Broken PSP Go repair

I was crawling around Ebay about two weeks ago looking for good deals on broken but repairable electronics like I normally do. I've bought up countless iPods in the past to repair and resell. In fact just over Thanksgiving break I found a Nintendo DS that works perfectly but has a broken hinge for $5, but that is a story for another day. So begins a tale of an adventure on my most recent excursion.

This time I found a PSP Go (the full sized PSP's little digital media only cousin) that was listed by the seller, who was a reseller likely with no specialized knowledge about hardware, as "not turning on" and "unable to test without a charger". The description and the price ($30) piqued my interest. The photos posted showed that the unit was in good physical condition (with the exception of some scratches on the lcd). I wagered on the unit not having any water or electrical damage. It takes some experience and intuition to be able to tell what is repairable and what is too far gone. I just felt it in my gut that this would all work out in the end. So I took a gamble and quickly bought the device. I just hoped I hadn't thrown $30 away on a expensive paper weight. After all that has happened in the past.

It just arrived today and I excitedly returned with the small package to my dorm room to begin operation. I was so excited that I slammed my knee into my desk twice and winced in pain as I attempted to diagnose the device. Just as the seller said the device did absolutely squat when the power switch was pressed. No surprises there!

So I opened her up. Thanks Sony for using standard Phillips screws! If only they wouldn't use proprietary hardware ... but I digress. I was inside in under a minute. The only thing that was keeping me from the battery was an annoying warranty void sticker. Hah like I care. RIPPPPP! Well there goes the likely long gone warranty. I measured the voltage on the lithium ion battery and unsurprisingly it was completely dead. Oh well. Like the seller I didn't have the charging cable ... cough cough .. proprietary hardware ... so I was seemingly out of luck.

But I'm an engineer and engineers are stubborn but more importantly they are resourceful. I had a familiar max1555 (lithium ion/polymer battery charge controller) wired up on a breadboard. Of course another problem popped up, the battery used an annoying tiny connector but all was not lost. I'm up at college so all I had was some twisty ties so I cut off the insulation and just poked the wires into the connector, dirty and ugly but it'll work. Now I just needed 5-8V preferably without sacrificing a USB cable or power cord. I had a USB to USART bridge module on hand and luckily it has a 5V output so I just tapped into that. I plugged it into a USB wallwart and waited for the battery to charge a bit. I hooked up a meter to keep an eye on the battery's voltage.

Well after the battery sat there for a while I grew impatient so I measured the battery to make sure it had some charge and threw it back into the device. I waited with bated breath as I flipped the power switch ... big fat NOTHING!!! Of course it wouldn't be that simple. Oh well ... save me Google! A few minutes of research netted me with the hint that holding left on the D-pad while pressing power may yet resurrect my unit. I had nothing to lose so tried it ...

... and the PSP rose from its slumber to greet me with the XMB. Yeah. Now we are cooking. I thoroughly tested the unit and everything works. I ended up getting a device which used goes for around $80-100 online for only $30. All I needed was some patience, perseverence, and a huge pair of ... engineering skills!

Every device I fix or take apart gives me experience and knowledge. I highly recommend going to thrift stores or surfing Ebay and picking up cheap old electronics to mess around with. There is no guarantee that everything will work out as well this experience, but the skills I have gained from not just my successes but also my failures work to further my capabilities as well as my confidence. Every little lesson is invaluable.

Sorry I rambled on for a bit, but I just felt like trying to inspire other fellow engineers just starting out to take the plunge and mess around with some otherwise "broken" electronics and possibly save them from ending up in a landfill. Engineering and life are about being fearless and resourceful when conditions are not optimal. In the end I will be happy if my writeup was marginally entertaining and inspired others to do something similar.

As always comment below if you have any questions or are in need of advice. I always try my best to help. See you at my next electronics hacking or repair escapade!

Fixing a PS3 Controller that Wont Charge

Recently I found a cheap used PS3 at a local Game and Trade that was closing its doors. It's the older "fat" 80GB model. Everything was in pretty good condition except for the controller. It was obviously the store demo controller and thus was unbelievably disgusting. I had to handle it with gloves on. I entirely disassembled it and disinfected every part of it. There were a few things wrong with it:

1) I never eat or drink while playing for good reason (there was dried soda and chip fragments inside) along with mass amounts of gunk amassed from every hand that touched it.
2) There was a screw missing and the bottom tab snapped off so it was obviously opened before.
3) The analog nubs were missing their rubber tops.
4) I didn't realize it until the controller had low battery, but it refuses to charge.

I easily remedied the first two with a thorough cleaning and a screw from my screw collection. The third will be repaired with some help from my friend EBAY. Finally the last one was a little tricky. I think the charging issue might be due to some liquid damage. I measure the voltage when plugged into a USB adapter and noticed that instead of a nice 5V, I was getting a unstable 2V. This explains why the PS3 complains about too much current being drawn when the controller is plugged in. I figured I had nothing to lose so I went about trying to fix this problem.

Ultimately I figured that it would be far easier and cheaper to add in my own charging circuitry than track down the short circuit culprit and replace parts I likely did not have on hand. I started with a chip I am very familiar with and had in my parts box, the max1555. This tiny five pin smt chip handles safely charging the lithium ion battery and even has an open collector output that is on when charging and off when done. It accepts USB 5V or DC up to 7V or so. I etched my own board and decided to make things difficult for my self by making it tiny (it ended up being not much larger than the sot23 package).

I simply opted for a quick and dirty approach by covering a single sided copper clad pcb with permanent marker and scrapped the areas I wanted etched with a scalpel.

 

Size comparison  to a US quarter.

Man its hard taking pictures of something so small.

All etched and ready to have marker removed with the help of some acetone.

Close ups after soldering in the components with a penny as a reference for size.

I proceeded to test the circuit by hooking her up to a lithium ion battery and measuring voltage and current. Crossed my fingers and held my breath just waiting for a small poof of failure which luckily never came.

Just shy of 4V, looks good.

Charging at around 100mA looks safe.

Finally I needed to desolder (used a hot air gun, Warning: HOT) the USB female jack from the controller board and lift the V+ power pin so it would no longer power the broken internal charge circuitry and instead hooked into my own charger. I had to be quick but gentle with the hot air so I wouldn't damage anything.

 Pulled socket and used desoldering braid and some alcohol to clean up a bit.

 Cleaned up the socket as well and lifted the V+ pin.

Replaced and soldered down.

Now all I needed to do was solder three wires: ground, V+ in, and battery+.

 Battery+ is orange and ground is brown. I used the gnd pad conveniently silk screened for me and plugged the battery in to find the battery+ (red wire on the battery).

 V+ in from USB is white and soldered to the lifted pin

Quick test to make sure everything still works. No magic smoke released here.

 Taping wires so they wont interfere with the battery. I used some more tape to attach the charging board to the front under the SONY emblem.

 Battery inserted.

 All put back together and charging status led visible as an orange glow on the front.

Outcome: Success! Now I just need to replace the nubs and I'll have a good as new controller without having to shell out another fifty or sixty bucks. I already had all the parts so it cost nothing and only took around 2 hours in all. When not charging, the controller looks stock. I feel accomplished and saved a controller from being scrapped. Now I can get back to gaming once it charges up.