Electrobrains
- Jan 2, 2012
- 259
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2012
- Messages
- 259
Hello friends!
I got a cry for help from a single parent mother.
Her 16-year old son has got Video Game Addicted. He plays both day and night and has stopped going to school. Now the social authorities has placed him in a therapy for some weeks and the mother brought me his Sony Playstation PS3.
I offered her that I can manipulate the thing and build a timer into it, that would only allow the boy to play at specified times.
Of course the easiest would be to cut the power cord and install a cheap clock timer. The problem with that is of course that the boy can easily manipulate the timer or even cut the cord and connect another cable (in that age they start to get understanding of how to do such things).
Added to that is that he now is bigger and stronger than his mother and she sometimes even is afraid of him.
So, my idea is to go deeper. I opened the PS3 and looked a bit at the power supply and I think that could be a good place to attack...
See included photos!
To start this project, my questions to you:
1. Has anybody already done something similar (I don't need to reinvent the wheel)?
2. Do you have other (good!) ideas, how to control a PS3? I never used such thing. Would it for instance be possible to set a timer in software, protected by a password?
3. As you see, the power supply has a 12V power output and a 4-pole connector labeled "5VSB", "GND", "STBY", "ACIN_DET".
Before I start measuring and manipulating, has anyone of you experience with those signals or knows exactly their function?
I suppose SB and STBY stand for Stand-By and DET for detection.
I got a cry for help from a single parent mother.
Her 16-year old son has got Video Game Addicted. He plays both day and night and has stopped going to school. Now the social authorities has placed him in a therapy for some weeks and the mother brought me his Sony Playstation PS3.
I offered her that I can manipulate the thing and build a timer into it, that would only allow the boy to play at specified times.
Of course the easiest would be to cut the power cord and install a cheap clock timer. The problem with that is of course that the boy can easily manipulate the timer or even cut the cord and connect another cable (in that age they start to get understanding of how to do such things).
Added to that is that he now is bigger and stronger than his mother and she sometimes even is afraid of him.
So, my idea is to go deeper. I opened the PS3 and looked a bit at the power supply and I think that could be a good place to attack...
See included photos!
To start this project, my questions to you:
1. Has anybody already done something similar (I don't need to reinvent the wheel)?
2. Do you have other (good!) ideas, how to control a PS3? I never used such thing. Would it for instance be possible to set a timer in software, protected by a password?
3. As you see, the power supply has a 12V power output and a 4-pole connector labeled "5VSB", "GND", "STBY", "ACIN_DET".
Before I start measuring and manipulating, has anyone of you experience with those signals or knows exactly their function?
I suppose SB and STBY stand for Stand-By and DET for detection.