The Ultimate Mod For The Portable Consol That Begs To Be Modded...

[IcoNyx]

I applaud your determination but theres no way this is going to work out...

<_<

ok, I had typed out this nice little responce with corrosponding links which I still have:

here are the links:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817347001
http://spritesmods.com/?art=gp2xgps&page=2
http://tinyurl.com/h7ca5
http://www.rotonics.com/nutron/injection.htm

my stupid browser killed on me when I was trying to spellcheck (I friken hate windows so much its rediculous :angry: ) so all you are getting here is the links to my referances and this:

while you prefaced with a compliment, your blanket statement of "theres no way this is going to work" is completely rediculous.

at every turn I have pasted referance materials to my theories and proof of concept. there are only 4 caviats to this project.

1> can I connect the hard drive through the usb controller AND access the hard drive through the normal usb connection similar to connecting to the sdcard reader through the usb connection. the reason this is important is once the box is closed how can I connect the HDD to a PC to transfer data to it if I cant access it directly through the existing USB connection? this is solvable through a USB switch which I have already built and tested. so now its less of a caviat and more of a question of available options.

2> though I know the power consumption of each device in the mod is well within the abilities of the gp2x, is their culmitive power consumption too much? and in this case, if the answer is yes, I will simply engenier and build a simple power distribution board and add a 5v 2400Ma NiMh battery with power nodes for 5, 3.3, 3, and 1.5 voltages splitteing off power for each individual component, in doing this I can easily increase the overall running time of the unit as well as establish a cutoff for each mod to further extend playtime.

3> I have never molded plastics before, while this is a part of the explained mod, the plastics are for asthetics only, there is no need to have modded plastics, in reality, I can just duct tape the mods to the back of the thing and have the same functionality, but frankly I would look rather white trash pulling out a lump of duct tape and playing with it. ultimately if I cant do it I have found (and listed a link to) a company near me that can do exactly what I need professionally.

4> If too many people blanketly tell me I cant do it, Ill get all pissy and stop posting, then when I complete it Ill take some lovely pictures of my completed project with some functional video showing it in action, then Ill post those pictures here and host the vids on youtube with a blanket: I did it but you all suck so I wont tell you how, nya,nya,nya-Nya,nya!"

basically every problem that I could encounter, I have researched MULTIPLE contingency plans. for instance, while I would LIKE to make my own plastics, if I cant or it does not look good, Ill hire a professional to do it for me. or like if I cant access the HDD from the existing usb port, Ill make a usb switch to make it all accessible externally.

what I am trying to say is this, If you think something is "not plausible" but you only think that because of all the vaporware out there, then dont bother posting. if you see an issue with my research, or you see a problem with the project that could potentially derail it, then TELL ME WHAT IT IS!!! simpley terlling me "theres no way this is going to work" is not helpful.

dont think I am just flameing here, Im not. you are very much entitled to your opinion, and with all the vaporware out there (XGP for one) it is entirely acceptable for you to have reservations about this project. but what you need to know is that because of all this vaproware and subsequent mistrust, I am going to post ALL my research and project notes and pictures (when i get a decent camera), the idea being that I will be totally transparrent with it so If I do give up, others can take my work and carry on.

all I ask is if you think Im not going to do it, or if you think it cant be done, dont tell me. its counter productive and demoralizeing to me.

thank you.
Nic

 

[Samba Pa Ti]

i agree i doubt vacuum forming will work, it was talked about before (the thread about adding more batterys, the 3 cell battery one) and the 2x has parts inside that dont work with vacuum forming (injection molding maybe) this all depends which bits you're molding.

 

[IcoNyx]

i agree i doubt vacuum forming will work, it was talked about before (the thread about adding more batterys, the 3 cell battery one) and the 2x has parts inside that dont work with vacuum forming (injection molding maybe) this all depends which bits you're molding.

Yeah I am goint to try a kind of injection molding...

I need to remold the external plastics entirely, first I need to retool the plastics arround the joystick so I can literally screw a Dpad daughterbaord in. I am not comfortable with hot glueing mods... it feels too temporary... almost "afromod" (www.afrotechmods.com) I just like mods that look and feel like they were meant to be there... you know?

anyway, I digress, I need to do that, and I need to increase the overall depth of the unit, for this I was thinking on just changeing the back plastics so the entire back has the same depth as the batery compartment and moveing the batery bay to one side o rthe other, that would make room for my internal HDD mod and other circuitry I may need.

what I think I am going to try to do I take a plaster cast of both sides of the front and back plastics, then simply carve into the plaster on the outside mold and add to the inside mold... yeah... basically make a 2 sided plaster cast of the final plastics, then I can seal the mold useing a bisque clay and the pour melted plastic into the mold... if I use the right plastic, and the mold is formed right, I should retain a perfect cast. if that does not work, then I think I may have to seek professional assistance in fabricateing what I need.

