KillerBug's Custom Modified PS3
UPDATE: I HAVE UPDATED THE CODE TO WORK WITH 80.6K RESISTORS THAT GIVE A MORE PRECISE TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENT. I HAVE ALSO MODIFIED THE CODE TO WORK WITH A TEENSY 2.0, AS I SWITCHED TO THIS FOR MY SYSTEM
This is my personal PS3. During the course of development for the PS3 E-Z Chill fan controller line, I found it necessary to equip my system with 3 thermal sensors to read the temperatures of the CPU, the RSX, and the NorthBridge chip. Later, I decided that it would be neat if I used these to control the fan. Later still I thought it would be nice to be able to see the temperatures and the fan speed without connecting an external chip and a laptop. Somewhere during all this I added an additional sensor to read the temperature of the intake air. Thus the initial concept was born. I should give some credit to zembor0 of PS3HAX.net as his modification made me realize that I could have visible readouts without affecting the outer appearance. If not for this, the displays would not look nearly as good as they do, and I would only have three of them instead of seven. Below you will find the video and various self explanatory links:
KillerBug's Hardware Mod Firmware for Arduino and Teensy 2.0, Version 0.11a - Source Code
Here is the board I used...it is custom made...only two exist in the world; the other one is sitting on my desk.
Click any of the images for better resolution. I had to sand a little bit of plastic off of the sides of each display because
the datasheet was not correct. The spare board is available for $30 shipped. If there is any interest, I will remake the board
design so no sanding is needed, and post a link to order the design from the manufacturer.
This board holds seven MCP23008 ICs and seven YSD-160AB3C-8 7-segment displays. All segments of all displays are functional (including decimal points).
There are 5 pins that go to the Arduino adapter board...2 wires for the control signals, ground, 3.3v supply voltage, and a reduced voltage
to power the displays so they are not blinding.
Gerber files for the original display board,
which requires you to sand the sides of the 7-segment displays to make them fit.
Gerber files for a version of the board that should not require any
sanding. Passed all digital tests, but has not actually been made or tried.
Here is the board used to connect the Arduino pro mini to the displays, the sensors, the fan, power, and ground.
It is made from a simple project board. The two thin traces that go outside the board edges are wires; all other
traces are just solder connections.
Here is the FreePCB file.
There are four 100K resistors. These should be at least 1/2W and no more than 1% accuracy.
The other resistor controls the display brightness. I used a 220 ohm 1/2W resistor for this.
The voltage regulator is a LD1117V33.
The two long rows of pins are for the Arduino Pro Mini 3.3V/8mhz board. I used header receptacles so that I can remove the Arduino if necessary.
There is one 5-pin header that goes to the display board.
There is a 2-pin header that comes from the Arduino pro mini A4 and A5 pins (pins labeled in FreePCB file).
There is one 4-pin header that goes to the four thermistors. The other lead of these thermistors goes to ground. Some users might find it useful
to make this a 5-pin header so that ground is on the same header.
The connector in the lower left of the image is for the fan. It is JST part# S3B-PH-K-S(LF)(SN).
Any other questions should be answered by the FreePCB file and the pin names within.
KillerBug's Hardware Mod Firmware for Arduino, Version 0.02a - Source Code Version 0.02a is an aborted idea...it uses two 7-segment displays and 5 LEDs. There is nothing wrong with it as far as I know...but once I knew I had room for seven displays, this idea was quickly dropped. A demonstration video is below:
KillerBug's Hardware Mod Firmware for Arduino, Version 0.01g - Source Code Version 0.01g was the last of the versions that used 8 displays to show all four temperatures at the same time. No video on this one; just a still image:
