viciouskillersquirrel
Member
About 18 months ago, I walked into a pawn shop and bought a PSP phat on the cheap. After taking it home and spending more than the console was worth on a decent sized memory card and a few games, I proceeded to repair and modify it so that the thing would be functional, including both hardware and software modifications (made the buttons more clicky, replaced the analog nub, installed custom firmware etc.).
After that, I enjoyed the system for the next six months, playing through Castlevania X Chronicles (and Symphony of the Night) as well as FFVII. Everything was hunky dory.
Then one night, the power shut off while I faced off against Death in CXC. After a bit of investigation, I worked out that the cause of the malfunction was the battery. It had swollen with gas and was hot to the touch.
Looking online, I found it very difficult to find an official Sony branded replacement battery, which isn't surprising for a ten year old system, so instead I went with one of those cheap Chinese knockoffs you'll find that have a bigger capacity. Great, I thought. That solves that problem.
Of course, life happens and by the time the replacement battery arrives, I have moved onto other games.
Fast forward nearly a year to last night.
One of my favourite podcasts, Radio Free Nintendo, announces in their latest episode that they'll be playing through Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and discussing it on a future episode. They often have a write-in segment on these special retro episodes, where people who have been playing along at home have their comments read on the show. I enjoy participating in these when I can and it just so happened that I was looking for a new game to play anyway.
I dig out the old PSP and plug it in. Nothing happens. No orange light to indicate charging.
That's odd.
Fearing the worst, I turn on the system and it boots normally. Oh good, I think, remembering why I stopped using the system in the first place. I just need to replace the battery.
I do just that.
Still nothing. The replacement battery won't charge. I got sold a dud.
It's annoying, I think, but I could just play with the system plugged in. This worked for about ten minutes, then my toddler son came in and pulled the plug out of the system (he likes doing this to my laptop for some reason). The screen goes black.
Looking online, it turns out that this is a common problem with lithium ion batteries. Left alone, they will often degrade of their own accord (they store power chemically, so it makes sense) and lose charge. However, due to safety precautions engineered into the protection circuitry of the PSP battery, the battery will not charge unless the residual voltage left in the cells is above a critical threshold. In the PSP's case, this threshold is about 1.5V (the battery is rated for 6V).
The reasons for this are no doubt complicated and have something to do with it not being a good idea to drive a galvanic reaction with too much force (voltage), lest unexpected (and potentially dangerous) chemical reactions occur. I suppose the critical thing is that it's the difference in voltage between the power supply and the discharged battery that drives the reaction, so the more depleted the battery, the higher the potential difference and current will be, which introduces heat etc. I don't actually know. I haven't looked it up.
Point being, once a battery has been depleted to this level, it will never be capable of recharging ever again - for safety reasons.
It turns out that someone has come up with a simple solution to the problem - "jump start" the cells in the battery using an external voltage source by connecting the terminals directly. It means cracking the battery's casing open and poking bare conductors onto the circuit board, so it's not for the faint of heart. It's maybe even a little dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, but it'll work if you do it right.
There's a handy guide for doing this here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Revive-a-clone-psp-battery-that-is-not-charging/
I followed the guy's instructions pretty closely because I had the same brand of knockoff battery he had, but instead of using a 9V battery, I used a D type battery instead. The reason being that D type batteries supply a fair bit of juice but still only drive 1.5V, which is about where the minimum charging threshold for the PSP is anyway. It also means not subjecting the on board circuitry to overvoltage, which is nearly always a BAD IDEA.
Anyway, it only took two tries to get the potential between the terminals to jump from around 700mV to 1.5V, at which point, I put it back together, put it back into my PSP and plugged the system in. Lo and behold, it worked! I now have a working PSP battery!
I know that this won't be relevant to a lot of people since y'all are playing on your Vitas anyway (right?), but I know that this will be a widespread issue for anyone buying a replacement PSP battery around now, especially one made for the PSP Phat. With official Sony batteries thin on the ground and knockoff batteries having ceased production the better part of a decade ago, chances are any battery you buy off a shady eBay seller based in Hong Kong will have the same issue.
These batteries do have terrible build quality (mine had the terminals of the PCB joined to the cell via two spot-welded metal ribbons - they weren't even wires), but they're not a scam. They did work as advertised, once upon a time, but the years have not been kind to lithium ion and you now have to do a little work of your own. This will become more of an issue as time goes on, so I hope that even if this thread dies a quick death, other people with this same problem (PSP turns on, but won't charge) will be able to find it when they search.
