20061222

Triggers Explained

A couple people have posted/emailed me about how you remove the triggers, I should have really put a picture up the first time around because it IS kinda hard to explain, so here we go...




Ok, the red circle is one of the tabs you will need to get past the big black plastic "tab" that the screwdriver is wedged between.

See that arrow there? Thats what happens when you position the screwdriver too low, get the screwdriver as close to the top as you can, the only reason it is so low in the pic is because, well, its flippin' hard to take pictures one handed and hold stuff right, lol.

All you have to do is leverage the handle of the screwdriver inward (toward the trigger, not away).

Just push on it until the little tab on the trigger piece is just inside the black tab, then, while keeping pressure on it with your thumb, do the same thing for the other side.

Viola.

Hope that helps!

20061221

Yeah, but will it last?

So some people have been saying that the dye I use sucks and scratches really easy, weakens the plastic, etc.

I was plenty concerned about this myself, but I blew through $80 worth of wired controllers finding the best way to change the color of these things so I present you with the following:

I completed this project Tuesday night, its now Thursday night, a little more than 48 hours later.

I JUST took this video.

For the record this was the third video I took, each scratching the same spot, I was trying to get a clip you could see as clearly as possible, so I scratched it hard three times.

And this is a picture of that spot on the controller afterwards (and you can see in the video that my thumbnail is kinda bending at the end there, I put a lot of pressure on it!):



And this is a picture of the same spot, moment later, after a damp sponge and drying it off with a paper towel.



The only way I have been able to scratch this is by using a flat blade screw driver and just flat out intentionally scratching it, which would have DEFINITELY scratched the original.

I have NOT been able to damage it with just my bare hands, I can literally grab it and claw at it as hard as I physically can and nothing happens.

So if you have problems, I'd say you either probably didn't shake the can well enough, didn't go slow enough, didn't coat it well enough, didn't let it cure properly, or coated it too quickly.

If you shake the can, and do everything properly, aside from intentionally trying to do it harm...I dunno.

20061220

Noir 360 - Wireless Controller

A picture of my black wireless Xbox 360 controller.

Mod cost: $5



Update: If you undertake this little task, send in some pics, I'll be sure to put them up on this page!

This process is actually fairly simple.

Things you will need:
Plastikote or plasti-color (diferent manufacturers, same general product) can be found at most auto parts stores. I went to AutoZone looking for Plastikote which they didn't have, but found plasti-color which described itself as being used for the same things "vinyl seats, dashboards, door panels, etc.".

It costs about $5 a can after tax and comes in a sadly limited array of colors, they had black, red (fairly bright red), slate blue and a champagne type color. Apparently it also comes in yellow (which might be kind of cool) but they were out of it.

The Steps
There are numerous REALLY well done controller dissections out there so I wont reinvent the wheel here, a good example is this one. The only thing they don't cover is how to get the trigger off, which is fairly simple, just use a flat blade screwdriver to pop the little black arms off of the connector on the trigger, then just put pressure on the trigger (pushing it the opposite way you would if you were playing a game) and use the flat blade to pry the sides of the piece its mounted to away from the controller, do it for each side and it should go through nicely. Once thats done take the spring out and put it somewhere safe, then just slide the trigger piece to the side and twist slightly and it should come right off, its really very easy.

Once thats done take the shoulder buttons off the piece they are attached to (this just makes it easier to spray properly).

The PCB should come right off and the rumble motors with it, set this aside.

Now take all the pieces and rinse them in warm water, use soap if you want but only a little, you don't want any of it to remain once you are done rinsing.

Dry the parts thoroughly with a paper towel or let them air dry for awhile.

Once dried simply take the individual part and, in a well ventilated area/outdoors (the fumes from this stuff are even worse than spray paint IMHO) hold the part at arms length, with the spray can close to your body (about 1.5 ft. between nozzle and part) and start lightly making passes over the surface.

!!!WARNING!!!

Make quick passes, do NOT try to get it solid black in one coat. Unlike spray paint this stuff actually causes a chemical reaction with the plastic, causing the color to be absorbed into the plastic itself (which is why I chose this over regular paint which fades and rubs off fairly easily).

This means two things.
  1. If you overspray it will be nearly impossible to correct your mistake properly, as there is no layer of paint to sand down, you will be sanding almost directly onto the original surface.
  2. The parts will be vulnerable to damage until they cure. You can literally take your fingernail and scoop soft plastic right off the surface just after you spray them. So BE CAREFUL!
That being said, make a LIGHT pass, hold the piece for about 30 seconds, set it down, do the next piece, hold it for 30 seconds, set it down, rinse/repeat until all the parts have been VERY lightly coated. You should still see plenty of white, this is fine.

