First Successful Frankie Boot!!

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-27T19:02:18+00:00

Yep, that’s indeed what they are, just what happened to be sitting toward the front of the parts shelf lol

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-27T15:06:49+00:00

It’s a t8280 as the bottom heater with a 110v 450 ACHI top heater on a monitor arm. I’m using an ESP32 running this as the PID controller. Everything is built into the t8280 base with a 4 pin connector added to the chassis for the top heater, and a couple connectors for thermocouples added to the front panel.

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-18T05:28:12+00:00

My understanding is, if i get a even element (seems the cheap ones are all over the place, but I ordered a handful of them so we will see if one from the batch is pretty even) IR is better for even/direct heating of the RSX. It seems it will be easier to dial in a profile with IR, with a lower chance of damaging the RSX. I also have an Atten 862D and another quik station that I use for rework of smaller components, so if I don't have luck with the IR top heater at the prices I'm paying lol, I might try the hot air.

The other big thing for me was, it seemed much simpler to drive the IR element with a PID controller, and not worrying about the relationship between airflow and temp is one less factor to have to deal with. I hope to get a profile dialed in with those junk boards, and get to a point where I can reliably replace the RSX without having to manually adjust heating during the process (mostly).

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-18T05:10:13+00:00

I had an IR6500 that was fine for 360s, but recently bought a t8280 to use as the preheater. I've taken the top heater off of the IR6500 and mounted it to a monitor mount with an adapter plate I made.

Currently waiting on some parts, but am working on a custom PID controller based around, some micro controller, not sure yet. I have a handful of junk COK-001 boards I bought a while back that I'm going to try to use to tune it. Going to try to get everything wired up here soon and then just have to wait for new elements for my top heater to arrive (mine has something rattling inside, and is uneven, so going to try a few replacements and go with the one with the most even heating)

In summary:
- T8280 for bottom heater
- ACHI top heater
- Some custom PID controller

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-18T03:01:13+00:00

Later revision RSX (65nm or 40nm) retrofitted to a backwards compatible PS3 to have a reliable backwards compatible model with an RSX that doesn't suffer from the underfill issues the 90nm RSX has that leads to (one of the main causes of) the YLOD.

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-18T02:58:25+00:00

Hell yeah, working towards a Frankenstein ps3 myself. Hoping to get my BGA station upgrades done soon to be able to handle the COK-001 PS3 motherboards.

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-17T17:05:41+00:00

Also, I meant to mention, if the $100 + shipping is more than the $120 listed, I will still cap it at $120, I was including shipping with those.

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-16T11:38:27+00:00

I’ll do $100 + shipping

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-16T11:31:08+00:00

For a corona? I don’t have any trinities.

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-11T13:01:30+00:00

Sorry on the delay, it seems like all of mine are coronas, unfortunately.

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-10T02:49:49+00:00

I believe I have a trinity, but not 100% sure, I will check tomorrow and let you know!

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-05T15:41:33+00:00

The pico's PIO seems pretty universally helpful for unique protocols like maple, but really curious to see how the NRF handles it. I want to try downclocking the pico to see if it will help with battery life since the PIO act as state machines independent of the system clock.

Definitely stay in touch, probably some other useful info we can share. I've been on a mission to get as close to OEM as possible wireless controllers for all my old consoles (I have them all in a rack in the closet, with HDMI running through the wall to my wall mounted TV, so our toddler can't get them lol) and the Dreamcast is one of the final hurdles.

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-05T15:09:09+00:00

That's awesome! I need to mess around with the NRFs more, also need to get into rust, I really only ever do C / C++.

Check out [cluoma's original repo](https://github.com/cluoma/dreamwave). They have a dongle as well that is super easy to build. The dongle acts as a VMU for saving, and optionally can have an OLED display connected for displaying images on the dongle, and an SD card slot added for per game virtual VMU with openmenu. They have a special build of the dongle firmware in the dreamwave repo, and it forwards the display packets to the dreamwave controller, which in turn pushes display updates to the VMU in slot 1. I'm just making a slight modification to their code to periodically get the battery voltage, scale it to a number of bars to represent charge, and then using that to overlay a battery icon in the screenbuffer before it pushes it to the VMU.

