Ben Heckendorn, aka Ben Heck, finally got around to trying out the new PlayStation 3 Slim he picked up last month and by “trying out,” I mean tearing it apart and turning it into something else.
Ben Heck is a very talented man with some strange habits, in particular the habit of ripping apart any kind of gaming electronics he can get his hands on and turning it into something cooler. He’s built an air-powered kick pedal for the Guitar Hero 4 drum kit, turned an Atari 2600 joystick into a wireless controller for the Xbox 360 and has converted several 360 consoles into various kinds of laptops.
Are we surprised, then, that his first thing he did after dropping 300 bucks on the new PS3 Slim was to tear it apart to see what makes it tick, then jam it all back inside a portable case with a Gateway 1775W LCD screen attached? Of course not. The final project includes some rather heavily rearranged PS3 Slim hardware, a 17″ widescreen LCD display with HDMI-DVI connection, a built-in power supply with a hidden compartment for the AC cable, stereo speakers with push-button volume control and a very sexy monochromatic paint job.
I wish I could preserve some of my technological machismo by saying that this is a relatively straightforward project, but that would be a dirty lie. The truth is that guys like Heck say, “This one shouldn’t be too complicated,” and then guys like me poke themselves in the eye with a soldering iron. It’s a great piece to look at though and if you happen to have the chops to take on something like this, he’s posted a step-by-step breakdown of the build at benheck.com.