 

[PoisonedV]

"all I ask is if you think Im not going to do it, or if you think it cant be done, dont tell me. its counter productive and demoralizeing to me."

I'm not even going to argue any of your points cause I doubt you would even seriously listen, god damn.

 

[___]

whatever floats your boat, dude. I still doubt that you can actually make it work the way you want to, but if you succeed... I will probably kiss your ass to get an idea on how to include an hdd in my unit

The thing is, about a dozen people already crapped up the "cool ideas" board with their crazy "I will put a 120gb hdd into my gp2x and power it with a lawnmower engine" plans... it's just an old idea and noone really seemed to be capable of producing a decent mod.

So... yeah. I am expecting your results with anticipation.

 

[thumpgun]

just had a brainwave,,my battery charger holds 4 battery's and has an adapter that plugs in to supply power to the unit....i was just thinking that everything you need to install a built in charger is in it.....a charging circuit, 4 battery bay, power in socket....what do you think...also you want to make the back of the gp2x deeper...have you thought of taking the back of the gp2x and sticking with some model glue an inch strip of thin plastic along the edge of the back..all you would then have to do is get longer screws...if you can understand what im saying...lol....another option would be to get a fibre glass body repair kit and mold your own with it....

 

[IcoNyx]

I'm not even going to argue any of your points cause I doubt you would even seriously listen, god damn.

Now Now, I am MORE than grateful for any comments you may have, if you notice a SPECIFIC FLAW in any particular part of my project, or have some CONSTRUCTIVE arguements, I will most definitely listen.

what I will NOT listen to and I will angrily rebuke is generic statements of, "it will never hapen." or, "you'll never do it" or something like that.

thinks like, "you forgot about screw mounts" or "you cant connect that wire there because it will cause the thing to burn" are VERY welcome.

QUOTE

I still doubt that you can actually make it work the way you want to



well, thats nice... thanks for the vote of confidence! :unsure:

QUOTE

I will probably kiss your ass to get an idea on how to include an hdd in my unit



duely noted. (note to self, have ass bleached to remove unsitely stains for the impending ass kissing.)

QUOTE

The thing is, about a dozen people already crapped up the "cool ideas" board with their crazy "I will put a 120gb hdd into my gp2x and power it with a lawnmower engine" plans... it's just an old idea and noone really seemed to be capable of producing a decent mod.



Yeah, thats why comments about this NOT happening dont supprise me, they do aggrivate me, but hey.

QUOTE

So... yeah. I am expecting your results with anticipation.



You see this?! This is a good thing to add. this is a comment that is ENCOURAGING! it will make me WANT to continue and SHARE MY RESULTS.

I know PoisonedV will be one of those "kissing my ass to get information about my mod and how they can dupe it themselves. but with anger and venom they work at me like a task master with a whip. trust me you will attract more flies with honey than vinnegar...


QUOTE

just had a brainwave,,my battery charger holds 4 battery's and has an adapter that plugs in to supply power to the unit....i was just thinking that everything you need to install a built in charger is in it.....a charging circuit, 4 battery bay, power in socket....what do you think...



Yeah, I had the same thought, but there is a flaw in it; while there IS room in there for a charging mechanism (even without modding the plastics!) but the connection to power would use a standard AC power line... that would be a bit odd to connect not to mention the fact that the power connector would take up more room than I'd care to work arround... no, but I think I have an idea that will work. I know a bit about power roughting and I know that the process of battery chargeing is a process of reverseing the power flow, BUT I am not familliar with the power requirements for this process, I am going to researchh it annd set up a simple switching mechanism so that when power is connected externally the switch automatically pumps power back into the battery. this is one of the latest caviats.

QUOTE

also you want to make the back of the gp2x deeper...have you thought of taking the back of the gp2x and sticking with some model glue an inch strip of thin plastic along the edge of the back..all you would then have to do is get longer screws...if you can understand what im saying...lol....another option would be to get a fibre glass body repair kit and mold your own with it....



Yes and Yes, I had considered both options, what I am looking at now is a kind of combination of both! Im going to take an impression of the back plastics and then shaveing the battery bay off altogether from the mould. then Ill add 1/8 inch to the edges and form that with fibreglass. once that's done I will need to move the screw locations altogether but I have an idea for that too

I was also thinking about moveing the batteries to one side or the other, this would increase the functional area in the unit itself.

