HOW TO: Install a Playstation 2 in Your Ride

[RollaRollin]

After getting and installing my new DVD HU

I decided I wanted to play games!

Did a bit of research and decided a PS2 would be the best bet.

Now there isn't much info online so I was kinda tossing up on what to do.

I hit up a friend for a Slim PS2 ($20 yeww) and saw that eBay had those car adapters for PS2's

Perfect I thought, I was trying to avoid installing an inverter initially

Got it all ready to install and then realised the PS2 Slim I had was an early model and required 230V AC!!!

Your kidding me, so that idea was scrapped.

I then came across one of these and decided to give it a go.

Plugged it in and the PS2 lit up, woo hoo!

Pressed the button to turn it on and nothing,

Assume there wasn't enough juice.

THEN

I decided enough was enough. Hit up google and found a few pages

PS2's run from AC but have a converter that steps down the current to 12V DC

Which works perfect for a car.

With no guides available online that I could see.

I decided to give it a shot, not having a clue what to do

I looked up how to take apart a PS2 Slim

Remove all the screws from the bottom of the case

Now starting from the back left, slowly pull the case off. Be careful of the eject and power buttons.

I had to break a plastic connecter that was holding the lid on

With the top of the PS2 out of the way, your left with a heap of jibberish

*Jibberish being I know nothing about electronics

I look where the AC goes into the PS2 and see you can unclip the unit.

Remove one screw and the whole unit just pops out. Beauty, now what?

I now know that the thing I just removed is like a step down transormer that converts AC to DC. Well we can do away with that! I clip the wires and the AC unit is history.

At the front of the removed unit I can see the AC input, and at the back, where the unit connects to the rest of the PS2, I see this writing on the circuit board. It says 'output 7.5V' thats what I'm looking for

The car battery is around 12V, not bad.

But! The PS2 car adapter that I brought earlier, steps a 12V current down to 8.5V, which is much more safer for my PS2.

I cut the plug off, strip the wires back and wire it in to the PS2

The White is Power and the Black is Ground leading into the PS2.

Solder and heatshrink it up and you have a harwired PS2 to run natively on 12V

At this point I'm scared but excited.

I nervously touch the positive wire and negative wire to the battery and the PS2 lights up!

I balance the PS2 precariously and press the power button and it stirs to life!

From within the car I hear the PS2 noise come on!

At this point I'm cheering and over the moon.

Now I'm still putting it all in my car, wiring everything to swithces and fuses to make it a very clean install, but I thought I'd share with you all how to wire in a PS2 to your car with ease.

Mine is going into the glove box for a stealth install.

Can't wait to play some retro gaming :)

Let me tell you, I know sh!t all about electronics.

But I do have a solder and heatshrink :)

And if you have those two simple things and want a PS2 in your car like me it is simple as! And is a very cool thing to have to impress passengers.

It took me about half an hour to convert the PS2 to DC and is going to take me about another hour to wire it all up nicely and put switches in etc.

If you have an old PS2 lying around, I suggest you give this a go :)

Let me know what you think,

Any questions post em up and I'll try and help out

Callum

Edited June 9, 2011 by RollaRollin