Now, start with the first piece again, give it another very light coat. Very light, keep the nozzle about a foot and a half away from the part.

If you smell heavy fumes please, STOP, this stuff will make you very sick, worse than spray paint. Get a ventilator or move to a better ventilated area if need be, don't mess with this stuff.

Once you go through a second coat on all the parts...go for another one. After the third coat you should be down to touch-ups. Make sure you spray along the seams, there are gaps between the parts and if you don't get the seams properly you will be able to see white when you look at it.

Also pay attention to the inner neck of the joysticks, you have to intentionally spray in there (CAREFULLY!), they won't pick up enough dye just from you spraying the surface.

Once you have your third coat and touch-ups done, let it dry/cure for about 20 minutes, then find a well lit area and go over the parts, make sure you coated them properly, make sure no white shows through.

Once you are satisfied, you can reassemble it. Just reverse the steps outlined above in the disassembly.

This is rather simple and there is only one trick to it.

The rumble motors are only secured in place by being sandwiched between the two halves of the controller. But you have buttons in one half, and rumble motors in the other...gravity being the harsh mistress that she is it can be a PITA to get these to play nice.

Tape to the rescue!

Use a piece of masking tape or scotch tape, do NOT use a really sticky kind of tape (duct tape and five are both right out!), and insert the face buttons (back, start, guide, a,b,x,y) into the front half of the shell, then place tape over them, thus preventing cruel gravity from yoinking them out from under you.

Now simply position the rumble motors on the bottom half properly (the two plastic ridges should be about evenly spaced on the insulator wrapped around the motor) and plop the front half of the shell down on top of it, it takes a bit of wiggling to get everything to go happily back together, and a little bit of force too, but don't be hasty, if its not going, don't force it, take it apart and see if anything is wrong. Patience may save you a $50 controller.

Thats it. Simply put the screws back in, let it cure for about 24 hours, by then it should stand up to even the toughest gameplay.

Enjoy your spanky new black controller!

Picture Time!
The biggest perk of this method vs. ye old spray paint is that the surface stays mostly intact, it doesn't add any appreciable thickness to the pieces (so there are no fit issues), AND it is much, MUCH, more durable than paint.



The the photos above and below you can see how little the surface is changed. The "RT" in the trigger is a VERY shallow impression, but it isn't diminished at all like it would be if you used regular old spray paint.



Stupid huge version of the original.



This silver piece goes with black SO much nicer than the original white.



I couldn't get the camera to NOT focus on my monitor. ;( (p.s.: Clint Mansell ftw)



I am not responsible in any way for any damage that may occur to you or your controller by following the above steps. If you are not comfortable with this type of thing please do not attempt to do it!

User Gallery:
DBiz - via Digg.com
Hozzy - via the comments

20061205

PSP 3.01 Firmware Emulation using DevHook

The latest version of DevHook supports PSP Firmware 3.01 emulation. This means that if you one of the lucky few to own a PS3, you can now stream Playstation games to your PSP while still retaining the ability to run your homebrew applications! This is amazing progress made by a lot of different developers of the PSP Homebrew Community. Kudos to Bolster for releasing this so quickly!

You can find out more information about PSP 3.01 Firmware Emulation from:
PSP Updates

Someone also created a video tutorial on how to install the needed pieces to get this to work.

20061126

Rancilio Silvia "PID PIC NES" mod


I have long admired the pioneering work of Rancilio Silvia owners in modding their espresso machines. Here, I present my Silvia given a PIC 16F876 microcontroller brain, a 20 character VFD display, nintendo controller, three zero-crossing solid state relays, IC thermometer, laser cut acrylic top, cold cathode ground effects and shot light. This project has stretched out for quite some time, and will likely continue on as I pick away at it some more. But for now, the bulk of the first wave of coolness is complete. First, a silly demo video, followed by a list of features and discussion.


PID
A microchip PIC16F876 gets temperature readings from a boiler-top mounted National LM34 Temperature Sensor. These temperature readings are processed using the PID control loop which I learned about in detail from the excellent article PID with out a PhD. A thrift store modder's favorite NES controller can set the PID gains, espresso and steam setpoints, temperature calibration values, and heater control PWM period. I wrote the NES code by reading a fantastic spec available from the iGamePlay project. The NES gamepad's popularity is well deserved as is a tough little controller with enough buttons to be useful, yet still very simple. For example, the select button switches between the main mode and setup mode, and the arrow buttons allow you to choose and alter variable values. It works out pretty cleanly. The main display currently shows a) the current temperature, b) the heater power setting (0 - 100 percent, which translates to a PWM heat amount), c) a timer showing how long the machine has been heating up, and d) a timer that alternates between a shot timer, and a timer showing how long the machine has been temperature stable and ready (remaining within 0.5 degrees of the set point).

