A Simple Portable PS4 Build

August 12, 2024 by Lewin Day 10 Comments

Building a portable console is hard, right? You have to do lots of wiring, maybe trim a few PCBs, and learn all about the finer points of high-end motherboard design! Or, you could keep it simple. That’s just what [Francesco6n] did when he built this portable PS4.

The aim for this build wasn’t to build the smallest, sleekest, or prettiest portable PS4. It was just to build a functional one that worked. To that end, the guts of the PS4 was installed in a 3D-printed case decorated with the usual square-circle-cross-triangle motif. A 1024×600 Acer Aspire One laptop display was installed in a clamshell configuration to act as the screen for the build. Inside the case is a large GPU-style cooler which helps keep temperatures down. As for power, there’s no need to plug this thing in everywhere you go. Instead, it’s capable of running for up to 90 minutes continuously thanks to a battery pack consisting of eighteen 18650 cells. In a beautiful touch of cross-platform cooperation, an Xbox 360 supply is used to power the thing when mains power is available.

It’s a neat build, and one that doesn’t overcomplicate things. Projects like this are a great way to get your feet wet with portable console hacking, letting you learn the ropes without too much pressure. More pictures after the break.
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Make Your Own Play Station (The Space Is Important)

January 8, 2024 by Jenny List 20 Comments

The early history of the Sony Playstation lies in a stillborn collaboration between Nintendo and Sony to produce an SNES with a CD-ROM drive. So the story goes, Nintendo’s Philips deal angered Sony, who decided to make their own console line, and the rest is history. A very small number of prototypes were made, badged as “Play Station,” and should you find one that escaped today, you’re sitting on a fortune. [James] doesn’t have one, but he did have half a Playstation and an SNES shell, so he could make an ungodly child of the two consoles that you can see in the video below the break.

Those Playstation CD-ROM drives were notorious for melting back in the day, so it’s no surprise they’re still for sale today. Thus, he was able to bring the Sony back to life. What follows is an episode of console cutting worthy of a slasher horror movie, as instead of a bit of fine Dremmeling, he brings out an angle grinder and slices away with abandon. We don’t like the Nintendo switch carrying mains voltage, but we’re fine with the PlayStation expansion connector going away. The Nintendo eject button needs a hack to operate the Playstation door open button when pressed. It’s cool to see the board has a mod chip. We used to fit those as a sideline in a previous life. Continue reading “Make Your Own Play Station (The Space Is Important)” →

A Classic Shortwave Radio Restored

November 12, 2023 by Al Williams 20 Comments

Before the Internet, if you wanted to hear news from around the world, you probably bought a shortwave receiver. In the golden age of world band radio, there was a great deal of high-quality programming on the shortwave bands and a large variety of consumer radios with shortwave bands. For example, the Sony CRF-160 that [M Caldeira] is restoring dates from the late 1960s or early 1970s and would have been a cool radio in its day. It retailed for about $250 in 1972, which sounds reasonable, but — don’t forget — in 1972 that would have been a 10% downpayment on a new car or enough to buy a Big Mac every day for a year with change left over.

As you can see in the video below, the radio seemed to work well right out of the gate, but the radio needed some rust removal and other sprucing up. However, it is an excellent teardown, with some tips about general restoration.

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A Wigglegram Lens With Variable Aperture

July 27, 2023 by Lewin Day 6 Comments

Wigglegrams are those weird animated pictures you’ve seen that seem to generate a 3D-like effect. [scealux] had built lenses to take such pictures before, but wanted to take things to the next level. Enter the Wigglegram Lens, version 2.

In building a new lens for the Open Sauce ’23 event, [scealux] wanted to get variable aperture working, while also improving focus speed. The lens was also intended for use with a Sony A7R3. Unlike his previous effort, this lens would only work on the full-frame Sony FE mount cameras.

The lens uses a bevy of 3D printed parts, along with plastic lenses salvaged from old disposable cameras. When assembled, it takes three photos simultaneously on one single frame. They can then be reassembled into a Wigglegram by post-processing on a computer. The results are grainy and rough, but yet somehow compelling.

