Hardware PicoFly or PicoCra*?

[Paffo]

Hello,
i am an experienced electronic technician and spent many years doing microsoldering for work and pleasure.
I was lucky enough to get an unpatched Erista back in 2018 and it has been working flawlessly with AMS ever since.
A friend of mine recently got what before was called a V2 (is it just a patched Erista or is it a Mariko?) and he's asking me to mod it.
As i never had the need, i am very much out of the loop when it comes to modchipping the switch and there are so many conflicting info here that i am pretty much confused.
Is that Waveshare's RPI2040 still the best choice?
Should i rather opt for one of those PCB-ready ones? (something like this )

This friend little tech knowledge, so ideally it would be something easy to use/update after the first setup (we live very far away) or that i can update via a teamviewer or smth.

Could anyone please provide the latest and bestest info regarding this?

Thanks

 

[linuxares]

But I think honestly the RP2040 option is the best.

Here is a helpful guide with a range of chips even
https://gbatemp.net/download/a-definitive-picofly-install-guide.37968/

 

[deeps]

get an rp2040-zero or rp2040-tiny and make sure to have 100/100/47 ohm resistance on dat0/cmd/clk. works perfectly every time. the pcb-ready china clones are garbage. Picofly itself is feature complete and does not need updating - the software on the SD card however (atmosphere, hekate, sigpatches, nintendo-firmware) might.
v2 is a mariko.

 

[Paffo]

get an rp2040-zero or rp2040-tiny and make sure to have 100/100/47 ohm resistance on dat0/cmd/clk. works perfectly every time. the pcb-ready china clones are garbage. Picofly itself is feature complete and does not need updating - the software on the SD card however (atmosphere, hekate, sigpatches, nintendo-firmware) might.
v2 is a mariko.

getting a rp2040-zero indeed looks like the best choice, but what about the mosfets?
Ive seen sellers on Aliexpress selling just the flex cable with mosfets, considering children's violence i'd not want to risk putting bare mosfets in, maybe i should invenst in one of those flex.

 

[thesjaakspoiler]

Seen the thickness of the wires, I don't think the mosfet will move anyway.
But you could apply some UV bond to the components once everything is working as expected.

 

[Paffo]

Another thing, i've seen "alternative mosfet location" for OLED and they seem to work.
Are there Alternative mosfet location for Patched Erista too so i can avoid soldering on the SOC?

 

[deeps]

Another thing, i've seen "alternative mosfet location" for OLED and they seem to work.
Are there Alternative mosfet location for Patched Erista too so i can avoid soldering on the SOC?

There are, but it means you'll have to remove the motherboard. on v1/v2/lite you can normally leave the motherboard attached while installing the modchip. Also, soldering on the cpu isn't that bad. If you have years of experience microsoldering it shouldn't be an issue. Here's how i usually do mine. The mosfet is glued to the pcb, and I add a piece of kapton tape on top afterwards to avoid shorts against the cpu cover.

 

[Paffo]

There are, but it means you'll have to remove the motherboard. on v1/v2/lite you can normally leave the motherboard attached while installing the modchip. Also, soldering on the cpu isn't that bad. If you have years of experience microsoldering it shouldn't be an issue. Here's how i usually do mine. The mosfet is glued to the pcb, and I add a piece of kapton tape on top afterwards to avoid shorts against the cpu cover.

View attachment 429000

are you using a different mosfet than the suggested IRFHS8342? if not, what is your experience with single-mosfet builds?
I see it's suggested to use 2 of them, i spent some time to pre-build a couple of dual mosfet balls of goop with just wires coming out, so that on-field i don't have to go crazy. Just wanted to ask if one mosfet works just as well

 

[deeps]

are you using a different mosfet than the suggested IRFHS8342? if not, what is your experience with single-mosfet builds?
I see it's suggested to use 2 of them, i spent some time to pre-build a couple of dual mosfet balls of goop with just wires coming out, so that on-field i don't have to go crazy. Just wanted to ask if one mosfet works just as well

I use the regular IRFHS8342. I've tested all kinds of combinations of single mosfet, dual mosfet, apu-mount, back mount, different wire thickness, etc. The method you see in the photo above is the one I find works best (glitches the fastest). The wires are 0.2mm. I've observed that dual cap and ground wires as in the picture sometimes works where single cap/ground wire does not - this is most likely why some people report better success with dual mosfets - I think it's about the extra wires, not the extra mosfet.