HOLD Switch Activated LED Trigger Mod

[fuckingclassy]

Introduction
This mod turns your PSP's HOLD switch into an LED switch. It's like a common household light switch. The LEDs should illuminate no matter the status of your PSP, even when the PSP is turned off. As long as your connected via the PSP charger or battery; you'll always be able to turn on the LEDs.
This tutorial pertains to the PSP 1000 models only!
How hard is this?
If you have some soldering skill, and simple PSP disassembly knowledge, you should be fine. However, if you have neither of the above, you may find the mod to be challenging...
What's needed?

-*PSP 1000 Console (not shown, but I bet you know what this is...)
-*Soldering Gun (15-20 Watt is ideal)
-*Solder
- Soldering Paste/Flux
-*Drill (with 5/64" or 1/8" bit)
-*Philips #000 Screwdriver
- Assorted small tools (tweezers, small flathead, etc)
-*Knife
-*Hot Glue Gun
- Electrical Tape/Heat Shrink Wrap
-*30 Gauge Kynar Wire
-*x2 0603 SMD LEDs (not shown, look at the "E" in "LIBERTY" on a dime for size)
Asterisk'd items are required.
BEFORE BEGINNING, TAKE A LOOK AT THE WIRING SCHEMATICS:

Step 1:
Remove your faceplate, home button bar, LCD screen, and metal LCD cage. Now you should be able to easily disconnect your PSP's power board from the ribbon cable. If you're incredibly unlucky, like me, then SONY decided to strip three of the screws holding the metal LCD cage to your motherboard; thus hampering your ability to get the damn power board out...Once it's out, flip the board over, and use your knife to cut the small trace (line) shown. Carve/cut until there's no copper.
Don't go cutting the whole line...Just cut enough so that it's no longer a "line", but more of "two lines" with a little canyon between them. As long as they're not connected your fine. I made my "canyon" big enough for the camera to see; but I could of certainly made it smaller.

Step 2:
Get two pieces of your Kynar wire, both a different color, and both the same length. Take your knife, and scrape away some insulation on both ends of both wires. Twist them together, and then solder them to the points in the picture below. The blue wire is positive, and the black wire is negative.
When soldering the positive wire, be sure to use your knife to scrape away some of the green insulation on the power board. Be generous with the solder here...I used more then enough to make sure they weren't going anywhere.

Step 3:
Get out your left and right trigger buttons. Using a drill with an 1/8" (or 5/64") bit, drill one hole in each trigger. Refer to the pics.
Don't drill the hole too deep. The ideal depth is shown in the second picture.


Step 4:
Cut out two more lengths of wire (except longer), and strip some insulation off like before. Twist them, too. Get your left trigger button and one of your LEDs out also.
LED color doesn't matter, but the FORWARD (TYPICAL) VOLTAGE does! If the voltage is high (blue, white LEDs) then you can safely run two LEDs without a resistor. If the voltage is low (red, yellow LEDs) then you'll need to solder a resistor to your negative wire to keep your PSP's 3.6V battery from frying your LEDs. I get my LEDs from this guy: bestshop2008hk items - Get great deals on LED light, 5mm 4pin RGB Anode Cathode LED items on eBay Stores! he has a chart that says the typical forward voltage (and everything else needed to know for proper resistor calculation) for each LED. If it's 3.0V+ then you will be fine running two LEDs without the need of a resistor. Your 3.6V battery will fry ONE of them, but since you have an array with TWO LEDs, the power is dispersed evenly between them. If you want LEDs that use less than 3.0V, you'll need a resistor. They may last the first few weeks without a resistor; but they're slowly dying (they are literally, burning slowly lol). Use this LED resistor calculator to pick the resistor that's right for you: LED Calculator - Current limiting resistor calculator for LED arrays

Step 5:
Use some electrical tape to stick your twisted wire to a table or other steady surface. Center the LED in-between the two wires with the green arrow/square/dot facing the negative wire (the green icon always points to the negative contact pad). Using one hand, hold the LED still with small tweezers; with your other hand, use the soldering iron to solder the wire to the contact pad (gold-ish ends of the LED). Repeat for the positive side.

Step 6:
Gently put the fragile creation into your left trigger button's hole (I lol'd) with the clear square (where the light exits) facing out. Fill the hole with glue from your hot glue gun.

Step 7:
Route the wires towards where the power board will be. If you're in my unfortunate position, this is easier said then done.


Step 8:
Repeat all the above for the right trigger button. Make sure you cut your wires to be about the same size as your power board wires.


Step 9: (OPTIONAL)
The overall goal here is to connect all the LED positive/negative wires to their appropriate power board wire...Again, unlucky Vanz made his wires too short! If you're like me, cut some more wire, strip it, and solder it to the ends of your wires. Refer to the pic.

