Upgrading a broken PSP 1001

Suniver · October 30, 2018

Hello all,

I recently came across my old PSP 1001 that I had as a kid. I'm looking at the guts from an admittedly limited viewpoint and it looks like the board has cracks in it. It would make sense as the battery had, quite literally, exploded. It wasn't in the device thankfully, but they were both kept in the same environment, so I expect there's a decent bit of damage.

Also, the original screen has definite warping at the edges. It's not *that* bad but I don't trust it honestly.

But!

The case is in surprisingly great shape and the buttons have no obvious issues. They all travel as well as the day it was made and have crisp, clicky movement and the UMD reader and battery cover both open and close with very satisfying clicks. And there's no moisture damage because the device was, at least, kept in a dry environment. All of the damage is definitely due to lots of repeated temperature cycling (it's been in an uninsulated interior room since about 2006 or so), so I think the case is in great shape overall. The outer plastic might be weak, but the metal bits are likely a-okay still, so I think it'll survive re-use.

So I had the idea of replacing the original board with an upgrade and putting in a new screen, then using an android OS that emulates the functions of the original PSP1k software, but I don't know what to do exactly. I have plenty of room, and it has a lot of ports that I can re-use (headphone, mini-usb, power, and a proprietary version of mini-sd because SONY), plus the UMD (lol at that name) slot that I can either remove or re-purpose the UMD case to make it a proper openable case. I only have a single old UMD that's not completely destroyed though and that's the one that was in the system the last time it was turned off, so I'd probably rather remove the UMD reader altogether and use that extra room for a bigger board or extra components.

So, recommendations?

I don't have any income right now, so I can't afford much. I'd like free if possible, but I can scrounge together some cash for cheap stuff.

I was thinking of getting some variation of the Raspberry Pi and pairing it with a nice screen (not a touchscreen), but I'm having trouble finding some good parts that would fit. I can have someone modify the case interior as necessary, but I can't modify the screen size because of the button locations, so I'm limited to a max of 12.7cm horizontal and 7.2cm vertical. The original screen was a 480x272 (30:17 aspect ratio) so I'd definitely like to replace it rather than re-use it, probably with a 720p but I'd like 1080p if possible. Otherwise all I need is a small but powerful (relative to the original) board that can accept the appropriate inputs from the buttons and has wifi capability.

It also has no battery since the old one exploded, but the old one was huge for such a small capacity anyway (it could probably fit about 4500mAh of battery inside the battery space and still have 10% expansion room on all sides), so I'd need to replace that. I could probably fix the original battery case (it's in bad shape, but it split mainly along the manufacturing seams, so I think I can put it back together with a generous helping of heat and glue) and just put a small 2Ah battery in that, if necessary, but I'd like to use the whole of the original battery case for a larger one if I can find one for cheap. Making one from scratch using rechargeable cells isn't a problem if I have to go that route.

Wow this is getting long and rambly...

Anyway, anyone have any recommendations for what to replace the original hardware with? And tips on what I should do with the various original parts that I'm not going to keep or modify?