I’ve had an original PSP since it’s release in the UK in 2005, the battery in it has since deteriorated and can’t hold a charge more than half a hour. After seeing various posts of others hardmodding their PSP to replace the stock battery with a higher capacity LIPO by removing the UMD drive, I decided to give it a shot.

I bought a full replacement shell from aliexpress since my faceplate had a chip in it and a cheap lipo from amazon with the primary goal being the largest capacity which would fit my estimated dimensions of the PSP’s interior once removing the UMD drive.

parts

To remove the UMD drive, I had to remove the battery, faceplate, home/volume buttons and LCD screen just to get to two tiny screws holding the UMD drive door in. Afterwards it should have been as simple as popping the drive door out its hinges to access the UMD drive, unfortunatly I broke the door. Thankfully I had the full replacement shell.

faceplate

After removing the UMD drive I had to cut some of the plastic shell to provide more space for the replacement battery.

removedumd

I did a test fit to get an idea of the fit. I also had to cut the edges of the replacement UMD Drive door so it wouldn’t pierce the battery when closed.

fit

Next, in order to use my replacement battery I would need to reuse the original protection circuit as apparently it has some form of DRM or at least some microcontroller to inform the PSP of the batteries stats. original_battery

So I cut the battery open and salvaged the circuit and disposed of the old LIPO cell.

battery

I then soldered the terminals of the battery to the protection circuit, please forgive my poor soldering.

soldered_battery

Here it is testing the fit and connection fit2

After fitting the new UMD drive door, you can see how sleak it could look, it hides the battery perfectly. The hook mechanism which holds the UMD drive door closed still works. battery_hidden

To make it look a bit nicer and more stable, I reused the old battery shell and stuffed it with some cardboard to hold the circuit in place.

battery_reused.jpg

After putting it all back together it works! With the removed UMD drive.

finished