Step-by-step guide to making a portable DreamCast console

[bacteria]

Apart from finishing some ancillary things like a couple of switches, some quick wiring, screen controls, installing the prepared A/V port, etc (which are really more cosmetic things), I finished a guide for making a portable DreamCast handheld and published it on Instructables in their "Battery powered contest".

The guide is designed to show someone how to make a portable from scratch, and is a detailed and easy to follow guide.

The guide is here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-Sega-DreamCast-console-into-a-batter/

If you would like to vote for it on their site in the next day or two that would be awesome (i'd love to win a prize!), but obviously up to you if you want to or not:
http://www.instructables.com/contest/battery2013/?show=ENTRIES

Anyway, here is a pic of the system, more pics on the guide of course; loads in fact:

http://www.made-by-bacteria.com/imagehost/pics/2a81214ed14970d11996ca436aa293a3.JPG

I'll be interested in your comments too.

[CatTehBus]

awesome guide, enjoyed reading it. I really need to work on my solder skills

[JakeM]

I love these types of consoles! Ive seen everything from a N64 in a GBA carrying case, a PS2 in some weird thing that made it look futuristic. All kinds of stuff. Im glad people are making these and can show it to people on youtube.

[Gunstar Hero]

Awesome work! I've seen a lot of your portables and I check around the benheck forums from time to time to check out portables but your portables always are best. One day I would like to try to portabalize a console but I need some more experience first haha.

[bacteria]

Thanks!

The guides on my site are made easy to follow, and guides like this one should hopefully allow someone with little experience in modding to tackle a project.

[PreZZ]

Cool stuff, but making cd based consoles into portables must drain the batteries very quickly!

[bacteria]

The DreamCast is certainly a hungry beast for batteries, however using 7.4v on the 12v line uses a fair less amperage (no idea why), got the console and screen (about 0.8 amps I think it is rated at) off a 2 amp 7.4v transformer, so 2 amps is pretty good on a DreamCast - using 6.3 amps across the battery packs, enough to have a good play session before changing the cells.

[SpaceHarrier]

I have no soldering skills but I'm still really tempted to make this as a practice project. Might make one modification though.. instead of the 3 camcorder batteries, I'm thinking of some sort of a backpack-sized particle accelerator so I can get more gaming time in. I'm not sure if you could advise on how to properly shield against the radiation, but any tips would be welcome, Bacteria.

Great guide, I'll be hunting for a DC at the swap meet now!

[bacteria]

How about a small nuclear reactor? lol