I have gotten my working GP2x, and I am ready to start, Ill be dismantleing it tonight and Ill start figureing all this out then. I wish I could have gotten a NONworking unit but eh, who cares, its only $200.

 

[IcoNyx]

UPDATE:

I have attempted my first mold of the plastics... yeah... this is going to be hard just takeing the mold!

it appears that the side plastics are a SINGLE quad injection molded piece, meaning the piece has up to 4 diferant mold sections that compress together and plastic is squirted into it. while this makes for some clean moulded pieces, it is going to be the most difficult and costly piece... the back piece will not be too touch though, the mold on that one was easy (though I used plaster and I should have used ceramic because when it dried it changed shape and now looks rather sickly! )

I managed to get a camera but I need to get some more materials before I start posting pics but here is what I have come up with:

ultimately the mod will end up with 7 or 9 new pieces:

1> a single peice to cover the sides and bottom
2> a new face piece
3> a new 'L' shoulder button
4> a new 'R' shoulder button
5> a new sd slot cover/plate
6> a new back cover
7> an "interum piece to connect between the EXISTING screw points on the front place and the NEW screw positions for the pbackplate
8> a new insert for the USB and power connector "bay"
9> a new insert for the EXT connector "bay"

here is the break down:

to successfully accomodate an internal HDD the batteries will need to be turned 90 degrees and moved to the left side of the system (faceing the back) to do this, the screw points will need to ither be moved or set BENEATH the bateries. the latter will be easiest as the battey compartment is accessible with the bateries out . next, to accomodate the HDD and needed controller the RIGHT side screw mounts will need to be moved as well the easiest way to do this would be to make a plate that rests on the motherboard and acts as an attach point.
the screws would connect this piece to the motherboard by the screw mounts on the front faceplace similar to their role with the back plate. then simple hooks or tabs can be used to attach the back plate to the interum plate on the right, and the original screws (now behind the bateries) on the left.
In changeing the mounting mechanism of the back plastics, Ill have to modify the side plastics to accomodate the change in the angle of attack on the sides or it would look out of place. in changeing the side plastics, the shoulder buttons would have to be modified for the same reason. the top plastics (sd card slot/cover) woudl have to be modified for the same reason. the "bay pieces may or may not need to be remolded but if they do it woudl again be for asthetics reasons.
Finally the face place would be virtually identical to the original except for 4 short stalked screw mounts and a D-pad aperature in place of the existing "stick" aperature. the mounts would be fore a small circuit board catering to the 4 to 8 point mod done by davec and others. this mod would be mounted by screws to the faceplace and a series of short pin ports would interconnect the EXISTING d-stick connections to the mod with only 2 wires spanning to the back for power and ground.

after the plastics are molded, I will insert the HDD on the top right of the console with the controller mounted behind that in a cavity matching the batery cavity on the right. these cavities would in turn resemble grips on the backside of the system. a USB host switch/connector will be added next to the existing USB connector to allow PC conectivity to the HDD. I have yet to test weather I can connect to the USB HDD from the PC, but seeing that there is no option for "external HDD" in the usb connection section in system, I am assumeing for now I cannot. so I plan to build a simple USB switch, I am not sure if I will go with a logical switch (conect the gp2x to a pc and the HDD hub switches automatically from the gp2x connection to a pc direct connection) or if I will go with a PHYSICAL switch... less asthetically pleasing but simpler and safer.

the total gain to the system depth will only be 3/32 of an inch. only barely thicker than it is now. to get a feel for this, take you gp2x, turn it sideways and grip it arround the battery bay. that is roughly what the back will feel like while gameing.

also I have been dabbleing with the idea of dipping the back and side plastics in wrench grip to "rubberize" them... I dont know how far that idea will go though.

BTW, I hope to have some intrigueing pics of this soon... how do I post them?

 

[LegendaryMachine]

You post a picture by uploading it to http://imageshack.us, and then copying the "direct link to image" URL and pasting it into the message window. Then, before the URL you add a "[imgCLOSINGBRACKET" tag, and directly after the URL you put a "[/imgCLOSINGBRACKET" tag.

 

[IcoNyx]

You post a picture by uploading it to http://imageshack.us, and then copying the "direct link to image" URL and pasting it into the message window. Then, before the URL you add a "[imgCLOSINGBRACKET" tag, and directly after the URL you put a "[/imgCLOSINGBRACKET" tag.



thanks.