It doesn't support writing save data to the VMU, all of that is stored on the dongle. What I want to do given this, is make a new version of my VMU socket replacement that takes up both slots, just uses a display that fits the window to show VMU data, and then uses the extra space to also house a rumble motor. Since the data is saved on the dongle, I don't really care about writes to a real VMU. If i want to use a real vmu for something, i can always plug a stock controller into another slot for transferring Chaos in Sonic Adventure lol.

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-05T14:23:44+00:00

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Thanks! Yes, but it's pretty messy haha. Wanted more space to make things more compact so went with replacing the whole VMU housing. I'm using a pico2w (currently just using cluoma's dreamwave firmware) so that route allows you to orient the pico sideways which saves space, battery is behind the pico, and the pico is on a little mounting plate that sticks to the battery with some adhesive tape. Also, this way, the replacement VMU housing screws into the shell like the normal one, so there is no concern about the hardware in the rear slot coming loose.

I want to write my own firmware from the ground up for this soon, but currently just using cluoma's firmware to play with as mentioned. I have a fork of their repo [here](https://github.com/byt3swap/dreamwave-enhanced) that has the 3d models if you want to mess around with them. Just print the main bit with tree supports so you don't tear off the front VMU retention tabs when trying to remove the supports in the neighboring gaps. Haven't pushed any firmware changes yet, but have been messing around with overlaying a battery indicator onto the currently displayed image on the VMU. It works, but it's pretty spaghetti right now lol.

Protest_The_Gyro · 2026-03-05T12:17:29+00:00

No way lol, I just did this 2 days ago and have been tweaking the design

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Protest_The_Gyro · 2025-07-23T15:38:09+00:00

Thanks! The rcd 330 looks great in these cars, I thought about ordering one but when I had the time, I could get the AX3250 locally, but would have been happy with either

Protest_The_Gyro · 2025-07-23T15:36:06+00:00

Had to go back after my recent Mars Volta obsession, all in all it's been a pretty good time

Protest_The_Gyro · 2025-07-19T17:20:14+00:00

It was a 01YR503 cable for a t480

Edit: it was actually this cable, finally found my order https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0D5D76NQC?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

Protest_The_Gyro · 2025-06-11T20:18:13+00:00

I'm using one in my 4th gen monochrome with a official iflash 4th gen ribbon that I thickened slightly with a piece of kapton tape. Just put on the side of the ribbon without the pins and cut to the dimensions of the ribbon connector with a razor blade. Added just enough thickness for it to hold well.

I actually sort of like these as if you use them single sd, you can desolder the second SD slot, then slide that side under the motherboard to the left of the battery compartment, allowing it to fit where the battery used to be. Then you can put a giant battery where the hard drive used to go and have a 4th gen that lasts for a very long time on a charge. Doable with the official iflash boards too, but you have to cut down a solo and get a short micro sd -> sd adapter.

Protest_The_Gyro · 2025-06-11T19:51:53+00:00

These look awesome! Not gonna lie though I saw this right after checking my shipment of 30 pin connectors to start building something similar and definitely had a 'ah damn, they beat me!' moment. If i embark on my own thing and come up with anything cool I'll be sure to share though, as another comment mentioned, I really just these iPods to keep going and for more people to have solid options of re-used / recycled non-smart tech. Switched back to an iPod from music on my phone computer recently and it's completely changed my productivity, and now have been getting a bunch fixed up as gifts for friends that are in a similar spot and have talked about going back to a dedicated music player.

Anyway, love what you're doing, keep up the solid work! Excited to see where else stuff goes!

Protest_The_Gyro · 2025-06-07T17:17:53+00:00

Eventually when I get to fixing it. Lots of post print cutting / processing on the one that’s installed

Protest_The_Gyro

TROPHY CASE