PSPi 6
The PSPi 6 is an interface board that replaces the motherboard inside the original 1000-series Sony PSP, letting you use a Raspberry Pi as the brains. You can turn a PSP into a handheld emulator running RetroPie, Lakka, or Batocera, or just drop in a normal Linux system like Raspberry Pi OS. It reuses the original shell, buttons, speakers, WiFi antenna, and internal frame, needs no case modification, and is fully reversible.
It works with the Pi Zero, Zero 2 W and, with the carrier, a Compute Module 4. It also sort of works with the CM5 (details below). It’s open source and the design files are public.
Videos
Recent Updates
August 10, 2026: I finally fixed the in-stock notifications. Enough people subscribed that sending them all at once would have taken the site down, and boards were selling out within minutes anyway. The new system sends notices out a few per hour and pauses automatically when boards go out of stock. If you entered your email way back when, yours is on its way now.
July 22, 2026: Full progress update and a video. Short version: I’m doing this full time now, the board is up to revision 1.4 (1.5 and 1.6 in testing), CM5 mostly works on the existing carrier but still runs hot and has no onboard audio, and I’m back to work on the Universal Carrier.
April 8, 2026: I tracked down why some boards power on by themselves when charging after heavy use. It’s two diodes leaking current when the board gets hot. All boards made on or after April 1, 2026 ship with the fix already installed.
(I’ll keep the last few updates here and retire older ones to the blog.)
Compatible Raspberry Pi Boards
The board has a standard 40-pin Raspberry Pi connector. It works with the Raspberry Pi Zero, Zero W, and Zero 2 W right out of the box, and with the CM4 Carrier it works with every CM4 variant. It’ll also run a Pi 3, Pi 4, or Pi 5, though those are physically too large to fit inside the shell without an extension cable.
CM5 (experimental): The CM5 isn’t officially supported yet, but it does mostly work on the existing CM4 Carrier. Two big limitations: it runs hotter than the CM4, and it changed its audio pins enough that the onboard audio doesn’t work at all right now, so you’d be limited to Bluetooth or USB audio. It’s the main reason I’m tinkering with the Universal Carrier, which is aimed at getting the most out of both CM4 and CM5 (plus hopefully a few clone boards), but I still have a lot to figure out, mostly related to getting rid of heat. Components are selected and I have rough layouts done, and prototypes are next. If you’re adventurous, the CM5 images are already on the releases page.
Before you order anything, the Components page on the wiki lists the donor PSP parts, the different Pis, and batteries.
Hardware
Display
The LCD is driven directly by the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins in DPI mode, 21-bit on a Pi Zero or Zero 2 W and 24-bit on a CM4. It works with the 4.3″ 800×480 LCD. Brightness cycles through 8 levels with the Display button, the level is saved automatically and recalled at boot, and the lower you go the longer your battery lasts.
Audio
The mono PWM audio from the Raspberry Pi is buffered, filtered, and amplified with low-noise linear regulators, so there’s little noise in the speakers or headphones. It plays through the original PSP speakers, and the headphone board mutes them automatically when something is plugged in. Volume is controlled with the Vol + / Vol – buttons, and the Sound button mutes and unmutes the amplifier. The audio filter is tweaked to drop most of the sub-1000Hz frequencies the PSP speakers can’t produce.
Power & Battery
Battery and Charging: The board uses a standard JST PH connector for batteries. It charges through the round PSP connector or the mini USB port on top, and the switching charge IC is capable of 3A, though I configured it to a maximum of 1.35A to minimize wear on the battery and keep temperatures down. It also runs fine with no battery at all (although not really recommended), as long as you give it enough stable power.
5V Boost Converter: All the Raspberry Pi boards get 5V from an efficient boost converter, regardless of battery voltage.
Battery Management: Instead of just checking voltage and whether a charger is plugged in, the microcontroller constantly monitors both voltage and amperage. I rewrote the percentage calculation using real discharge data, so it’s fairly accurate at low charge and doesn’t jump around under load anymore.
On/Off Control: The on/off circuit was redesigned and now only supplies power to the microcontroller, which then enables power to everything else. A quick push powers on, a quick push when running shuts down and powers off, and a long hold of a few seconds kills power entirely regardless of whether the Pi finished shutting down. It’s also tolerant of quickly powering off and back on, which the old version wasn’t.
Thermals
The CM4 uses a lot of power, so I use a thermal pad to move the heat off the CM4 and into the board, which has eliminated the need for a cooling fan. Some people in the community have made their own passive and active coolers when they want a bit more. The CM5 runs even hotter.
USB
Isolation: The mini USB port is properly isolated from the battery. When the system is off, no battery power reaches it, and there’s no backfeed into the Raspberry Pi from a powered USB device.
Power Out: The mini USB port powers USB devices directly from the battery when the system is on, ranging from about 3.0V to 4.2V depending on charge state, and it flows through an ideal diode so there’s no voltage loss. If a device needs full 5V, plug in the round charger and it’ll pass 5V straight to the mini USB port, powering the device whether the PSPi is on or off.
Charging: The mini USB port can both provide and receive power. Plug in a thumb drive or keyboard and it feeds them from the battery; plug in a USB charger and it starts charging the battery.
Input
An ATmega8A microcontroller handles all the input (buttons, joystick, battery monitoring) and talks to the Raspberry Pi over I2C, freeing up Pi resources for the OS. All the original PSP buttons and the analog joystick work with no modifications. There are also solder pads for two extra buttons and one extra joystick if you want to expand. There are three status LEDs: power, SD/eMMC activity, and WiFi status. The left switch also controls WiFi the same way it did on the original PSP.
The Raspberry Pi code is all written in C, which runs a lot more efficiently than the Python scripts I used to use. The gamepad driver now auto-detects across most operating systems and emulators with no configuration needed.
Software & OS Images
The PSPi runs on Raspberry Pi software, so it boots into a full Linux system. Pre-configured images are available for RetroPie, Lakka, Batocera, Recalbox, Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu, and Kali.
All images use the KMS video driver, and the button, joystick, and WiFi controls are handled by a driver written in C that auto-detects across most operating systems and emulators.
The battery is reported to the OS through a driver that presents it as a standard device battery, so it appears in the OS as a normal battery indicator.
Flashing instructions and download links are on the Operating Systems page on the wiki.
Documentation
The GitHub wiki is a good place to start if you’re new. It explains what the project is, what to buy, and includes a full photographed build guide, a flashing guide (including USB mode for eMMC boards), a troubleshooting page, and a hardware section. The build is designed to be solder-free (with a couple possible exceptions) and reversible, and the wiki walks you through the whole thing.
Community
The Discord is where most of the help and discussion happens, and there are community OS images, 3D-printed shell parts, and homebrew coolers documented in the wiki. It’s still a solo open source project, so contributions of any kind are welcome.
Buy
The PSPi 6 board is $74.95 to $124.95, depending on options. The CM4 Carrier is $19.95, and the Headphone Board is $9.95 to $19.95. Please read the wiki and refund policy before purchasing.
If you don’t want a board but like the project, you can support it on Patreon or with a donation.
Super excited to see you working on a new version and sharing your progress. I know some pcb manufacturers support pcb assembly services even on low order counts, although likely with limited part availability. But you could potentially order boards with all the resistors, caps, and some support ICs pre soldered and then just have to source the more specialized connectors and other parts to hand solder later. Once you are finished with the design and publish it, I’ll probably do something like that to upgrade the PSPi version 4 I put together a while back. I don’t know if it’s reasonable to keep hoping for a new pi zero upgrade any more.
Oh man, I can not wait to see how this turns out. Hopefully into something a can buy.
Great project,
Nice to see a new version.
Oh cool, I am also very excited to see, that there is a chance to get a PSPi v5 :-)… my white PSP 1000 with a broken lcd is still waiting. I have no experience with soldering smd, so I would be very happy, if I could buy a fully assembled board. Many thanks for your great work. Many greetings from Germany, which is still in lockdown mode :-(…
Awesome news on the V5 I missed the prior versions would love to pickup a board when it’s done if you throw them up for sale!
Hello !!!!
Happy to see that you are back into business !
I have a lot of PSP laying around my garage 🙂
Today, you will find easily for sourcing a company that do full PCBAssembly for you (it may have some cost for certain parts) i can help you for this part if you want in the future…
Unfortunately, i think the CM4 consume much more power, not? Have you got an idea regarding the consumption?
Also, why don’t you keep the same screen with 480×272 resolution?
with the CM4, you still don’t have enough pins for a full RGB 888?
Have you think of using another design shell for all this extra power of the CM4? i mean, being able to have more buttons, and more space for a huge baterry (with the space of the PSP, i can’t on my side put more than 2700mA battery.)
Again, in term of look and design i will see something like the powkiddy s30 for instance :
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002247569231.html?albpd=fr1005002247569231&acnt=248-630-5778&aff_platform=portals-tool&albpg=1161969894935&utm_medium=cpa&netw=u&dp=488e65056a7a257a7c22877c84ce2d03&albcp=10564357377&pvid=bc420fdc-3950-4cf6-a43f-1e3e7c5d4009&sk=_ePNSNV&scm=1007.23534.124000.0&trgt=1161969894935&terminal_id=d0d61455812d45649ca7cd156b5d1938&needSmbHouyi=false&utm_content=47843&albbt=Google_7_shopping&src=google&crea=fr1005002247569231&af=553779&utm_campaign=553779&aff_fcid=fe2c4f86b9be4ceaa38d4be08be30811-1619188954119-01141-_ePNSNV&gclid=Cj0KCQjw4ImEBhDFARIsAGOTMj-sSscVdKm6XummwPJ9cM38tPsTQfjaCRkZH10ocQgzYX3zZgrMrpYaAtoOEALw_wcB&cv=47843&albag=104632701295&aff_fsk=_ePNSNV&albch=shopping&mall_affr=pr3&albagn=888888&isSmbAutoCall=false&aff_trace_key=fe2c4f86b9be4ceaa38d4be08be30811-1619188954119-01141-_ePNSNV&rmsg=do_not_replacement&device=c&gclsrc=aw.ds&utm_source=admitad
Regards.
I’m working with a company that does assembly, and I’m trying to get these at least partially assembled.
Yea the CM4 uses a ton of power. It will probably get between 1-2 hours of play time depending on what you’re doing, and maybe 3 or 4 hours if I can tweak things a bit. The PSPi Compute board will be pin-compatible with the 480×272 screen from the last kit, as well as the new 800×480 screen.
The CM4 doesn’t have any more GPIOs than the Pi 4, and I’m using 2 GPIOs for audio and 2 for poweroff. I’m not ruling out RGB 888 yet, but right now I’m leaning heavily on going with RGB 777.
I also have a new Pi Zero PSPi board in the works.
Thank you for your reply!
I will be interested for the new Pi Zero PSPi board on my side… keep in touch! (if audio is included by default and the SD Card accessible on the side :-))
Regards.
Love your work,I love my psp street/E1000, so I would like to make a few requests:
Can you make compatible boards for the entire psp lineup, for example the psp street or psp go?
Is it possible to use this as a rasberry pi handheld, running linux on it? Are drivers needed for that, for communicating with the psp controls?
Not much except that, just hope this awesome project goes to the psp street too.
Also, is worldwide shipping possible, I live in South-East Asia, so that would be helpful, in regards to the kit I would have to buy.
