release button is pressed.

The R button must now be connected to the switch mechanically. A staple is a good size and stiffness for this, so one side is straightened and inserted into the lower portion of the button. This is done by heating the staple with a soldering iron while pushing it into the plastic.

The staple can be bent slightly to fit in its path, which leads down into the cavity containing the switch. The end is trimmed and bent over:

Before putting the button in place, scrape off the paint as was done on the left:

The button is put in place and hot glued to the end of the limit switch post. This prevents it from slipping off of the post, but allows flexibility so that the joint won’t break:

The button board is replaced, and everything is complete!

Do a final test of both buttons before reassembly.

This is what it looks like with the metal frame attached. The modifications are barely visible.

Now playing Splinter Cell in the dark is even more awesome!

Thanks for reading. My name is Everett Bradford, I am a mechanical engineering student at RPI. This and my other projects are for fun, I do them in my spare time. If you attempt this one, make sure you’re comfortable with soldering SMD’s. You will need a magnifier and a sharp iron (although I did this one with the eight-dollar radioshack iron!), and make sure you have some spare parts around—the most difficult spot is the resistor on the green power led. I messed with this one so much that I destroyed the resistor and had to replace it with one I found in another junk device. Don’t trash your PSP! If you do, send me an email and we can talk about fixing it for you. everettbradfordgmail.com

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too much trouble for you? then pay the money...

they will do it for you...

1. http://sg.auctions.yahoo.com/sg/i::210325170

2, http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=173677&page=1