Friday, August 2, 2024

PlayStation Vita (PCH-1000) USB C Mod

Picked one up in Surugaya Shinjuku for 9800 yen (minus 8.5% foreigner tax return) / 9000 yen / 450MOP, pretty good price although I have no idea why Vita are still going for so high in the average second hand market in other regions.

This unit is marked with "Cross button not working well" but I didn't find any problem with it, and the rest of the console is in very good condition.


I originally wanted to clone Oxyll Mod's VitaC myself (It was out of stock) but upon searching on Xianyu (aka chinese eBay) I found someone already selling kits (and arguably better designed).


Link to the Xianyu store page: https://m.tb.cn/h.gQG0Mt6?tk=mjHq3dKvck2
Install tutorial on Youtube probably by the same guy: https://youtu.be/Jh0lIKJG9MA

Taking apart the console following the iFixit guide here: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PlayStation+Vita+Motherboard+Replacement/8115


Area of interest:



Next 2 things I did:

1) Apply flux and low melt solder onto the port's 4 anchors on the underside of the motherboard and remove the solder with a hand pump.

2) Apply flux and low melt solder onto the port's data pins and anchor on the top side of the motherboard.

Then get a hot air rework station, set to 400°C at medium flow rate, wait for the solder to melt then pry the port off the tweezers (of course being extremely careful not to rip any pads).



Apply flux and clean up the pads and holes with copper wick.


The USB C kit in question:


Have it aligned to the SMD components on the motherboard according to the markers on the kit's board and from the video instruction.

** The video tutorial suggests putting UV cure solder masks onto the adjacent pads to avoid shorting out. I did buy a tube of green solder masks for this specific occasion but as it turns out my tube of liquid is basically transparent when you only put a *very* little amount its hardly visible if the mask has covered the pads I need to use, so I opted to not use any solder masks. YMMY.


Anchor down the USB C board with a soldering iron, inject flux between the Vita motherboard and the USB C board's top right corner, then use a hot air rework station to flow the solder on the USB C's board onto the Vita's proprietary port's pads, while pushing the USB C board down with a tweezer.



Remember to check for shorts with a multimeter on 5V and USB D+ D- with the test points, according to the provided instructions.

Slot the provided plastic sleeve onto the port:


Cut off the 2 plastic post on the case according to instruction. This is why I like this kit over other solutions since there's pretty much minimal plastic cutting involved.


Reassemble everything:




Check if charging and data transfer works.



And now I have a USB C PS Vita 1000, yay!


Closing

This mod is definitely not for faint of heart and is very difficult to execute, I'd consider this to be similar to HDMI port replacement + extra steps for board aligning + short prevention + kind of a hassle disassembling and reassembling the PS Vita. Don't try this at home if you are not experienced enough, for the love of god pay for a professional to do it.

Anyway the OLED screen do be kinda pretty tho, hard to tell thing actually released in 2012, and this second hand "junk" is pretty much in pristine condition.

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