Finally, I’ve received all the needed parts for the new prototype in the mail. I spent this weekend working on the project.

In the last post, I mentioned my idea of using a simple 5V power brick instead of an ATX PSU. This is what I tried to achieve this time.

In short: it works! I managed to power up the console with my new improvised setup. However, it took quite some time to figure it out.

The worst part is that the power brick I spent almost 50 EUR on turned out to be a piece of garbage. It is unable to supply enough voltage under load. As soon as I powered on the console, the voltage would drop to about 4.5V which is unfortunately not enough, so the console would instantly shut off.

I’m going to look for an affordable alternative. For now, I’ve been successfully using my bench power supply. It goes up to 10A, which is just enough for the console to boot. The power draw is the highest during the boot. After booting, the load decreases by a couple of Amps.

Seems like this is going to be a similar story as one with the PicoPSU. It’s too difficult to find a quality power supply that meets the specs. Once I find one, I will make sure to post a link to it. This way, anyone interested in the project will be able to get one.

I’m going to keep working on the project. The next obvious step is to find a better power supply. Then I still need to improve the Arduino code for the buttons. The current Power On/Off sequence needs some adjustments. I also need to decide if I am going to use ready-made buck converters or design my own. This seems like a lot of hustle but will theoretically improve the reliability of the adapter in the long run. I’m concerned that my knowledge is lacking in that field.

I hope that I will finally finish the project during the next year. It’s hard to believe how much time and money I’ve spent on it already. So it would be nice to finally get it out of my head!

Anyway, thanks for reading and see you in the next update!