If you want to see [scealux]’s original build for Sony E-mount cameras, we covered it here. Video after the break.

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Closing In On A PC Enabled PSVR2

July 23, 2023 by Donald Papp 25 Comments

When the PlayStation VR2 headset was released, people wondered whether it would be possible to get the headset to work as a PC VR headset. That would mean being able to plug it into a PC and have it work as a VR headset, instead of it only working on a PS5 as Sony intended.

Enthusiasts were initially skeptical and at times despondent about the prospects, but developer [iVRy]’s efforts recently had a breakthrough. A PC-compatible VR2 is looking more likely to happen.

So far [iVRy] is claiming they have 6 DOF SLAM (Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping), Prox sensor, and stereo camera data.

Most of the juicy bits are paywalled behind [iVRy]’s Patreon. We’re hoping the jailbreak process will eventually be open-sourced.

The PS VR2 headset is quite unlike a PC VR headset in a number of ways, and it has not been historically easy to work with Sony’s products from a reverse-engineering perspective, whether it’s an attempt to improve the user experience of an annoying headset, or an attempt to understand the not-even-remotely-sanely-designed protocols behind the Sony Memory Stick. Getting the PS VR2 headset to work in a way it wasn’t intended was expected to be an uphill battle.

It’s not a finished job, but judging by the progress regularly shared on [iVRy]’s Twitter account, it might only be a matter of time.

Hackaday Links: June 11, 2023

June 11, 2023 by Dan Maloney 20 Comments

As Tom Nardi mentioned in this week’s podcast, the Northeast US is pretty apocalyptically socked in with smoke from wildfires in Canada. It’s what we here in Idaho call “August,” so we have plenty of sympathy for what they’re going through out there. People are turning to technology to ease their breathing burden, with reports that Tesla drivers are activating the “Bioweapon Defense Mode” of their car’s HVAC system. We had no idea this mode existed, honestly, and it sounds pretty cool — the cabin air system apparently shuts off outside air intake and runs the fan at full speed to keep the cabin under positive pressure, forcing particulates — or, you know, anthrax — to stay outside. We understand there’s a HEPA filter in the mix too, which probably does a nice job of cleaning up the air in the cabin. It’s a clever idea, and hats off to Tesla for including this mode, although perhaps the name is a little silly. Here’s hoping it’s not one of those subscription services that can get turned off at a moment’s notice, though.

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Watch Sony Engineers Tear Down Sony’s VR Hardware

February 19, 2023 by Donald Papp 22 Comments

Teardowns are great because they let us peek not only at a product’s components, but also gain insight into the design decisions and implementations of hardware. For teardowns, we’re used to waiting until enthusiasts and enterprising hackers create them, so it came as a bit of a surprise to see Sony themselves share detailed teardowns of the new PlayStation VR2 hardware. (If you prefer the direct video links, Engineer [Takamasa Araki] shows off the headset, and [Takeshi Igarashi] does the same for the controllers.)

The “adaptive trigger” module responsible for the unique feedback.

One particularly intriguing detail is the custom tool [Araki] uses to hold the headset at various stages of the disassembly, which is visible in the picture above. It looks 3D-printed and carefully designed, and while we’re not sure what it’s made from, it does have a strong resemblance to certain high-temperature SLA resins. Those cure into hard, glassy, off-yellow translucent prints like what we see here.

As for the controller, we get a good look at a deeply interesting assembly Sony calls their “adaptive trigger”. What’s so clever about it? Not only can it cause the user to feel a variable amount of resistance when pulling the trigger, it can even actively push back against one’s finger, and the way it works is simple and effective. It is pretty much the same as what is in the PS5 controller, so to find out all about how it works, check out our PS5 controller teardown coverage.

The headset and controller teardown videos are embedded just below. Did anything in them catch your interest? Know of any other companies doing their own teardowns? Let us know in the comments!

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