Installing a custom faceplate on your PSP can be a daunting task for someone who isn’t confident in their screwdriver skills. It needn’t be however, as a custom faceplate is not that difficult to install, and should take someone with no experience of small electronic devices no more than 20 minutes to complete.

This guide will show you exactly what you need to do to fit a custom PSP faceplate, including which of the fiddly little screws you need to touch to get the standard PSP faceplate off.

As for tools for this job, I’ve found that the Wickes (UK DIY shop) own brand 75mmxNo0 phillips screwdriver to be ideal, it has a stem narrow enough to fit in the small screw shafts on the back of the PSP, with a tip fine enough not to round any screws, while being big enough to allow you to exert some force (torque) on the screws themselves.

The back of the PSP -

Circled are the two screws you can remove from the back of the PSP without having to move anything out of the way. You need to feel the screwdriver fall into place on the screws and makes sure you don’t round the screwheads off. The first time you remove these screws it will require some force, as they are fixed in place with a locktite type binding material. If you feel the screwheads starting to round, stop and find a better screwdriver.

Battery cover and PSP battery removed, you will be able to see the top screw highlighted easily.

The bottom screw may be obscured by a warranty sticker. At this point you are committing yourself to voiding that Sony warranty – you do need to remove that bottom sticker to get the faceplate off.

Now, flip the PSP onto its side and look along the bottom edge. In the middle there is a fifth screw, this is the final one you need to remove to get the PSP faceplate off.

With all five screws removed the faceplate and the PSP body should come apart fairly easily, you shouldn’t need to apply too much force to break them apart. Once apart, you should have a naked PSP.

Flip the faceplate over and look at the underside of it. You will see the buttons are held in place using plastic prongs. Peel off each button set.

The analogue controller needs its small motherboard to be unscrewed and transfered over to your new faceplate. Note the small clear plastic lens that sits in the Memory stick and wi-fi holes. These direct the LED to shine through to the front of the PSP faceplate. You need to remove these (they tend to be held in place with a melted plastic blob) and move them over to your new faceplate (if it has these holes pre-drilled). I refixed my lenses back in place using a soldering iron to melt the plastic spindle.

This is the power light lens, same applies to this lens as the one discussed above.

Once you have removed all the buttons, lens covers and the analogue controller board and moved them over to your new faceplate, simply refit the faceplate onto the PSP and replace the screws. It may take a few goes to be able to get the faceplate and the PSP body back together without some buttons coming lose. You just need to keep trying, it should all fit back together without too many problems.