Interest in "Ultimate" PS3 Downgrading Kit?

I'm trying to gauge interest in a "Ultimate" PS3 Downgrading Kit that I could design and sell here. There's a couple ways to do it, but my guess is that I would sell it for somewhere in the $50-$65 range.

It would be a single PCB with a Teensy and a socket for either NANDs or NORs. Potentially could have both sockets but that of course would increase the price. This would be for use with either NANDway or NORway. Since these are sockets the NAND or NOR would need to be removed from the PS3, so this would only be for those comfortable with desoldering/soldering these chips.

I'm personally not a fan of the NAND or NOR clips, they're annoying and way more expensive than the sockets. But I could make a version that did use clips instead of the sockets, but that would probably end up being over $100 with both clips included.

I could of course design 7 different versions with various features to meet the needs of all, but that's a lot of work.

I already have a PCB designed to replace my current setup, but that is with both the Teensy and the socket on separate daughter boards. If I did this I would have to redesign it so everything could just be on the single PCB to make it cheaper and more user friendly.

Thoughts?

Not sure if this is the best forum for this but since I'm not actually selling anything figured it didn't exactly belong in the marketplace either.

 

Why not make a universal adapter system.
Use the same FPC as the E3 flasher does and just plug in the correct socket daughter board, if people want to use the clip just use the E3 one that's easy to get.

 

Although that is a good idea in theory in practice it might be problematic. Part of the appeal, for me at least, of using the sockets is to have the absolute best scenario for dumping either the NAND/NOR, you have a super solid connection with the shortest distance between the Teensy and the NAND/NOR as possible. Placing the sockets on a daughter board would add more points of failure to the system and increase trace lengths.

That did get me thinking though, it would be easy enough to include 2 different FPCs for NORs on the board itself. From what I've found it seems like there are just two different clip styles for NORs, there's the E3 like you said and the 48 pin "360 Clip" ones that are sold on Aliexpress and the like. So if I made an all clip version it could have three FPCs on it for the different options out there.

I don't know why I wasn't thinking about FPCs before. That makes having just one "ultimate" board a more tempting idea. Sure it would make laying out the board more annoying but it would probably only increase the cost of the board itself by a couple bucks and then everyone could have the best of both worlds ^.^ Downside would be that people who only want clips will have to pay to have these random sockets on there. Hmmm....

I'm sort of back pedaling on the idea of pre-populating the Teensy on the board itself. This way people can choose to supply the Teensy++ 2.0 themselves (like if they already own one), or I can place one on there if someone needs it. This of course would bring costs down for those who have a Teensy already, it would also potentially make designing the board a little easier

 

Based on my personal experience

- Donwgrading Nand consoles is not worth it because it's more difficult and these ps3 tend to fail pretty easily (ylod)
- Using a clip is totally feasible and is certainly a good time saving compared to desoldering/soldering chips. I mean, as long as you succeed in dumping the nor and you took the time to secure the clip with tape or something else, there should be no problems writing the NOR.
- E3 clips cost nothing (15€ shipped on aliexpress) and can be easily cut to fit all ps3 (on some fat models, there are resistors in the way of the clip).
- E3 flasher works OK but needs the console to be powered up to work properly

So I think a solution based on a teensy with an e3 clip should be the cheapest and at the same time should suit most users.

 

EDIT: Check updates below!

I think I've decided to make it work with both the sockets and the clips, adding the connectors for the clips should only add like $5 to the price. This of course could change if it ends up causing too many problems.

My current plan is to make and sell the PCB with the sockets and clip connectors populated. I can put a Teensy++ 2.0 on there for an additional fee if you need it. I don't plan on supplying any of the clips myself, they're easy enough to buy online. I'll make sure to link to the clips that I have designed it for though.

Currently I'm making the footprints and 3D models for a bunch of the components. Surprising how many of these aren't out there or aren't complete, at least for KiCad.

Kind of the point is for it to be the One Downgrading solution to rule them all, that way it can meet the needs of everyone. For me I downgrade both NANDs and NORs using sockets and it's the ideal solution for me (NANDs for that sweet PS2 backwards compatibility). As far as I know there isn't an easy to use solution for sockets out there. For clips you can buy into the whole E3 system or make your own PCB for clips using gerbers uploaded by littlebalup. So there's not much I can improve in the clip space (besides making it slightly simpler and selling the boards myself).