The other PSPs are so different and lacking in usable space, that I’d say its unlikely that I’ll go beyond the normal 1000 series. I will make everything open source though, so you guys are welcome to adapt it for other cases.
The board will work with Raspbian, and the drivers should work with anything based off it.
Ok, so just to clarify, will it be compatible for lets say, Manjaro linux for raspi 4, and other distros? Also, what about the drivers, will they we needed, for navigating with the joystick in the psp, emulating a mouse, or can you/we be able to incorporate it into the input controller. I intend to use the psp as a handheld linux arm pc for everyday use, and this is a very appealing way for me.
BTW, you really need to advertise and spread this, as many psp fans will be interested, I myself found this by chance and am hooked up since.
Spread the word, and try hard on this, as we aim on helping you,in design,software, and I would very much like the psp to be breathed life into, both as a retro machine, and a linux handheld. Try making a final product, which will be available for commercial use. Love this project, and dream of having what is essentially a raspberry pi pc handheld psp linux amalgamation. Lol
I’m not familiar with Manjaro Linux, but the driver is written in c and interfaces with uinput and i2c, so it should work. The driver can probably be easily modified to work as a mouse. I’m a one-man show, so I am just focusing on getting the basic things working with Raspbian and Retropie.
The advertising will come as the board gets closer to completion. Many of the connectors and components for the PSPi Compute keep going out of stock before I can order them, and I don’t want to generate too much hype for something that might be delayed by out-of-stock components. The PSPi Zero board will ship very soon, and I’ll definitely promote it over the next few weeks.
And a few more questions,
Is there enough thermal headroom for the cm4 soc to have some space for stock thermals or “maybe” some overclocking, with the 3.5 Amp boost converter
With all the chopped off io, is it possible for you to replace the mini usb with micro usb, Or usb-c? It should be able to handle that, as mini usb is outdated and adopters for it are rare.
Thermals are going to be at their limits, so I’m unsure about overclocking headroom. I’m sticking with the stock miniUSB. USB-C is great, but the case would need difficult modification to make it fit. microUSB would probably fit, but its inferior to miniUSB in my opinion.
Well, Micro Usb is becoming outdated and ‘is’ weaker, but It is a bit hard to find adapters for the mini usb standard. Well, I can cope with that.
Is the cm4 running on stock speeds? Or has it been underclocked?
Ok, and what is the estimated time of completion, both for the pspi and pi zero projects?
I am interested in the adaptation of these boards for the psp street, suppose if the components are the same, both in the 1000 series psp and psp street, so will it be a matter of adapting the board for the psp 1000, alongside with all the components, to fit inside the psp street, with little to no changes in the electrical components of the board. Please clarify whether I am right or wrong.
Sorry for the torrent of comments, just interested
Hello, as part of my plans for the modifying of this board for the psp street, I found dual analog sticks to be possible of the psp. This might prove very useful in Raspbian (rasberry pi os, why even?) and such, as controls are limited in the psp buttons. So, can you share some details on pins used for the analog stick ,and any spare gpio pins available, if I want to hack another stick onto the psp. Thanks.
Hi,
thanks for the great project. I currently use the Zero Version (5), but noticed, that the Pi Zero is to weak for PSP-Emulation.
So I am looking forward to the compute version.
Will it be possible to just replace the Zero-Mainboard with the compute Mainboard and use all the other Hardware (JST 2.0 Akku, 800×480 Display), or should I better use another PSP with new Stuff?
And Do you think, it would be better to use a compute module light with sdcard, or should there be used a version with emmc and just use an sdcard for additional storage (then I would think about an 8 GB Version for the OS and 64 GB sdcard for storing the roms).
And I am struggling with the RAM. Since I want to emulate Things like Gameboy, SNES, N64 (which the Zero version do well) AND PSP, I don’t know, if 2 GB RAM are enough or if I should go higher. Do you have a suggestion for me on this?
Yes, the Compute board will work with the LCD and battery from the PSPi Zero.