One of the most interesting challenges so far has actually been tuning the PID loop. Currently though, after it settles, the machine appears to be indefinitely stable (I've seen it stable for over 2 hours before shutting off the machine) to about 0.1 degrees of the set point temperature. Interestingly, stability improved substantially after I finally closed the machine back up (after easily a year of being in terminal state of "operational dissassembly") and insulated the boiler from room drafts etc.


Shot Timer
One of the big motivations to go the distance and give the PIC total machine control was to enable a shot timer. When the top switch is thrown, it starts counting the seconds. It was basically a lot of work to make the machine act like it always does, but just so the PIC knows about it. The front panel switches are all "virtual" just pulling pins on the microcontroller which in turn throws the relays. One cool side effect of this is that starting a shot no longer makes a click sound on my stereo speakers. I think this is because the zero-crossing relays remove the spark-gap that occurs with a normal 120 switch (that's just a guess, but something changed because the grinder switch still sends out an electric 'pop' . . . for now).

A closeup of the VFD display showing a slightly outdated version of the interface.

Remote Control
Once I had the PIC sitting between the switches and the relays, and I had a NES controller setup to change PID values, my inner (or is that outer?) nerd forced me to add a useless "remote control" feature that replicates the front panel switches with the A, B, and start buttons on the gamepad. Eventually, I would like to put a solenoid on the steam wand valve so that I can call for water and steam completely with buttons and switches, and get rid of the squeeky knob (btw, does anyone know how to lubricate the steam valve with something more edible than WD-40?).

Bling
A combination 5v/12v power supply left the door open for some code cathode lights to sit on the 12v rail. While there is some utility in adding light under the brew head, this is mostly just silliness-- especially my "ground effects." A laser cut clear acrylic top allows for the VFD display to be viewable without undermining the sleek boxy shape of the Silvia.

While there are still quite a few wires swimming around under the top, the overall number has been reduced, and it makes for a fairly clean appearance from above. I removed both top-mounted thermostats, and the switches have only 2 wires each instead of 4 going to each switch. Sadly, the little switch lights don't work. Though perhaps its possible to get them back?

Plumbing
I also drilled and plumbed a drain from the bottom of the drip tray. The plumbing technique was the great idea of a clever hardware store employee who showed me to the lamp parts section. The key ingredients are a threaded tube and low profile gnurled nut. A tube feeds a growler under the table and greatly reduces the number of spills from an overflowing drip tray. I am the kind of person who forgets to fill the water tank and empty the drip tray., so I really like this mod. I used to have the intake plumbed out to a remote water tank as well. It was great to be able to see the water level (a feature I hope to add for the internal tank), but ultimately it doesn't look as clean and the internal reservoir gives a little preheat to the water as well (Has anyone tried preheating their water out there, perhaps with a fish tank heater?). Heres two pics of the drain plumbing.

A view down into the tray. I've since trimmed the top off the tube coming into the tray.

Underneath the drip tray, taking advantage of a factory access hole in the bottom of the machine.


Some Guts

I had originally planned to make space for the power supply and electronics by remoting the water tank, but everything ended up fitting. The electonics was luckily simple enough that I could just solder it all on a perf-board instead of needing a real circuit board (which would still be cool, especially if one were to make more of these...)

Screw terminals on both ends of the perf-board work great as the interface to the rest of the machine. Plus, it's fun to wire stuff up solder-free with just a crimper and some terminals.

Well, if you made it this far, thanks for reading. I'll keep my eye on the comments section here if there are any questions.

20061121

PSP Firmware 3.0 Released

The latest PSP firmware has been released. All you have to do is access Network Update and download the file. Of course you will lose all hope of running any homebrew for a while. So make sure you have 2 PSP's.... :-) Here is what's new:
  • [Remote Play] has been added as a feature under [Network].
  • [Online Instruction Manuals] has been added as a feature under [Network].
  • Timed recording has been added as a feature under [RSS Channel].
  • A visual player has been added as a feature under [Music].
  • 3-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature under [Music].
  • [Camera] has been added as a feature under [Photo].
  • [UMD Auto-Start] has been added as a feature in [System Settings] under [Settings].
  • PLAYSTATION Network titles are now supported under [Game].
If you do not have wifi on your psp you can download the update from joystiq.

