St1ngR4y
Forum Noob
Hi all,
New to the forum, this is kind of a how to, but i'm not sure if it's in the right section... Not sure if anyone has done something similar, I just wanted to share it with you all.
Background.
While looking for paracetamol, I found my old white PSP lurking in my sons mums kitchen cupboard a bit ago, after he long abandoned the hand me down epic gaming machine.
I immediately rescued the grubby thing, along with a broken black one (IPS Mod soon) and set upon getting it working again. I didn't have a charger, and after looking on Amazon i found what i needed, a new battery and charger, but me being the tight arse i am, thought i don't want to buy these if its not working.
Being the tinkerer i am, i can't help but pick Ecig batteries up whenever i see them abandoned, and had collected around 5 in various sizes at this point, id also had experimented charging them with my test charger, which they did and held charge great. Looking at the voltages they matched the 3.7v the PSP battery is, and i thought to myself, wonder if i can power the psp up with one and test it before buying a battery etc.
I opened the dead PSP battery up and to my surprise found a substantial PCB which i assumed was the BMS, i pulled the dead cell out and fashioned in a 1500mah Ecig cell ready to test. Voltages checked out so i gave it a go, the PSP powered straight up to the enter time and date screen, success!
Example Ecig Battery 3.7v 1500mha
Similar Battery soldered to BMS (Proof of concept)
PSP powered up.
Randomly they other day i found a small Ecig cell which matched one i already had, at the time it didn't look quite small enough to fit in the original PSP battery casing but i had noticed the one i had found earlier was oval in shape, i assumed some kid had stamped on the Ecig and squashed the battery but looking at the other one i found it was also oval. Must be so it sits in the Esig correctly to allow wires past, but gave me the idea try them in the PSP battery case side by side, to my shock they both fit in quite snug.
I charged both batteries up, and ran them through the test cycle on my charger to see what sort of power they have and to see if they were in the ballpark of matching. This is really important as the PSP BMS is only accounting for one cell, so at best one will always be under charged, or at worse one could overheat while discharging. (Just my theory by the way so if anyone knows much better). Anyway to my amazement both tested exactly the same!
Channel 1 = 374 mha
Channel 2 = 374 mha
After the batteries were charged again i created V2 of the Esig battery. Put the 2 cells side by side in parallel and solder the positive to positive and negative to negative using some wire.
Stick the batteries to the flat side of the BMS PCB using double sided tape, solder the negative side of the 2 cell pack to the terminal with the flat square attached to the original battery leg id left attached (fuse?) see Pic 4 bottom right of battery, and then run another wire from the positive side of the pack to the positive terminal on the other side of the BMS seen in Pic 2 top right of PCB.
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3
Pic 4
Pic 5
Pic 6
PSP now working without a hump and something that the inventor of the Russells created.
So obviously i'm not going to take the battery apart to charge it, so i will be ordering a used PSP charger off ebay today, and see how it goes. They rating on the Ecig battery is 500mha and as i have 2 in parallel it should equate to 1000mha, but the test is showing under 800mha. Not sure what the original one was, but i will test the battery life and see how long it lasts running GTA and report back. If it works out alright, it might help others to save there original PSP batteries which just need a new cell.
Anyway be gentle with me, i know my soldering isn't the best, i only have a old iron and i know the PSP is looking very dirty, after a child had had something it tends to end up this way, a full clean and resto is on its way, also it might be a daft idea to some people when a new battery is about £12, but i like to mess with things!
Thanks
New to the forum, this is kind of a how to, but i'm not sure if it's in the right section... Not sure if anyone has done something similar, I just wanted to share it with you all.
Background.
While looking for paracetamol, I found my old white PSP lurking in my sons mums kitchen cupboard a bit ago, after he long abandoned the hand me down epic gaming machine.
I immediately rescued the grubby thing, along with a broken black one (IPS Mod soon) and set upon getting it working again. I didn't have a charger, and after looking on Amazon i found what i needed, a new battery and charger, but me being the tight arse i am, thought i don't want to buy these if its not working.
Being the tinkerer i am, i can't help but pick Ecig batteries up whenever i see them abandoned, and had collected around 5 in various sizes at this point, id also had experimented charging them with my test charger, which they did and held charge great. Looking at the voltages they matched the 3.7v the PSP battery is, and i thought to myself, wonder if i can power the psp up with one and test it before buying a battery etc.
I opened the dead PSP battery up and to my surprise found a substantial PCB which i assumed was the BMS, i pulled the dead cell out and fashioned in a 1500mah Ecig cell ready to test. Voltages checked out so i gave it a go, the PSP powered straight up to the enter time and date screen, success!
Example Ecig Battery 3.7v 1500mha
Similar Battery soldered to BMS (Proof of concept)
PSP powered up.
Randomly they other day i found a small Ecig cell which matched one i already had, at the time it didn't look quite small enough to fit in the original PSP battery casing but i had noticed the one i had found earlier was oval in shape, i assumed some kid had stamped on the Ecig and squashed the battery but looking at the other one i found it was also oval. Must be so it sits in the Esig correctly to allow wires past, but gave me the idea try them in the PSP battery case side by side, to my shock they both fit in quite snug.
I charged both batteries up, and ran them through the test cycle on my charger to see what sort of power they have and to see if they were in the ballpark of matching. This is really important as the PSP BMS is only accounting for one cell, so at best one will always be under charged, or at worse one could overheat while discharging. (Just my theory by the way so if anyone knows much better). Anyway to my amazement both tested exactly the same!
Channel 1 = 374 mha
Channel 2 = 374 mha
After the batteries were charged again i created V2 of the Esig battery. Put the 2 cells side by side in parallel and solder the positive to positive and negative to negative using some wire.
Stick the batteries to the flat side of the BMS PCB using double sided tape, solder the negative side of the 2 cell pack to the terminal with the flat square attached to the original battery leg id left attached (fuse?) see Pic 4 bottom right of battery, and then run another wire from the positive side of the pack to the positive terminal on the other side of the BMS seen in Pic 2 top right of PCB.
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3
Pic 4
Pic 5
Pic 6
PSP now working without a hump and something that the inventor of the Russells created.
So obviously i'm not going to take the battery apart to charge it, so i will be ordering a used PSP charger off ebay today, and see how it goes. They rating on the Ecig battery is 500mha and as i have 2 in parallel it should equate to 1000mha, but the test is showing under 800mha. Not sure what the original one was, but i will test the battery life and see how long it lasts running GTA and report back. If it works out alright, it might help others to save there original PSP batteries which just need a new cell.
Anyway be gentle with me, i know my soldering isn't the best, i only have a old iron and i know the PSP is looking very dirty, after a child had had something it tends to end up this way, a full clean and resto is on its way, also it might be a daft idea to some people when a new battery is about £12, but i like to mess with things!
Thanks