I was pretty sure E3 clips only work with NOR consoles?

Speaking of which I'm trying to nail down the pin-outs of both the E3 NOR clip and the 360 NAND clip. Yes the pin-outs for the breakout boards are out there but I'm not finding pin-outs for the connectors themselves. Here's a awful image of what I mean: https://imgur.com/PXfKEtd

I could probably just follow the traces on the 360 clip and make an educated guess, but the E3 not so much. If I have to I'll just buy both in a couple of days and figure it out, but I'm hoping someone else has already figured this out.

Update: I've finished the footprints and crappy 3D models and made a mock up. The board will definitely end up bigger but this is just to show what I'm thinking of.



Update 2: Lol can't wait for this post to be super long. Started actually designing the board and I don't know how I forgot that for the NAND clips not to suck you need to use NANDway Signal Booster Edition. In order to do that whilst having all the NOR stuff I would need to add 4x 4:1 multiplexers or some kind of jumper system, which would increase the size of the board/push me into using a 4 layer board/increase the price etc... So I went ahead and designed just a Teensy to Sockets board. I'll order some and test those out and if they work well I'll start selling them. Here's some pics.



I think I'll still design and make separate boards for both NAND and NOR clips, I already have most of the work done for those and just need to figure out the pinouts for 2 of the four clip connectors. Those should be much cheaper than the socket board since I can make them much smaller and the clip connectors are much cheaper then the sockets.

 

Woohoo! Got my socket boards in and they work great! Here are some pics!






Waiting on some NAND sockets and then I'll list the two I have right now on the marketplace. After those sell peeps can let me know there if they want one and I can make some more.

After some flip flopping I have decided to actually make my original plan of a "Ultimate" PS3 Downgrade Kit! I got my hands on an E3 clip and a NAND 32pin 360 clip and mapped their pin-outs, I also tested the bus switches I would need in order to switch between NORway and NANDway Signal Booster Edition.

The schematic for the Ultimate Edition is all done, I'm just doing the board layout now. It has the two sockets and supports four different clip styles: NOR E3 Flasher Clip, NOR 360 Uni Clip, NAND 360 Uni Clip, and NAND 32pin 360 clip. I've also designed it so you can power the whole thing using a microUSB cable. In theory a computer should be able to supply enough power for it, but I would recommend using a phone charger.

My plan is to sell the Socket Edition for $65 and the Ultimate Edition for $85. Hopefully I can get a better deal on the sockets so I can bring the price down >.>

I think I might actually make just a clip version as well <.< I'm having too much fun designing these boards. There's other stuff out there for clips, but as far as I know there isn't anything that lets you just plug in an E3 clip. My guess is the Clip version would be like $55, essentially the Ultimate Edition minus the two sockets.

 

looks great!
Can you use a LDO 3v regulator off the USB supply from the teensy, instead of an external one?

I'd also make the silkscreen way bigger for the NOR and NAND markings on the PCB

Is there enough room to route the traces for the FPC on the underside of the pcb? Or would you need to go up to 4 layers for that??

 

UPDATE: I currently have two for sale in the marketplace.
https://assemblergames.com/threads/norwegian-teensy-nand-nor-reader-writer-ps3-downgrading.67027/

Just to make sure I tested just that. You can read and write to NANDs with just the Teensy (using a MCP1825 LDO), you can also read NORs but you run into problems once you try writing NORs. D'oh. Just read over the power requirements again yeah needs 1.8+ Amps at 3.3V. Not gonna get that from a PC lol. Yeah definitely gonna improve the silkscreen.

I technically could do it all on a two layer board, of course a much larger one. My main concern is with adequate power delivery and EMI issues. I would have to make the board significantly larger to have enough room to route thick enough traces for VCC and GND, and would have to make signal lines jump over and under those constantly. Also with all the signal lines I wouldn't have enough room to make a decent ground pour. So yeah gotta step up to four layers >.> (Unless its a board that only does NANDs, they don't need to make that many connections).

For reference this is what the layout looks like currently


Oh yeah! Your idea for a board that uses an FPC to connect to various daughter boards already exists, I just forgot about it lol. It's the Teensy ACE, people have designed a couple of different daughter boards for it.