TLDR: There is a way to revive dead PSP batteries. It basically involves the electronic equivalent of necromancy and blood sacrifice, but it'll get youKhal Drogo
back.j
After that, I enjoyed the system for the next six months, playing through Castlevania X Chronicles (and Symphony of the Night) as well as FFVII. Everything was hunky dory.
Then one night, the power shut off while I faced off against Death in CXC. After a bit of investigation, I worked out that the cause of the malfunction was the battery. It had swollen with gas and was hot to the touch.
Looking online, I found it very difficult to find an official Sony branded replacement battery, which isn't surprising for a ten year old system, so instead I went with one of those cheap Chinese knockoffs you'll find that have a bigger capacity. Great, I thought. That solves that problem.
Of course, life happens and by the time the replacement battery arrives, I have moved onto other games.
Fast forward nearly a year to last night.
One of my favourite podcasts, Radio Free Nintendo, announces in their latest episode that they'll be playing through Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and discussing it on a future episode. They often have a write-in segment on these special retro episodes, where people who have been playing along at home have their comments read on the show. I enjoy participating in these when I can and it just so happened that I was looking for a new game to play anyway.
I dig out the old PSP and plug it in. Nothing happens. No orange light to indicate charging.
That's odd.
Fearing the worst, I turn on the system and it boots normally. Oh good, I think, remembering why I stopped using the system in the first place. I just need to replace the battery.
I do just that.
Still nothing. The replacement battery won't charge. I got sold a dud.
It's annoying, I think, but I could just play with the system plugged in. This worked for about ten minutes, then my toddler son came in and pulled the plug out of the system (he likes doing this to my laptop for some reason). The screen goes black.
Looking online, it turns out that this is a common problem with lithium ion batteries. Left alone, they will often degrade of their own accord (they store power chemically, so it makes sense) and lose charge. However, due to safety precautions engineered into the protection circuitry of the PSP battery, the battery will not charge unless the residual voltage left in the cells is above a critical threshold. In the PSP's case, this threshold is about 1.5V (the battery is rated for 6V).
The reasons for this are no doubt complicated and have something to do with it not being a good idea to drive a galvanic reaction with too much force (voltage), lest unexpected (and potentially dangerous) chemical reactions occur. I suppose the critical thing is that it's the difference in voltage between the power supply and the discharged battery that drives the reaction, so the more depleted the battery, the higher the potential difference and current will be, which introduces heat etc. I don't actually know. I haven't looked it up.
Point being, once a battery has been depleted to this level, it will never be capable of recharging ever again - for safety reasons.
It turns out that someone has come up with a simple solution to the problem - "jump start" the cells in the battery using an external voltage source by connecting the terminals directly. It means cracking the battery's casing open and poking bare conductors onto the circuit board, so it's not for the faint of heart. It's maybe even a little dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, but it'll work if you do it right.
There's a handy guide for doing this here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Revive-a-clone-psp-battery-that-is-not-charging/
I followed the guy's instructions pretty closely because I had the same brand of knockoff battery he had, but instead of using a 9V battery, I used a D type battery instead. The reason being that D type batteries supply a fair bit of juice but still only drive 1.5V, which is about where the minimum charging threshold for the PSP is anyway. It also means not subjecting the on board circuitry to overvoltage, which is nearly always a BAD IDEA.
Anyway, it only took two tries to get the potential between the terminals to jump from around 700mV to 1.5V, at which point, I put it back together, put it back into my PSP and plugged the system in. Lo and behold, it worked! I now have a working PSP battery!
I know that this won't be relevant to a lot of people since y'all are playing on your Vitas anyway (right?), but I know that this will be a widespread issue for anyone buying a replacement PSP battery around now, especially one made for the PSP Phat. With official Sony batteries thin on the ground and knockoff batteries having ceased production the better part of a decade ago, chances are any battery you buy off a shady eBay seller based in Hong Kong will have the same issue.
These batteries do have terrible build quality (mine had the terminals of the PCB joined to the cell via two spot-welded metal ribbons - they weren't even wires), but they're not a scam. They did work as advertised, once upon a time, but the years have not been kind to lithium ion and you now have to do a little work of your own. This will become more of an issue as time goes on, so I hope that even if this thread dies a quick death, other people with this same problem (PSP turns on, but won't charge) will be able to find it when they search.
TLDR: There is a way to revive dead PSP batteries. It basically involves the electronic equivalent of necromancy and blood sacrifice, but it'll get you
Boo Booo