I’m making this board so that it is compatible with every variation of Compute Module, but I believe the recommendation will be the Lite one once I have everything finished. I think I can get full 24-bit display output with stereo audio on the Lite, and then use mono audio on the emmc versions. I’m still prototyping and testing things though, so none of this is set in stone. I have the 5th prototype in my hands now, and I’m trying to work out some bugs. It’s very expensive to make these prototypes, so I have to thoroughly test things before purchasing the next one.
As far as RAM, I’m not sure. I’ve seen some people recommend the 4gb version and higher for emulation, but I don’t know enough about the reason for the recommendation.
Is it possible could you tell us what parts of the psp original part are needed to be kept or be acquired because maybe brought separately to make a easier purchase
Pretty much everything in the original PSP 1000 is needed, except for the motherboard and LCD. You’ll need my board, an LCD, and a battery to complete the build. I’ll post more info over the next couple weeks, detailing and linking to everything that’s needed.
Hello!
Very nice project! I have a PSP which, unfortunately, I don’t use since a very long time. Maybe this project will give it a second life!
I am a professional electronics engineer and I have some (small) suggestions regarding your design. First of all, very impressive that you got everything working as a “discrete” implementation with lots of MOSFETs. If it’s working and you are happy with it, no need to change. Maybe this is the cheapest way to do it.
I would most probably use a power mux with priority switchover like the TPS2116. Viewer components, less space, lower quiescent current (?) than your ideal diode implementation.
I would maybe also use an on/off push-button controller like the STM6600. They have some features which could be useful for your design, e.g. monitoring the battery voltage and not allowing turn-on if it is too low. Unfortunately sometimes they are quite expensive for what they are.
For the audio amp I really don’t think that you need the additional LDOs. I would just supply the amp via the 5V of the boost converter. The amplifier has a quite high PSRR and I don’t expect that you can hear a difference if you just use V_5V0 for the supply of the amp. When in doubt you could us a pi filter for the supply of the amp with relatively large decoupling caps. Also, you save some micro-amps when you disable the LDOs compared to the shut-down of the amp (mute) but you also burn a lot of power with the LDOs if not muted.
I come from an industrial environment and I would probably add additional ESD protection diodes for the push buttons. Maybe not necessary here but also not very expensive.
For connecting USB I would maybe try to design a custom Flex-PCB with USB connector to connect the two boards.
Regarding the PCB layout I usually suggest to switch from a 2-layer board to a 4-layer board for medium complex designs. The additional price for 4-layer boards is is very small but the layout usually improves quite dramatically in power- and signal-integrity. The two inner layers should be reserved as much as possible for power and ground, the two outer layers for signal routing.
Greetings
Stefan
Thank you Stefan. I’ll spend some time looking over your suggestions.
Hi, I’m such a fan of your pspi project and have been following it for years!
With the latest revision and it’s inclusion of a CM4 daughter board I was excited to see if I can mod my psp with your project.
I was wondering if you had any advice on how to go about ordering a prototype board, would it be as simple as sending off the board schematics and BOM list to a manufacturer/assembler like PCBWay or would there be more too it?
It will be pretty simple (but expensive) to order them from JLCPCB. I plan to discuss this some and show the ordering process in my next video.
Super awesome project 🙂 I had a PSP-1000 when it was new. I no longer have it, but it was one of my most prized possessions as a child, so I’m definitely interested in making a retro PSPi
Hopefully they announce a CM5 to further expand the possibilities of this project. I’d love to buy a kit to assemble one 🙂
This is such an exciting project. I keep finding my retroid pocket is so uncomfortable to hold vs my psp. Also would be curious about using the banana pi cm4 which features newer generation cores at a higher clock speed https://www.banana-pi.org/en/core-board-and-kit/129.html
It will require a special carrier board, but yes, I’m going to try to get it working in this.
I love to read posts like this which are informational.
How do I get my hands on a board?