Okay so some of you have seen my first PsP mod where I put in a small lithium cell battery to power 0603 Leds in a Ring of Light and the shoulder buttons, as seen in this link -->
[link omg click me].
Well after reading what other people suggested and cooking my own ideas, I decided to put a door in the back so I can have easier access to change the battery when needed. Taking off one panel with a couple screws > completely dismantling your PsP. Well here are some construction pics!
Here I cut a rectangle above the switch I installed earlier.
I had alot of leftover acrylic from the Ring of Light (I love you DoubleDutch! >>) I made before, so I cut an odd shaped piece to mount one of the battery clips I ordered from mouser. There is a notch to have full access to the memory stick slot, a corner cut so I don't stab myself when gaming, and several holes to screw the acrylic to the PsP and one to allow access to the hole that attaches the backplate to the faceplate. The protective covering is still on the acrylic at this point. I usually leave it on till completely ready to start reassembly. (That little golden piece is the negative clip, which I will get to later)
This is the backside showing the battery clip and a few more holes.
Here is one of the battery clips I used. While kinda big (large enough to hold 20mm lithium cell batteries, or CR2016 equivalents) I choose to use this style because I can surface mount it and CR2016 is my battery of choice because they are one of the flattest lithium cell batteries you can get.
Here is a test fit of the acrylic battery door.
The easiest way to attach the negative is slide a small contact underneath the battery. I tried to find 30gauge circle contacts but Radio Shack only carries down to 22 ><. So I bought a single C size battery holder and cut out one of the contacts for my own use. In this pic I hotglued the contact a little to high and had to move it later, resulting in a tiny smudge
Here is how I wired the beast. The positive connection you can directly solder to the top of the clip, although I tend to scratch a bit of the clip so I can attach solder easier.
Fully connected and reassembled shot. Close up of the acrylic battery door. The two top left screw holes I messed up on. The far top left I drilled the hole in the PsP backplate just a tad to big, but the screw kinda rests in there for now. I originally planned on using the middle hole, but I used way too big of a drillbit
When I put it back together, the Leds kept coming on when the switch was off, so I just propped up the left side a bit. Something keeps completing the connection... need to fix that...
Here is the whole backplate fully assembled. Looks pretty nice if I say so myself
And finally... Duh nuh nuh na! Here are the money shots!
However, shortly after I finished taking the money shots, (remember the Leds coming on without the switch?) well... the Leds stopped coming on altogether.
I will need to find out whats going on. Prolly the metal parts are touching the memory/wifi board, even though I put a layer of electrical tape on it when I reassambled the
I also need to make the wires for the right trigger longer, as you can see its not lighting up alot now lol. Either way, I had fun doing this v2 Mod, but Ill prolly wait a few days and play more Legend of Dragoon on my PsP before I fix the problems.
Update #1: Well I took my PsP apart again, and low and behold the solder points on the switch punched a hole through the electrical tape (prolly because they were being squeezed too much with all the other components) and made contact with the memory/wifi board. No damage was done. I did have to replace the battery though; being in contact with the wifi/memory board ate most of the new battery's power and didn't light up the Leds up that much. But it's all good now! I didn't reassemble it back together since I plan on working later on it, as far as trying to get the battery panel to be more flush with the backplate.