 

[thumpgun]

im excited

 

[IcoNyx]

It's been a while sence I posted so I thought I'd do so to let everyone know, Im still here... patience

I havent had time to work on the project for a while, Ive been dealing with some personal issues and moveing so it may be a while before I am in a position to start.

I have all but the epoxy for the molding. but I have also been considering looking into simply replaceing the entire plastics with a project box (similar to the ones from radio shack) I kind of liked those boxes and if you look at the face of the gp2x (minus the lip on the botom) it LOOKS like the top of a project box!

I dunno, Ill have to come back to it when things are less hecktic.

On the Batteries:
I have done some more looking into power requirements and it looks like I can get away with powering the HDD on the internal batteries with only one little problem... duration... the system will handle the additional power requirements of the 1.8" HDD I have selected but the battery life will drop from 4~6 hrs to 1~2 hrs... in short, that is well below MY acceptable power/battery life expectancy. it looks like I am going to have to change the battery as well. I have paced out a 3.7v 2400mAH rechargable (from a zen vision M) and it looks like a match made in heaven. now the next challenge is manufactureing an acceptabel charge mechanism.

On the USB>HDD connectivity:
it appears that all current versions of the gp2x OS there is a mounting script for mounting/unmounting ither the internal sd card or the nand space, in theory sence these referance specific devices in /dev and an internal HDD would show up in the same place (probably as /dev/sda#) in theory I can make a new script for mounting the HDD useing the same scripting... the problem here is makeing the GUI actually SEE and USE said script, Ill need some help with this one.

 

[IcoNyx]

I've been terribly buisy moveing this week and it looks like Ill be prety buisy all next week too but I did manage to take some time and go over the mounting scripts,

I made some changes to /usr/gp2x/usbconnect.sh (I replaced the mountpoints for the sd card slot by subbing in for an _external_ HDD) but now I have no idear how to move it over to my gp2x... I really dont want to brick my gp2x (again) what would be the safest way to do this? I can create a simple shell script:

CODE

#!/bin/sh

mv /usr/gp2x/usbconnect.sh /usr/gp2x/usbconnect.bak
cp ./usbconnect.sh /usr/gp2x/usbconnect.sh




but will it actually do what I want or is there an easier way?

suggestions?

also could someone look this over and tell me if it looks ok?

CODE

#!/bin/sh

sync

if test $1 = "sd"; then
# is ext mount? (exists check)
if test "`mount | grep "/mnt/ext"`"; then
echo "USB Storage connect from ext"
umount /mnt/ext

# loading modules...
modprobe net2272
modprobe g_file_storage file=/dev/sda1
fi
else
# load settings...
. /usr/gp2x/nandcfg.sh

# mount real nand
if test ! "`mount | grep "/mnt/yaffs"`"; then
echo "Mount image directory, if not mounted..."
mount ${IMGDIR}
fi

# unmount nand...
if test "`mount | grep "/mnt/nand"`"; then
echo "unmount nand directory, if mounted..."
umount ${MOUNT}
fi

# if not exists nand image, format nand...
if test ! -f ${IMAGE}; then
echo "format nand image, if not exists..."
rm -rf ${IMAGE}
${BINDIR}/nandformat.sh

# unmount nand...
if test "`mount | grep "/mnt/nand"`"; then
echo "unmount nand directory, if mounted..."
umount ${MOUNT}
fi
fi

# loading modules...
modprobe net2272
modprobe g_file_storage file=${IMAGE}
fi

 

[IcoNyx]

Ladies and gentlemen!

I have managed to get a proof of consept working!!!

Useing a 2.5" laptop HDD I have created my internal HDD mod. it works. games play from the internal drive and all is happy, but for 3 problems... I still have no method of mounting the internal HDD and power consumption...

the 2.5 inch HDD drew so much power the thing ran for all of 15 min before the system died. (for those wondering, I drew power directly from the USB and YES it powered on. but like I said it was short lived. also I noticed the system was terribly unstable with the HDD connected, I suspect the power draw is enough to rob other parts of much needed amperage.

I am still hopeing to use a 1.8" HDD as the power requirements are MUCH less but again, only time will tell.\

At least I have a proof of consept for the function.

as for the plastics. I tried fibreglass... yeah... ugly. I think I'll go back to the drawingboard on this one.

I don't have pics of any of this yet, but frankly I haven't done anything that hasn't already been done by someone else. The only differance is that I drew power directly from USB instead of from an external power source.