VU Meters and psp's

I love vu meters. I mean it I really really like them. So with me doing so much work on psp's over the years I knew that I would one day end up trying to fit one in a psp some how. I should say before I start that this is only a semi finished project. My psp (the one I use for gaming) has a full vu meter installed, however I have plans to do an entirely new revision of this, which I will go into more detail about later.
For those of you not in the know a VU meter displays signal level in Visual Units. They are often seen in audio equipment an are usually ether a needle or led display. Heres one here look . . .





There are two ways that I know of of building a vu circuit. One is with a ic that is designed for it called a LM3915. This is relatively simple to use and would be perfect for what I want to achieve. I didnt have one of those though. The other way is using several opamps. I had some of those. So the design I went for in this first revision was 2 quad opamps called LM324's Heres an schematic of that circuit. Please note that this is not the actual one I used as I had to modify that for use with the psp. I do have that schematic but its currently residing in my desk tops HD in storage. I'll update this when I get set up back in the UK.





So after a little research and some trial and error on a bread board I built a circuit on a bit of proto board that fited nicely into the somewhat redundant umd drive space of my psp. Heres an image of how that looks.





I then added 16 smt leds to the umd door. This was hooked up to the circuit using pin headers as a makeshift plug. I also used this method for hooking up the power ground and audio lines from the psp. Heres an image of the door led set up.





This dose work very nicely but I would prefer to do this in a more elegant way. For the next revision of this mod I intend to go fully smt using a smt LM3915 and an etched circuit board. Using this method I should easily be able to fit the pcb into another area of the psp should I want to use the umd drive. I may also add a picaxe to handle changing modes and colours.Stay posted for an update once that has been finished. I will then be offering that mod through my pro modding service :)

Ive had a request for a video of my psp in action so here it is. . . .

PSP Rumble

Adding a rumble feature to a psp has been something I've toyed with on a few occasions. Heres a video that was featured on hackaday a while back.



From what Ive read theres a licence you have to pay in order to use a "forcefeedback" feature. Which is why its not present in most handhelds, and why sony where resistant to add it to they're ps3 controller.
I've been laying alot of psp recently and am starting to think it would be well worth resurrecting this mod. It was never that difficult I just never really got round to finishing it. Well I'am sticking it top of my list when I return to London.
Stay tuned for that one.

My Modded PSPs Selling on Ebay

Well its been quite a while since I last posted here. Ive spent the last 7 months living in the french alps (I should probably write a bit about that at some point). Now I am back I am finaly getting round to selling some of my modded psp's.

The first on has just gone up an can be found on this LINK.

Heres a shot of it.

Its a clasic all blue LED mod. All the indicator LEDs are switched to blue and it has all round LED lighting. The lighting can be turned on or off via the hold switch. Its running CFW 4.01 M33-2 for all your homebrew needs.

Heres a little slidshow of some of the other psps I'll be listing soon.

So what you wating for? Hit the link and get bidding!!

PSP SNES Controller Mod

Some time ago I was contacted by a nice guy in the US. He asked me wether I would be interested in building a psp mod for his partner. She has limited use of one of her hands and as such cant use a psp, but she can however use a SNES controller perfectly (I've seen it, its quite a talent). So he asked if I would be able to add a SNES controller to a PSP for her.

Well at long last here it is.


Heres a few pics of the build.

Heres a short demo of it working. . .



This mod was achieved by adding a small socket to the back of the psp ( the socket was sent to me by a friend some time ago so I dont have a part number. I believe it was intended for a cell phone). I taped all of the relevant points on the psp mother board (some of which where horribly close together and tiny. Actually not some ALL of them where), and then ran these to the socket. I used a file and dremal to cut a whole in the back of the psp and the socket fitted in with a satisfying *click*. I then put together a custom cable and plug that would fit the newly attached socket. This was then wired to the snes controllers pcb (attached directly to the traces of each button. And thats about it.

This is my first mod of a psp slim and I found it pretty easy to work with. They bags of space for mods in spite of its reduced size.

I will update this blog with some of my older mods as soon as I have a bit of time.

I'll also be selling off a few of my modded psps on ebay this week which I will also post here, so sub if your interested :)

Hope you guys like the mod. Comments are welcome :)