Mod Chip - Need Soldering Help

[Chu]

First, sorry for the crosspost but it was suggested I ask in here since I wasn't getting any good answers out of G.H.

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Hello all. I consider myself fairly good at soldering. I did the Radeon 9500 Pro -> 9800 pro mods successfully (moving a surface mount resistor), and I've built plenty of circults some of which did deal with surface mount components as well. Based on this, I thought I could handle the soldering needed to install a mod chip . . .

. . . then I started to read the directions -- and I'm a little scared now. The big issue the solder points to the PS2 bios. Essentially, it involves soldering wires to pins with SO-8 spacing (we're talking less then a millimeter here). I've successfully soldered SO-8 components to pads before -- but this is completly different. Any suggestions on how to handle these incredibly small soldering points? I know the #1 suggestion is to get a 1 mil tip, but that is almost impossible to find locally even for my weller.

-Chu

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Then added on:
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BTW, one idea I've had is to wirewind incredibly high gauge wires around the pins - and then to solder that to the main wire heading back to the mod chip. Any idea how high gauge I can go before the increased resistance becomes an issue?

-Chu

 

[0]

I've used a metcal soldering system, and that one can handle very small pitch soldering wires. The wellers aren't meant for SMD.

 

[blahblah99]

If you think soldering pins with SO-8 pin spacing is tough, wait till you have to remove a part that has 208 pins with 0.5mm spacing, place a new one, and hand solder it.

Anyhow, to address your concerns, use a reflow tip (one that is concaved at the tip) and a lot of flux. With the right tip, it's easiER.

Hold the wire above the chip and come down instead of going directly towards the pin. That'll leave some room for the solder tip.

Also, the grounding scheme in the instructions of the mod chip will NOT WORK. You will have to devote a at least a ground wire to each group of wires, and keep the ground wire tightly coupled to the others. Also, use the smallest wires you can get your hands on. THe last thing you want to happen is to lift a pcb trace while trying to move the wire.

 

[tiggersbowl1]

You need to use 30 gauge wire for all the points except your ground and your power, there you want to use 22 gauge wire.

The bios pins are really not too bad, depending on what version of ps2 you have and what type of chip you get, you will be much more amazed at the little dvd/cd controller pins that you will have to solder to. They are very difficult.

One tip, don't apply to much heat, you can easily screw up the little via points if you are not careful.

Good luck, pm me if you need any help, I have modded quite a few ps2's.

 

[Mday]

what you need is an ESD safe iron if you dont have one, so get one that has a grounded tip. And you can just file down the tip to the desired size and re-tin the tip before soldering.