THE "ORIGINAL" PSP D-PAD MOD

Have you recently purchased a brand new copy of street fighter zero 3 or darkstalkers for your psp? Then you probably know how frustrating it can be trying to perform diagonal movements on the psp's directional pad. Unfortunately the d-pad in the psp suffers a number of problems. For one it's sitting way to low in the system. This means you need to press plenty hard for the buttons to actually work. Another problem is the d-pad design itself which makes it incredibly difficult to perform diagonal movements. At this current time ALL current psp models suffer from this issue. While some systems may perform a little better then others, in my experience none of them are perfect. In this guide I will show you how to solve these problems. Be advised that this mod requires you to open your system and void your warranty. While I find this mod easy to perform, you may not. Please do not open your system unless you feel comfortable in doing so. If you feel your system is functioning fine then leave it be.

Required materials.

1 NES Sleeve

or

1" x 1" of Thin Plastic, Cardboard or Similar Material approx. 0.5mm in Thickness

Small Phillips Head Screwdriver

Hot Glue Gun and Glue

Canned Air

Razor Blade or Scissors

Clear Packing Tape or "Scotch" Tape

STEP 1 - DISASSEMBLING YOUR SYSTEM

Turn your system over as shown in the picture. There are a total of 7 screws that need to be removed. 5 of them are visible and 2 of them are hidden under the warranty sticker. If your gentle enough you can remove the warranty sticker with little or no damage. Just go slow when peeling it off. After you have removed the sticker you can unscrew each of the 7 screws. Make sure you use a small enough screw driver or else you will damage the screws.

Here we have our system with all the screws removed.

STEP 2 - REMOVING THE DPAD

Gently lift the faceplate off your system as shown in the picture below. The d-pad assembly is squared off in red. There's the rubber gasket and actual d-pad itself. Remove both of these items and place the faceplate back on your system for now. By doing this we will keep dust from accumulating on the screen.

Here we have our the d-pad pieces laid out. If you examine the d-pad you can already see where the problem lies. It's just not thick enough. If you ever have taken apart a ps2 controller you will see that its almost the exact opposite. The ps2 d-pad is plenty thick and requires little pressure to use which makes me wonder "What went wrong in the design phase?"

STEP 3 - CUTTING OUT YOUR DPAD MOD

Since the d-pad itself is too thin were going to make it thicker. We will accomplish this by adding a layer of material in between the d-pad and the rubber gasket. You are effectively adding a "Shim" to help press these directions with less effort. The result will be improved diagonals and a thumb that's not sore. The material doesn't really matter as much as the thickness. Ideally, we will use a material aprox. 0.5mm in thickness. So look around the house and find what will best suit you. In this guide I will be using an nes sleeve since these are very common and are the appropriate thickness.

I created a template which you can download HERE. You can print this out on your printer if you wish to make this process easier. I recommend adobe photoshop for an accurate printout. Once you print it out you want to cut out the template with scissors as seen in the picture below.

Our goal is to transfer our newly cut template onto our nes sleeve. You'll want to use your clear tape and tape down the template on to the nes sleeve as seen below.

Next we want to cut out our d-pad mod. We want our nes sleeve to be cut out exactly as our template. You can use scissors or a razor blade. I prefer a razor blade as it tends to give a cleaner cut.

We have cut out our plastic d-pad mod as seen in the picture but we need to make a hole on the center first so that it will lay flat on underneath side of the original d-pad. Now I will warn you and say this hole doesn't need to be perfect or pretty. It doesn't even need to round. Ideally you would use a razor blade to gently cut away a hole in the center.

STEP 4 - GLUEING DOWN OUR DPAD MOD

As you can see below we have cut our hole and dry fit the mod in place to make sure it fits well. It's important to make sure the mod lays flat on the d-pad. If it doesn't the d-pad will be too stiff and won't work well at all. Next we want to attach the d-pad mod to the d-pad. I suggest using hot glue because it's not permanent. If you happen to not like the way the mod turns out you can always remove it easily. It peels off with just a little rubbing alcohol. You'll want to put a little dab on each end of the mod. Make sure that when you glue it down it is straight and that you don't use too much glue. Using too much will once again cause the d-pad to be too stiff and hard to use. Check over everything and make sure it looks like the picture below.

STEP 5 - RE-ASSEMBLING YOUR SYSTEM

Once you are satisfied with the way everything looks you can re-assemble your system. Carefully remove your faceplate and place the d-pad & rubber gasket back in their original position. Now you will want to use some canned air. Blast the lcd and the faceplate with a few bursts of air to remove any unwanted dust and quickly place the faceplate back on. Inspect the system to make sure there is no dust and if you are satisfied you can start replacing the screws.

Your all done! You should immediately notice a difference especially if you like fighting games or homebrew.