PSP 3000

I had a PSP 3000 lying around, and I did play some visual novels on it back in the day. A few days ago I dug it out and found the battery swollen, the paint flaking off, and the thing generally dead.

Still, I’m attached to it, so let’s save it. I bought some parts on Taobao — pretty cheap, too — and figured I’d just refurbish it.

Teardown guides are all over the internet, but a few things to watch out for:

First, there are screws underneath the battery compartment, and they’re covered by a sticker.

Second, these knockoff shells are really good knockoffs — they even throw in the warranty sticker for the battery compartment, so after the rebuild you’d think it was brand new.

A lot went through my head during the teardown. The PSP’s internals are more complicated than I expected, and you can tell that back in the day integration wasn’t great — everything’s stacked in multiple layers. The UMD drive at the end is the biggest pain to take apart, even though I never once used the thing after buying it.

And there are a ton of ribbon cables. Fortunately, prying them loose slowly with a small screwdriver worked fine.

In the end the refurb went through, and it looks decent.

No small issues either — I’d call it a solid success.

Of course, there’s one sad part: the PSP’s screen turns out to be just a glass panel on the outside. All those years I was putting screen protectors on it, and I never actually stuck one to the screen. (I think the Switch is the same way.)

I also noticed the shell has aged a bit — the outer glass panel is slightly yellow around the edges. No idea whether it’s the glass or the screen itself yellowing at the corners. Considering I bought this thing in 2010 and it’s been years, I’ll just live with it.