20061120

PSP Firmware 3.0 supports PS3 syncing

Here are a few of the new features that will make it into the 3.0 release of the PSP firmware:

Remote Play - Remote play is a new feature in Firmware 3.00 that allows you to remotely control your PlayStation 3 from your PSP. This also includes the display of PS3 content on the PSP. "You can display a PLAYSTATION®3 system screen on a PSP™ system and play content that is on the PS3™ system. To use this feature, you must adjust the necessary settings on the PSP™ system and the PS3™ system." Using this new mode of playback, one can control the Photo, Music, Video, and Internet Browser features of the PlayStation 3 from a remote location via their Playstation Portable.


Video Compatibility - In this updated version of the Playstation Portable firmware, you are also able to play a few new video formats. The Motion JPEG format (M-JPEG), is an "informal name for multimedia formats where each video frame or interlaced field of a digital video sequence is separately compressed as a JPEG image" (Wikipedia). The PlayStation Portable plays both the Linear PCM and the μ-Law versions of the Motion JPEG video format. In addition, you will now be able to access the Camera (functionality) from the photo option menus, for quicker easier access when taking photos or video. Another nifty function is the ability to finally turn off Auto Play for inserted UMD Discs via UMD Auto Boot. (Thanks zerojay)


PlayStation Games - Here's the big tip you've been waiting for. Finally, Sony is going to drop their highly anticipated PlayStation One emulator onto the PSP. From the manual however, there seems to be a unavoidable catch. If you don't have a PS3, your not going to be enjoying PlayStation One games emulating on Sony's PlayStation One emulator for PSP anytime soon. From the manual it states that you must connect to the Playstation Online store with your PSP connected to the PlayStation 3 in order to download and play the games. In addition, they mention that you can in fact share the games, but you must activate the other system in the Friends menu as a PS3 Network Account.

More info can be found in the PSP 3.0 Firmware manual:
http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/psp/current/

20061117

PS3 to PSP Sync - Use PSP to control PS3

I'm looking for someone who has a PS3 and a PSP to test something for me. If you have it please contact me.

20061107

Time to preorder a PS3? How the PSP will Interact with PS3

The Playstation is just days away from being released. If you have not gotten a pre-order yet, getting a PS3 now would be like winning the lottery. With such low shipments, and such high demand, people are going to be willing to pay 3 and 4 times the $ for these things when the holidays roll around.

So how will the PSP play with the new Playstation 3? Sony has been pretty tight lipped about this one. Here are some good guesses:

Sony will follow in Microsoft's footsteps, and do a video distribution channel. Now that the PSP can talk wirelessly to the PS3, it will be easy for the PS3 to download high def movies for your home theater and also down convert it's high def video on demand to make it playable on the PSP screen over wifi.

It may also all tie in with Location Free. If anyone has not seen this before, you hook up a base station to your cable box and you can stream it to these nice Wireless LCD panels, your PSP, or to your PC by using software for windows XP to watch the live streams. Does anyone else notice how the new LocationFree Player Hardware looks similar to the PS3's case style?

The PSP may also be able to act as a remote control to the PS3 to make it easy to preview and queue up videos and music wirelessly throughout the house. I'm sure Sony has been itching to outdo my PSP Home Control Setup when I did that over a year ago.

I am going to try, but I don't think I will have a PS3 when it comes out. Nevertheless I'll be watching the scene to bring you the latest and greatest in PSP hacks and soon PS3 hacks. I've opened a new ps3 hacks blog called: LiquidIce's PS3 Hacks. Be sure to bookmark it and check back after launch for all of the ps3 hacking tips.

20061104

Stream Live TV to your PSP using TVUPlayer PMP and VLC

Wow, this is really cool! This video demonstrates how to get live TV on your PSP over the wifi network.


PSP controls PC via WiFi

This kid rigged up his computer so that the PSP can act as a controller for the PC. He is playing a Zelda N64 emulator on his PC using the PSP as the controller via WiFi. Pretty Slick kid!



20061102

PSP Touchscreen in the Works

Looks like the firmware guru's are taking a break from creating the latest PSP firmware hacks, and actually putting their efforts into creating a PSP touchscreen. I have long waited for the day I could use my PSP Home Control Software with a PSP Touchscreen. That day is getting closer.

The touchscreen will not work with any games, it will only be for modded PSP's with custom homebrew software that has been coded specifically with the psp touchpanel drivers.

Check back for more information on the touchscreen overlay for PSP soon.

