Hardware Opening/Soldering the WII *INFO*

[Dylanwhat]

If you mess up just pull the ol' Wal-Mart/Target swap.

 

[pelago]

Also imagine if you just blindly installed your Wiinja, only to find out that someone had stuck the label on the top of the chip the wrong way round...........Â

That's a very good point. People installing the Wiinja should definitely look for the white dot, not rely on the label orientation.

I guess that's one advantage of the CycloWiz and Wiikey - because they come on a non-symmetrical circuit-board it shouldn't be possible to get its orientation confused.

 

[kdanarch]

Yesterday I got my soldering stuff in the mail (and won my local GameStop's guitar hero competition... for a lousy tshirt).

And I pulled out a PCB I yanked out of a broken keyboard and practiced on some points.

I'm feeling pretty confident, but I don't know how much smaller the contact points are going to be on the wii, and I'm afraid I'm gonna bridge contacts accidentally.

 

[lenselijer]

Where the dot is on the modchip is pin 1, the opposite is pin 8.

 

[Scorpei]

Might I suggest not (only) looking at the dot but at the indent on the side of the chip?

 

[ancient_imhotep]

The Wiinja team must be reading all our posts on here, as they have just updated their installation schematic on their website to include information on identifying the pins:

 

[TheVirus]

Arg, remove the damn #'s I want to see how big those contact points are. #8 and #1 look big and # 5 6 7 look like the ones near them.

It looks fairly easy. The only problem I have with soldering is if there's a flat surface, I see to mess up a bit. Other than that, seems very easy. Come on clones...

 

[bluebright]

Hey, how far away are these GBATemp reviews?

 

[Hooya]

So I checked today and it turns out that my soldering iron is 30w, not 15w. I've heard some users say that a 30w iron will get too hot and I will risk frying something. How real is that risk? Is there a way to torque down the wattage on my iron? I can solder a point pretty quickly now, but I don't want to fry my Wii.

What kinds of real temperatures are we talking about in terms of 15w vs 30w?

 

[Ludvigsson]

http://www.clasohlson.se/Product/Product.aspx?id=383690

Do you guys think this one'll do? The 0.35mm?

 

[kdanarch]

I read some other chap in here opened his Wii and soldered the points he was going to connect to the Wiinja, so I figured I'd do the same thing since all my parts came in the mail.

First thing... the cable that connects the front of the wii to the drive... broke. One of the wires just gave weigh as I tried to pull it out. I panicked IMMEDIATELY (the thoughts in my mind were akin to oh god I can't turn it on, and then I remembered the power on the wiimote, and then I thought worse... I can't eject the disc!... after actually LOOKING at the mechanism of the wii, I learned I murdered by blue glow. I stripped a bit of the wire that got disconnected and tried to shove it in, and I taped it up with electrical tape hoping it'd make some sort of connection and wouldn't fall out. Either way, the blue light being lost is nothing in comparison to losing my console.

So I got down to it and I disassembled as to specification, and I got a good look at the solder points.

Holy shit are they tiny. But still I managed to get my wires onto all the proper points. I sharpied the inside of my case to let me know what colored wires were what pins. I had to draw sort of a diagram since I only have two colors of wire (r6 g7 r8 g1 g5).

So now, after fatally wounding my blue light, and nervously tapping (uncontrollably... I'd never make it as a doctor) gently at tiny contact points, I desperately need that Wiinja in the mail. I want to close this baby back up and make sure it's okay.

I read about that new version Wii incompatibility and it freaked me out but luckily I still had it open to take a look at the mobo. I camped for this in December, so I'm lucky. Worst thought was, if I kill this thing, I'm gonna have to wait for another mod solution... and I know I wouldn't buy it until they came out with a solderless solution.

There are tiny little o s (insignificantly sized almost) on the mobo. Are those contact points? I tried not to bridge anything like that but I don't have a magnifying glass :x

Edit: The part I accidentally pulled out is working! It's working well enough that I'm looking across the screen at my faceplate glow blue. I haven't put it all back together but I connected everything that would require connection to run. It's working fine, so I know I didn't bridge anything, so now I'm just waiting for the chip to come in the mail to finish her off, and then it's re-assembly time

the most exciting time for all

 

[bluebright]

So I checked today and it turns out that my soldering iron is 30w, not 15w. I've heard some users say that a 30w iron will get too hot and I will risk frying something. How real is that risk? Is there a way to torque down the wattage on my iron? I can solder a point pretty quickly now, but I don't want to fry my Wii.

What kinds of real temperatures are we talking about in terms of 15w vs 30w?