 

I could have used this a few years ago . Now I use an E3 for NOR consoles which isn't the most reliable thing. I should really get myself a rework station and a vacuum pump.

This looks like a sweet project though.

 

Soooooooo I just ordered the boards for the clip edition. I still am going to make the ultimate edition, but its cheaper for me to make the clip edition first in order to make sure all the clip stuff works. It would suck to order the ultimate edition boards and populate it only to find out it doesn't work :c I have to admit I'm excited for the clip edition though, I added a little special something to it that I hope works out >.>

 

I got the clip edition boards, now just testing them out to make sure everything works. So far I know the NOR stuff on it works, and the power supply I made works. The NAND stuff is being annoying, which isn't surprising. The NAND clips I have I was never able to get to work before, so why should now be any easier lol?

EDIT:

Here it is!

The NORwegian Teensy Clip Edition!

It can:
READ/WRITE NANDs WITH THE E3 NOR CLIP
READ/WRITE NORs WITH THE E3 NOR CLIP
Read/write NANDs with the 360 clip (32 pin)
Read/write NANDs with the NAND UNI Clip (48 pin)
Read/write NANDs with the NOR UNI Clip (56 pin)
Read/write NORs with the NOR UNI Clip (56 pin)
Can be powered over microUSB with a 2 amp phone charger, no external power supply needed

Instead of using GitHub wiki I moved everything over to GitHub pages
https://zeigren.github.io/
Which contains more info about both boards, and is where I'll post further stuff I'm working on (I'll post here too)
BUT ALSO
I made a guide on how to use both boards. It's a work in progress, but it's mostly there.
Even though it's geared towards my boards a bunch of it is useful for anyone downgrading, especially using a Teensy.

 

That's quite a nice feature being able to read/write NANDs with the e3 clip. Well done !

 

Ok I want to buy one now haha

The only thing I’d change, is using a keyed connector on the 3v connection.
A 3 pin JST with the Center pin removed will fit

 

Well I can leave that off if you want to add one It is mostly there as a courtesy though, and an easy test point, since you don't really need it. I'll be able to make more in a few days once I get parts in from Digi-Key, and I can add it to my marketplace page. Also bumping my socket price down considerably >.> since no one has bought one lol :c

 

Ahh I see hahahah
Can you pm me the price plus shipping to Australia?
I’ve got a few ps3’s here I’ve been wanting to videos on but the E3 is rubbish (so many cold joints)

 

If you haven't seen the other thread you can now install CFW using a webkit exploit on 4.82 OFW.

Which currently means you don't need these to downgrade PS3's, however since I've already put the work in (mostly) I still would like to share what would be the "Ultimate" edition. And who knows Sony could patch the exploit and we could be right back to needing to use hardware downgraders again, hopefully not though.

So this is the Easy PS3asy

It obviously needs work, I haven't finalized the layout by any means.

But it doesn't require a Teensy, it has the at90USB1286 on board, and also supports SPIway.
I've already made customized versions of both NORway and WAY-launchers in order to make using it easier. Unlike the Clip Edition you don't need to switch between NOR or NAND mode, that's now done in software instead. I also was working on my own clip, that although it would have cost more than an E3 clip, it likely would have been significantly easier to use and more reliable then the clips currently out there >.>

 

Well it looks good and an exploit is useless if the system doesn’t boot, so this kit is still useful.
Also could be used as a general purpose programmer too

 

That's quite true, still useful for consoles that get bricked. I've been meaning to try and make a list of what kind of devices this stuff can be used with besides for just PS3 stuff.

 

Thank you I purchased a clip edition to be used to backup my cable modems, but I will also use it to create backups of my voip phone and routers in case I brick them. Only thing that sucks is nandway and norway only support a limited amount of nand flash, if you want support for other flash types you will have to know how to add this to the file yourself.

This is why I wish somebody created a similar clip edition "hat" board for the FlashCat USB xPort and/or the FlashCat USB Parallel Adapter, as this tool and software supports tons of (if not most) flash types

http://www.embeddedcomputers.net

 

Oh damn. I'll look into it. That xPort uses the sameish MCU as the Teensy, it just has less RAM and storage space. You might be able to get a Teensy to work with their software. Although I'm sure it would violate the terms of service of their software and they've probably implemented stuff to prevent people from doing that.