Speaking of touchscreens, does anyone know of good touch screens that will open a browser in Kiosk mode? Can't get it working with the Nokia 770, and I'm not yet sold on the UMPC devices. Tablet Kiosk makes some nice panels, but I'm still not sure if it's worth the $$. Please contact me if you know of a good touchpanel solution.

20061028

XBOX Remote Interface .5 Mod for PSP

This is a flash interface that will run on your PC or on PSP that can control Xbox Media Center (XBMC).

It pulls album art, and is a fast way to manage your playlist wirelessly from the PSP

Download it here

20061019

Easily Stream Digital Media to PSP, XBOX, 770 and more

I've been playing around with uPNP and TVersity. It is a central server that will allow you to easily access your digital media from other devices on your network.

It is PSP compatible.
It is free
It also works with XBMC
It streams music to a Nokia 770

It's compatible with LOTS of other devices. Definitely give it a try:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.tversity.com/screenshots.html

20060906

PSP Wifi Bot




Check out this PSP Controlled robot with Video Feedback!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4FlGPHW-q4

20060807

Web Browser for PSP Released

A New version Of Links2 PSP Browser has been released. This is based off the Linux browser.

From PSPUpdates:

The creator of PSPRadio, Raf, has once again updated his Links2 Web browser PSP port which can be used as either a standalone application or as a plugin for Raf's PSPRadio application. The Links2 web browser for PSP is based the open source browser for Linux which is also being constantly updated. This new version is now based on links2.1-pre23, whilst the previous version was based on links2.1-pre22; bringing various upgrades along with it. Here's the changelog:

New features:

* Cookie save/restore patch from cvs.pld.org.pl/SOURCES/links2-cookies-save.patch?rev=1.2 applied.
* Merged to 2.1pre23 See Changelog.orig
* Made psp_bb_to_fb_factor a configurable parameter in links.cfg (default=1, set to 2 to enable zoom mode)
* Also changed default font to 12 from 24. (Change to 24 in html.cfg if want to use zoom mode)

Bug Fixes

* Reverted UP/DOWN behavior (user requested). (R+UP/DOWN still does page up/down, though).

I know that many PSP users are happy using the 2.0+ firmware browser and DevHook, but the advantages of this browser only become clear when you actually use it. Controls are smooth, and as you can tell, this browser loads the PSPupdates homepage with no trouble. It certainly gets rid of that annoying 'Not enough memory' error while using the firmware browser. No, it doesn't support flash, but for everyday surfing it's much more efficient.

20060119

Ipod as Field Guide

I’ve been playing a lot with an iPod video that I got over chistmas. I am most excited about the ipod’s use as a portable information device. Pod2Go (for macs) is an ap that lets you sync movies, weather, news etc into your ipod Notes. That has been really interesting. I’ve yet to really use that info as I am still waiting for otterbox case to come so I can take my ipod out of its wrapper (i just cut a few holes in the packaging that it came in to make a temporary scratchproof membrane.) But after that, I want to turn it into my dream-come-true digital field guide. I have a DVD on order with videos of 512 birds of North America that I am gonna encode and dump on there as a bird guide. There is also a company that makes BirdPod, where they encoded the Stokes birding by ear CDs and make a bunch of playlists for you. I want to start scanning my paper guides to get images in there. And it should only start with birds. I’d love to have a field guide to aircraft, cars, flowers, dogs, what have you. Even just thinking about audio field guides, imagine one of accents of the world, where you could try and find out what language someone was speaking, or where in the US they were from, by listening to little samples… Folks are already creating their own audio guide and walking tours to their favorite places. One big difference between a field guide and a tour guide is that the field guide requires more attention and interaction to enjoy. A good menu structure and quick navigation is important to keep a person's eyes and ears on the world around them, rather than buried in the podiverse.

20060113

Ipod Nano Wristwatch Hack



In this clearly authentic photograph, I show how I installed iPodLinux on my nano and hacked X windows to turn 90 degrees counter clockwise and make an inexpensive wristwatch with mp3 capabilities, along with all my cached data: weather, theater schedules, and news. You can use iCal to set 1000 different alarms, each with its own song. I also tucked a bluetooth transmitter/receiver in there. Wireless headphones are buried in my ears behind a pair of in-ear microphones for ambient sound. I can choose to mix my ipod audio with ambient sound at whatever level I choose, as well as run filters to counteract cocktail party syndrome and thus have easier conversations in bars and restaurants. When away from bars and restaurants, I have a dictionary of 50 common cocktails and 4000 easy recipes in Timed Audio and Text Instructional Format (TATIF files or TAT for short) on hand to help me towards comfort and good eating. I'll post more information and insructions on how to make one as soon as my neighbor fixes his internet.