Repurposing A PSP and some junk....

So, I wanted something to play music on in the shop. I have a computer down there, but more often than not, it is busy doing other things (controlling something, reading something,or just plain not working.) So, with some rummaging around and few hours, I came up with this.

And another view...

Basically, it is a PSP, an old set of computer speakers ( they were stripped before I decided to do this blog), and the enclosure from a WD MyBook Essential ( which sucked from day one.) I took the PCB from the computer speakers and broke out the appropriate connections (the speaker outputs, inputs, LED, and power.) Then I wired the wire from a cheap set of headphones to the input of the amp PCB. In retrospect, probably should have kept the original wiring, but I am oft guilty of cutting before thinking. After that was done, I built a busted-A** terminal block for the speaker connections. The terminal block is basically a bit of  plastic that I screwed screws and washers into. I used crimp terminals the make the connections to both of the speaker outputs ( which the screws and washers are screwed through in to the plastic.)

                                         (Close up of the back. The cat5 coming out of it
                                           connects the the speakers)

You can also see in the pic the power jack and the toggle switch which are wired to the board inside.

I connected the PSP to the HDD enclosure using a right angle framing bracket thing I got from Home Depot. They use them (as far as I can tell) for making decks and stuff. I placed the bracket into a vise and hammered it so that it held the PSP at what I felt was a good viewing angle and painted it flat black. I then drilled two holes in the back of the PSP ( through the door that you would normally open to insert a disk) and screwed it onto the bracket using self tapping screws. pretty simple stuff. All that was left to do was line the bracket up on the enclosure, mark and drill the holes, attach, and stuff in the electronics.

                                           (Messy wiring is my specialty.)



Here is a view of the electronics. Given the construction of the HDD enclosure, I had to make a bottom plate to mount the board to. That doodad in the lower right corner is an existing light pipe that I used to indicate that the amp was running. I connected the LED from the amp to the lightpipe with heat-shrink tubing. Kinda off centered the LED, as the LED is bright as hell and I wanted to tone it down a bit.

And there it is. I am currently just using the default PSP media player, which I am going to attempt to change at some point, but for now it works for what I need it for. On to more projects...