Homemade PlayStation 5 Portable Edition Fits in a Backpack

A YouTuber named TERA has taken the PlayStation 5, Sony’s behemoth of a home console, and shrunk it down to something you can fit in a backpack. This isn’t the PlayStation Portal, a streaming device that relies on remote play. This is a full PS5, reimagined as a portable machine.

Sony’s PlayStation 5 is a big system, both in terms of performance and size. Its tall shape houses a surprisingly small motherboard, but the cooling system and power supply make it a living room fixture. TERA saw opportunity where others saw constraint. By stripping the PS5 down to its essentials, the inventor redesigned the machine to look more like a bulky tablet than a standard console. The main problem was balancing performance and portability, and TERA’s solution relied mostly on reimagining the cooling system, which is the majority of the PS5’s size.

Cooling a PS5 in a small package is a tough task because the console’s processor generates a lot of heat and needs strong cooling to prevent throttling or damage. TERA came up with a custom cooling setup to replace Sony’s big system. The original heat sink, a big slab designed to dissipate heat in a large chassis, was replaced with thinner copper heat sinks along the motherboard’s sides. Custom heat pipes were installed to direct heat to these sinks and three high-performance laptop cooling fans to keep air moving. Liquid metal thermal compound ensured good heat transfer. This setup keeps the system cool enough to run demanding games without sounding like a jet engine, which is impressive given the constraints.



TERA built a custom housing, probably 3D printed, to house the reconfigured components while keeping it sleek. Unlike the standard PS5 which requires a special stand to stand upright, this portable version is meant to be mobile. A smaller LCD panel saves bulk and gives a built-in display. This screen eliminates the need for an external monitor, making the device self-contained.


Weight was another challenge TERA had to tackle full on. The standard PS5 weighs around 8.9 to 9.9 pounds depending on the model. TERA’s portable version is lighter than both its predecessor and the original console, but no exact weight is provided in the source material. This is likely due to the more efficient cooling system and the removal of unnecessary components like the big disc drive housing (although it’s unclear if the disc drive was kept). The end result is a device that’s more portable, whether you’re moving it across rooms or on a trip. Not as light as a Nintendo Switch, but a big improvement for a console of this size.
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