USB Controls
The Sony Playstation front controller slots are great, but they needed to be changed in favor of the ubiquitous USB. I chose to work with USB panel mounts, cables I got from AliExpress for US$1 each, international shipping included.
The mounting part came way too big to fit into the original Playstation port though. I trimmed it using a pen knife and tried mounting it on the laser cut shape I created:
Next, with a lot of Dremel and hot glue action, I fitted the part onto the original Playstation assembly.
A note on this process: all cables come with a protective PVC jacket. It’s a nice feature of the cable, but it makes it really rigid. Throughout this build, I had to remove the jacket and chances are you will have to do the same. The naked cable can be seen in the picture above.
Finally, I gave the whole thing a quick paint job using spray paint so that it would blend in more naturally.
The backplate: HDMI and RJ45
I needed two different output at the back: the HDMI and the RJ45.
HDMI
HDMI was pretty simple. I used the same strategy that I used for the USB: I bought a mount cable (US$2.60 with shipping), and all I had to do was to attach it to the laser cut back plate.
The only issue I had is that I didn’t properly measure the cable and it would not fit through. It was only a matter of a millimeter though so I just filed the hole slightly larger.
RJ45
RJ45? Well the same right?
Aliexpress once again has everything for dirt cheap, an I got the cable above for US$1.20. The problem I had with this cable is that the mounting block is extremely big and would not fit at the back of the Playstation. So I did the same thing that I did with the USB cables: trim the excess plastic. Except while doing so I cut through one of the RJ45 wire and a quick test confirmed what I had feared: the cable was dead. With the individual RJ45 wires deeply tangled in the plastic, let’s just say that this mounting cable was unrecoverable. I cut my losses (literally), by cutting the cable at the base of the mounting part, and I soldered the individual 8 strands composing the cable to this component from Element14.
Of course, this is not a mounting type but at this point I didn’t want to wait a whole month for a new part to come from China, and I figured I could hot glue it to the panel. The holes left on the mounting back plate for the screws could simply be filled with glued on screws, giving the illusion that everything is perfectly normal.
Putting it all together
In the end, lots of glue was used, but these two components can and will suffer lots of abuse with people plugging/unplugging, especially the HDMI which is a really tight fit.
The good news is none of this mess is visible. Everything looks pretty much as expected once fitted in!
