[Build] PiStation 2 Slim

InunoTaishou

Made a post on reddit but thought I should post here.

Found a video where someone put a Raspberry Pi 2 inside a Slim PS2. Loved the build but there were some things I wasn't too pleased watching: has the HDMI port on the side (instead of the back so it just looks weird, imo), some weird looking fork for audio output (also on the side of the case), composite is a weird 2 pin male connector (again, out the side of the case! it just looks bad), another weird 3 prong fork out the front of the case (for an n64 controller, cool concept, just looked weird). I loved how he made the USB ports on the front of the PS2 work but it was disappointing that he soldered directly to the pi.

So, I wanted to do the same thing, but improve on it. Use the original PS2 power brick, solder nothing to the Pi and make it so the pi can be easily removed (won't be glued in), have all the connections come out the back of the case, use the original AV output connector, replace the DVD reader with a new one with a usb adapter (couldn't make this work, not enough room after installing the buck converter and room for all the wires), use the original fan, and of course the controller inputs have to work. I don't know how he was getting power (towards the end of the video he said he used the original PS2 power brick to power it but I saw no DC-DC buck converter, unless he put it inside the actual brick).

Anyways, here's the album on imgur - http://imgur.com/gallery/nHi4u

It's not 100% done yet. Although I've got the script set up to make the power button work (restart the pi, power off the pi, and power on the pi, using pin 5), I don't like that it doesn't completely cut power to the system (so everything is getting powered). Gonna see if I can figure out how to make the circuit to do this (I see a lot of YouTube videos ahead of me).

Also have the fan connected directly to the 5v rail on the Pi. I'm going to create a switch controlled with one of the GPIO pins to turn the fan on/off, depending on the temperature of the CPU. I made this one before on a breadboard but failed at soldering the circuit board, gonna try again though. Before anyone says anything, I know it doesn't need a fan, but I want one. Plus, after just doing a stress test on the system, with it completely closed and the fan running I hit 64C. Will have to do a test next time I open it to see what the temps get to without the fan on.

Everything that is done:

Nothing has been soldered to the pi, and the pi can be easily removed (screwed down to the case using some studs)
Composite output works (at least video does, still don't have speakers to connect to it) (I know the solder job looks like crap in the pic but I redid it. I'd change the picture but I've got it closed right now)
HDMI Output out the back of the case (wish I would have made the edges on the case match the notches on the port :()
Controller ports work, usb adapter operating perfectly!
Reset/Power button works: Restarts the pi when you press the button, shuts down the pi when you hold the button down for ~2 seconds, and turns the pi back on

Everything not done:

Fan needs to be mounted and the circuit needs to be made that will allow the pi to turn it on/off
Possible make a circuit to make the button more hardware than software, allowing for the power to be turned off when the pi is shut down
Thinking I'm going to buy a 256gb USB thumb drive to connect to the last open USB port. Internal storage for all of the games (256gb thumb drive is about $60USD, 256gb SD card is about $160USD)

Parts List (Everything was bought from China because I'm cheap lol):

edmaul69

@inunotaishou nice job. I made a pistation 1 and was happy to see you make use of the controller ports and the video port too. I plan on buying a retrotink so i can add s-video and component as well. Is there enough room to add a hard drive? It would be a lot cheaper than the sd card. Glad to see you didnt give up while trying to solder everything. Well done.

InunoTaishou

@edmaul69 There might be room for one if I cut out the part of the disk tray and mounted it in there, but it would probably require a special bracket to be 3d printed to mount it.

I might look into try to do that, it was one of the things I want to do original but wasn't able to achieve since I ran out of room inside the case.

edmaul69

@inunotaishou when i did mine i didnt make a bracket for the hard drive. I just used double sided sticky foam to hold it down. Still able to remove it without any damage if needed. On my gray ps1 i had to cut part of the drive bay and mounted it to the lid because i ran out of room. 1tb usb 3.0 drives are cheap. Dont use a 2.0 drive. Even though the 3.0 drive only works in 2.0 mode they consume far less power than the 2.0 drives and the games run a lot smoother.

InunoTaishou

@edmaul69 The disk tray on the slim is a lot smaller than the ps1 though lol

I've got a spare HDD and HDD to usb (3.0 and 2.0) cable and it looks like, with the adapter connected, it might be too large to fit in the disk try.It's too close to tell without cutting it up and I don't want to cut up the tray only to find out it won't fit. I do have a sata to usb adapter that I could connect to the pi and use a 90degree sata cable connected to the HDD. I've got extra atx power cables, so that could get connected directly to the dc-dc converter (since the HDD only uses the 5v rail anyway). Sounds like it'd work but I still just don't want to cut up the tray and risk it not fitting.