Step 10: (OPTIONAL)
If you had to do the above step, wrap your joints with electrical tape or heat-shrink wrap (or both, lol).
Add another small piece to keep that shit down! Don't go overboard on the tape/wrap either; you need to be able to fit the power board over all this properly.

Step 11:
Solder your power board wires to their appropriate LED wire(s). If you had to do the two above steps you don't need to tape/wrap the joint (too small to worry about); but if you correctly calculated the wire lengths, you'll have to tape/wrap your joints (because the joint is bigger). Refer to the "OPTIONAL" steps to see what I'm talking about...
If you needed to run a resistor, make sure it's soldered to your negative power board wire; and all the LED negative wires soldered to the resistor's end/leg.

Step 12:
Make it look pretty. Tuck your wires away, apply tape (if needed), fit your power board over everything.

Step 13:
Test it. Hook-up the power board to the ribbon cable, and put in your battery. Use your HOLD/LED switch to activate your new LED triggers!
The LEDs are "lighter" when your PSP isn't turned on; turn that bad boy on, then use your HOLD/LED switch. The LED's color should be brighter, and more intense.

Step 14: (OPTIONAL)
Do your LED's light up? Does your PSP turn on? If you don't see a green power LED light, then your power board has a little short going on. DON'T PANIC. All you gotta do is put a drop of nice, warm solder all over that power fuse in the pic.
If your PSP doesn't charge/boot-up via PSP charger, this little trick will fix that, too.

Step 15:
If everything's good, then put her back together. Make sure all your buttons are working, and make sure your analog stick isn't giving you shit.

DISCLAIMER:
I, nor PSPMod, are to blame for any problems you may encounter. What you do to your own shit is your own problem. If you run into issues, post 'em up.

inb4: TL;DR

[Slowman]

Nicely done. Good to see someone that PROPERLY does the wiring and drilling for the LED's.

[dankgame]

very nice guide gonna have to give this a try over my winter break

[KoW210]

Very nice, one of the best I've seen, one problem though, if you're going to do this with a PSP 2000, you'll need thinner Kryner wire.

[fuckingclassy]

Very nice, one of the best I've seen, one problem though, if you're going to do this with a PSP 2000, you'll need thinner Kryner wire.

30 gauge wire is tiny. I don't have a PSP Slim, but i'd think it'd be the same. The camera makes it look bigger/thicker then it actually is.

I'm getting another Ceramic White PSP 1000, and putting in white LEDs like this. Hopefully there's not as many stripped screws as there were in this silver PSP of mine...I couldn't even access the mobo for the USB charge mod, lol. Oh well, my brother just likes bright LEDs anyway, so it's all good.

[KoW210]

30 gauge wire is tiny. I don't have a PSP Slim, but i'd think it'd be the same. The camera makes it look bigger/thicker then it actually is.

I'm getting another Ceramic White PSP 1000, and putting in white LEDs like this. Hopefully there's not as many stripped screws as there were in this silver PSP of mine...I couldn't even access the mobo for the USB charge mod, lol. Oh well, my brother just likes bright LEDs anyway, so it's all good.

For some reason, I had so many stripped screws with PSP 1000's, it was so odd.

[fuckingclassy]

Has anyone done this? Just wondering...

[Slowman]

Someone will eventually. Maybe if I were to get a PSP again I would do this. Hardware mods have been slow as of late.

[123sample]

this might be the easiest mod, and most ppl have done this...

for me, I did LEDs, dual analog, Rumble (PSP dualshock), internal camera, 32GB memory mod, and 1 customized button, similar like L R triggers

[fuckingclassy]

^ I think USB Charge is the easiest mod, but post your PSP up. Sounds like you've got a nice PSP.

[lone13angel]

Step 14: (OPTIONAL)
Do your LED's light up? Does your PSP turn on? If you don't see a green power LED light, then your power board has a little short going on. DON'T PANIC. All you gotta do is put a drop of nice, warm solder all over that power fuse in the pic.
If your PSP doesn't charge/boot-up via PSP charger, this little trick will fix that, too.

NICE! decided to glance over this guide, and saw that. I've got that problem on my psp currently, and hopefully that might be a step towards repairs on the charging problem. Excellent little tip to slip in there! Thank you!

[fuckingclassy]

So has anyone used this yet? Did you run into any issues?

[Jose Burrito Gu]

Did you wire the leds in parallel or series? A nice little MS paint schematic would be nice :P

[fuckingclassy]

There ya go. Check up top.

[Jose Burrito Gu]

Thanks man!