Yeah, if your soldering iron is too hot, it very easily over heats parts of whatever you're soldering. But, if your careful, you can solder with a hotter iron, all you do is lightly tape the melted solder off the iron onto the board and blow. Tap quickly!

If you leave it on too long it'll overheat the connections and burn stuff you don't want burned.


EDIT: To kdanarch, I hate that feeling, the one where you feel you've skrewed something up and nothing can make you feel better. Almost wasted my DS Lite flashing it. Feels good knowing everything is okay though.

 

[Takrin]

heres what i use for ps1/ps2/xbox/ds modding
Wires:
30awg teflon wire
22awg wire for power and ground
Iron:
Cooper Tools 42w
Lead:
.022" dia lead alloy 62/36/2 (silver bearing, rosin-core) radioshack
.025" dia lead alloy (organic flux water based cleaning) kester
Flux:
Liquid Flux (really nice since you can dip a wire in it and touch the wire to a tiny lead ie ps2 slim points)
Paste Flux good for tinning and everyday use
Desoldering Braid:
ESD Safe 0.98", 0.60", 0.35
Misc.
Electrical tape, Heat sink clips, tweezers, helping hand, shrink tubes, glue gun

also i kinda hate the RoHS compliant solders, their usually tin/silver, or tin/copper but god their such pain in the ass, hard to work with and requires more heat to melt, also cools too fast and hates sticking to stuff, also dont use corrosive flux. kinda hard to fry things unless you use a soldering gun (i've tried and some resistors acually explode when held on long enough) use the 3 second rule, dont have the soldering iron on a point longer then 3 sec, if lead wont stick apply rosin or scratch area lightly with a xacto knife or pencil eraser, really makes things alot easier if you do this

 

[bluebright]

lol, nice. Oh, and for everyone else who is confused like me, the other spelling "rosin" is resin. I believe their the same thing.

 

[shtonkalot]

lol, nice. Oh, and for everyone else who is confused like me, the other spelling "rosin" is resin. I believe their the same thing.

Not quite the same, but rosin is derived from certain resins.
In soldering terms it is used to help the molten solder flow easily onto the desired location. most solder sold for electronics is "rosin core" and should be fine without additional rosin or flux.
It comes down to your soldering 'style' I guess. I know a pro who would never use rosin core solder and fluxes (I like fluxes as a word so I'm using it!) everything he works on. I find it a bit messy and unnecessary, but I'm not as good as he is.

 

[kdanarch]

I got my wires confused this morning so I labelled them, waiting for the chip still.

What makes me nervous is that each of these chips have different pinouts, and I keep hoping that I've done it right to this point. I guess that's the advantage of doing it all in one step.

 

[kdanarch]

So I checked today and it turns out that my soldering iron is 30w, not 15w. I've heard some users say that a 30w iron will get too hot and I will risk frying something. How real is that risk? Is there a way to torque down the wattage on my iron? I can solder a point pretty quickly now, but I don't want to fry my Wii.

What kinds of real temperatures are we talking about in terms of 15w vs 30w?


Yeah, if your soldering iron is too hot, it very easily over heats parts of whatever you're soldering. But, if your careful, you can solder with a hotter iron, all you do is lightly tape the melted solder off the iron onto the board and blow. Tap quickly!

If you leave it on too long it'll overheat the connections and burn stuff you don't want burned.


EDIT: To kdanarch, I hate that feeling, the one where you feel you've skrewed something up and nothing can make you feel better. Almost wasted my DS Lite flashing it. Feels good knowing everything is okay though.

Yeah I had to connect EVERYTHING back up just to make sure it was all still working :X Now I'm afraid that the time I spend waiting for the chip is going to introduce some problem... like if I mislabelled the wires or whatnot. But if it loads a normal Wii game, nothing has crossed, right?

I'm getting really nervous to have a half-completed project of such importance

 

[bluebright]

Yeah I had to connect EVERYTHING back up just to make sure it was all still working :X Now I'm afraid that the time I spend waiting for the chip is going to introduce some problem... like if I mislabelled the wires or whatnot. But if it loads a normal Wii game, nothing has crossed, right?

I'm getting really nervous to have a half-completed project of such importance

This constant possibility of ruining valuable hardware is making a man outta you.

 

[Ludvigsson]

http://www.clasohlson.se/Product/Product.aspx?id=383690

Do you guys think this one'll do? The 0.35mm?

bump

 

[Hooya]

http://www.clasohlson.se/Product/Product.aspx?id=383690

Do you guys think this one'll do? The 0.35mm?


bump

Yes, it's exactly what other people have recommended.