The micro SD cards are expensive but there's 256gb 3.0 thumb drives for around $50 - $60, which is pretty damn cheap. Cheap enough and more than enough room for all the ROMs

I think I'll try and sell this one (once it's all done) and put the funds towards trying again on another slim. This didn't break the bank (since I bought everything from China) but I want to see if I can do it better, and I don't have the money to keep pouring into projects so I'll have to sell this to fund the next lol. On the next slim I think I'll try to stick the dc-dc converter inside the power brick, so it outputs 5v (or just get a AC-DC converter that can output 5v). Also want to position the pi differently. I think I can turn it so the GPIO header side is butted up against the controller inputs. This will also let me use a micro sd extension cable (hopefully out the back), and hopefully give me some better wire management. And with the DC-DC converter moved I should be able to fit in the hdd (adapter and all) inside the bottom part of the case, maybe not even cutting the disk tray at all.

thedeathstar

@inunotaishou I may be misunderstanding what you're saying about cutting off all power, but couldn't you just put a switch between the power input jack and step down?

InunoTaishou

@thedeathstar I could use a regular switch but then that would require first shutting down the pi and then hitting the switch. I'd like to make it so when the pi shuts down, then the power to the converter gets stopped. Pressing the button again would turn the power back on for the converter, thus turning the Pi back on.

InunoTaishou

Update, did some more work and got the fan mounted in place, hooked up the fan to an NPN transistor and to the pi, so now the pi can turn the fan on/off when it needs to. Did the same thing and added some LEDs to the front vent. For coolness and I want to get some feedback when it's rebooting. Also wrote up the code to control the fan and LEDs (once I figure out how to detect when RetroPie is copying ROMs then the LEDs are also going to blink while the ROMs are being copied). I don't think I'm going to create the circuit to turn off power to the DC-DC converter. Although it might be cool, I have very little room for anything now (just enough for the thumb drive off the side) and I don't think it's needed. The power button, as it is now, works perfectly fine, doing exactly what it's supposed to.

The only thing left I want to do is get the thumb drive for storage. Also want to replace the transistor I used for the fan. When the fan was connected directly to power it was spinning at some very fast speeds. Once I connected the transistor to everything, so the pi can power it, it is a lot slower. It might not be the transistor, it could be this is the actual speed it's supposed to run at. I don't remember what the original fan sounded like when it was at full speed.

RetroPie Entertainment
Fan mounted
LEDs

DD-Indeed

Wow, impressive. And glad that you figured out to use that stock PSU, since it has enough punch to be used for this after voltage regulation. And using original buttons is always a nice touch.

About that fan, it is a radial fan from a laptop right ? So it just blows air through the whole case ?

InunoTaishou

@dd-indeed Thanks!
It's the fan from the original PS2 slim. I mounted it so the output side of it blows directly towards the heat sink on the pi.

DD-Indeed

@inunotaishou

Okay, good idea, radial fans are propably the best way to cool these things and I have been thinking to do the same thing with my PiStation build as well, after been experimenting with regular fans.

InunoTaishou

I was up til 7AM this morning, and the most of the afternoon, getting the pythong script updated to include all of the code to control the fan, as well as throwing in some code to flash the LEDs on the front when RetroPie is copying ROMs. Since my thumb drive doesn't have an led indicator light on it, I wanted the PiStation to tell me when stuff is being copied.

It's working but could someone who actually knows python tell me why the threads aren't exiting? I don't know which one is hanging up and preventing the script from being completely closed

https://pastebin.com/mn8BffvJ

InunoTaishou

Got the flash drive in today (2 days earlier than expected! ) and figured out how to mount it. There was enough room, width wise, to put the flash drive to the side of the pi but I was concerned about length. Fortunately I had a female USB cable from an old PC case panel that was stripped all the way back. This allowed me more than enough room to put the flash drive next to the pi without having to remove the plastic case of the flash drive. Also tried out some different transistors. Decided to add a second transistor, and found the 2N2222 was able to give the fan enough current that makes it go (I believe) top speed. So I'm using two, one gives it a decently mid fan speed, the second (2N2222) is the max speed. Also adjusted the python script to account for it. And ended up adding a 3rd LED to the front of the case, two just wasn't enough.

This thing is done! (Mechanically). I created a setup script (setting up the systemd service, auto-mounting the flash drive as the storage, and installing the PiStation 2 splash screen). Gonna clean up the code for all of the PiS2 functionality (possibly re-write in C later).

Here's a video showcasing it

and the updated imgur
https://imgur.com/gallery/mERhq

edmaul69

Nice job.

edmaul69

@inunotaishou make sure the foil on the thumb drive cable cant touch the power jacks 5v pin. Looks really close to each other. Came out pretty nice.

InunoTaishou

@edmaul69 I think I was getting some interference with the foil, kept getting slow copy speeds to the flash drive or copy errors, so the foil was removed and the issue was resolved.