Notes:
- If you choose to use this PCB, you are doing so at your own risk! I cannot be held responsible for any damages or loss of life resulting from use of this product!
- This PCB is designed to make it easier and safer to attach tantalum/MLCC capacitors to your PS3. Removing the NEC/TOKINs and replacing with Tantalum/MLCC capacitors is an experimental mod not guaranteed to fix the problems you are experiencing. You must properly troubleshoot your console to decide if this mod is right for you.
- You must order a minimum of 3 boards. I recommend ordering 3x (9 Tantalizer boards cost $4.05). That will be enough to replace all the NEC/TOKINs on a PS3 and give you a spare in case there is a defect in the other 8.
- MLCC pads are meant for 0805 case size.
- Tantalum pads are for 7.3 x 4.3 x 1.9mm (LxWxH). You can use other types of capacitors that fit this footprint, such as aluminum polymer, tantalum polymer, etc. However, they must be low ESR/ESL processor decoupling capacitors. The PCB takes up 0.8mm of height, so caps need to be low profile (less than 2mm). Each one should be less than 9mΩ ESR, 4.5mΩ ideally. I recommend...
- You do not need to buy the MLCC capacitors. The 470uF capacitors are enough on their own. However, the MLCC capacitors help to attenuate the higher frequency noise component up to around 2MHz, better mimicking the NEC/TOKIN proadlizer it's meant to replace. This is probably overkill on PS3's with 1000uF tokins. I still recommend using 470uF caps, because 3x 330uF is only 990uF and may not be enough. It's better to have more capacitance than less, but not too much more. The MLCCs are more needed on 90nm CPU/GPU early models (A-H). They have noisier switching VRM and higher load, which requires more decoupling than later models. Use them if your tokins are OE128 models. You probably don't need them otherwise.
- You must choose 0.8mm board thickness in the options during checkout. This ensures it'll fit underneath the RF shield when you reassemble the console. It also has double thick copper planes for high power applications such as this.
- You must buy 1.9mm height capacitors or smaller. This ensures it'll fit underneath the RF shield when you reassemble the console.
- You can download the Gerber files from OSH Park if you perfer to have another board house manufacture your Tantalizers. Just be sure they know the edges are castellated and that you need 0.8mm board thickness.
Pictures:
Note: The following pictures are of v0.3a I made with 7x MLCC pads. I decided to remove C10 because there was too little clearance between +/GND. v0.3b linked above will not have 7 MLCC pads. It has 6, but is otherwise identical to the pictures below.
View attachment 35177 View attachment 35178
View attachment 35179 View attachment 35180
Discussion:
I received the alpha revision and it looks good, except that the MLCCs are too close to the positive rail for comfort IMO. SO I have revised it to only have 6 pads. I am confident there is enough room now. I got the castellated edges right this time and they wick the solder really easily along the entire edge of the slot.
I have not attempted to use them yet, so they are untested on console. The next step is to populate and test. I have opened the beta, so anyone can DL or order them from OSH Park. But you should know they are untested.
Unlike the last beta, these came from the factory pretty well finished. I didn't need to trim them much. A castellated slot proved to be much better.
It's fine if you don't want to participate in the beta, potentially burning down your house or damaging your PS3. Once others and I have installed it and confirmed they work, I'll update the listing on OSH park with the v1.0 monker, indicating a fully tested/working PCB.