Hacking Team Xecuter - The Switch Has a Tiny Motherboard, I Do Tiny Soldering

Issac said:

There's some good discussion here, no one seems genuinely interested in his "service", and the thing he is offering to solder isn't even released yet. As of now this is quite harmless.

Besides, user has less than 100 posts, which means this thread couldn't even be in the trading area, so there'd be no reason to move it there. This thread can be locked or removed at any time, if we see fit.

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kingdruid said:

Can you share some pics and info on the equipment you use for soldering?

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Spoiler: Microscope

Spoiler: Soldering Iron

Spoiler: Soldering Iron Tips

Spoiler: Rework Station

Mainly for the heat gun

Spoiler: More Tools

Heat gun for screen/bezel removal, Kapton tape, Hakko tweezers, pry tools, wiha screwdrivers (these kick ass)

Spoiler: Misc Parts

Small components for repairs

Spoiler: The Box

I'm constantly moving around, having a box makes life easy

Zonark said:

id buy honestly, I'm good with soldering but hate micro soldering. Smallest I've done would have been N3DS hard mod for recovery terms. Only thing I ask is images of joints for it costing 100 bones. (if you don't have a micro camera you can use a lens from a laser that's in a dvd drive over your phone lens. would you be willing to do that for me?

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DeadlyFoez said:

@OP, I see a lot of people giving you a hard time. I dont think you deserve it. You are just trying to make a buck so you can survive life. Nothing wrong with that. I strongly suggest that you start investing time into this community with helping other users troubleshooting their console issues for what you can. Show you are an active member of the community. Also, make a thread in the market place section (wherever the hell that is, because I never used it). If you wanna chat with me in a PM then feel free to send a message. I kinda wanna see if I can help you out.

@Everyone else, I made a much similar thread days before this man/woman did, and although a couple people complained, the majority of people were rather welcoming to my offer even though it was in the wrong section and we don't know the details of TX mod yet. If OP is as good with soldering as he has shown in his pictures, then I think he is likely capable. I mean, he isn't doing no aerospace quality soldering, but doing repairs and stuff like in his examples can be difficult. I feel the only reason anyone has to be weary about is that he/she doesn't have a reputation here, but we all must start somewhere. Hell, maybe if I get too over loaded with TX mod work then I may ask him/her to take over some. I have a few people that want to take any overflow I have. I am willing to give anyone a chance. I have been burned in much worse ways. I am not one to try to hog the work all to myself. People need to be able to pay for food and tools.

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vb_encryption_vb said:

This much I know, we can all sit here and say "hey, I'm going to offer blah blah service once blah blah is released. Most of you don't know how TX works obviously, first off, none of us will be the "first" to offer anything, TX has a tendency to supply their own installers with the hardware first. They will get the parts in bulk, thus shorting the market and well we get left behind for the first 3-6 months.

Secondly, never post publically how much you are going to charge. Now, I and @DeadlyFoez know what you intend to charge, so now we know how much to undercut you. As stated you might want to build a reputation around here before you go spouting off about a service that cost $100 plus the fact that they have to trust you an unknown person with a 300$ console.. So now, they have $400 invested in an unknown person, plus the cost of the TX product.

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Memoir said:

$100 plus the unknown cost of the 'method/device'... It's a massive upset for a few reasons.

$100 for the service itself? I know some reputable folk nearby who charge a variable fee from $20-$50 for soldering jobs. They also offer up to 6 months guarantee. This is all dependent of the device or whatever needs done. Then he's jumping the gun on the service itself. It's one thing to state that he'll be looking into offering a service.. but to come out and advertise a service for a HUGE unknown? It's... just not all too right... Then there's the warranty.. I may have missed it, but what's he offering to do if the device is damaged during the install? What if the soldering causes problems past the 30 day deadline?

Honestly? I have no qualms with the guy offering a service here. In fact it's welcome, as it gives people options.

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DeadlyFoez said:

OP's prices for labor are not outrageous.

For any person that is doing a technical job for their living generally charges about $100 an hour, if not more. Sub contract to get a server installed or repairs on your home PC, you will find it is pricey because there is plenty of overhead costs of running a business. Just because someone is trying to make a buck under the table or away from Uncle Sam does not mean that it is all profit to that individual. Tools cost money. Years of practice amounts to a lot.

If I were to have some random person come to me and ask me to repair the DC jack on their dell laptop, I would generally charge about $120 to do it at todays prices. But joe blow down the street that specializes on doing this exact repair on this exact laptop could do it for $45. But this is not a market yet where we have a person doing clockwork on switch hacking, and it will never be that way. So you need to understand that there is a price to pay to do some work that is unusual, like these console hacks. Someone doing hard mods like this usually has years of experience and plenty of time invested into their understanding of how it all works. Their time of researching and learning amounts to quite a bit and people deserve to get paid for their experience that they have earned.

This is not like flipping burgers at McDonalds where you can demand $15 for minimum wage that any drugged out tool can do.

Hell, even when I go job hunting now, I have a hard time fighting for $15 an hour to do things that took me over a decade to perfect. But some pimply faced thieving teen can demand $15 an hour without a single bit of experience.

I only have mentioned a $50 maximum for me to do the mod just because I can see that I may be doing enough of then so frequently that I can turn them out like clockwork, but if only 5 or so people came to me and asked me to spend days worth of researching to figure out how to do this for them, then maybe I would charge more than $100.

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unvaluablespace said:

You're gonna give up your free time on something you have no idea how long it might take to solder, for only $1!?

RIP your PM box...

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yardie said:

Looking forward to op or shipper breaking people's switches resulting in 1000s of dollars lost, then op will blame the shipper and the shipper will blame op

Keep this thread open just for that purpose

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brickmii82 said:

Technically the OP isn’t really losing anything by posting their intent to offer services if needed, but I do agree that pricing should be competitive, especially if you’re trying to establish a reputation. After a good reputation is established like @DeadlyFoez, or @vb_encryption_vb have, you can charge more than usual. Op’s Work looks good from the pics, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into good service. Those guys have vouch’s from some really active members here and have provided services for awhile in different areas.

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Kilim said:

how would you enforce this '30 day' warranty btw legally?

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FAST6191 said:

You reckon you can squeeze $100 a pop out of this crowd? Can I be there for your trying that magic trick?

I agree it is on the lower end/kindness prices for SMD repair and modification but in my experience it is far higher than most would be willing to pay for such work. Such a thing being mainly why I don't do any non software projects for games world -- so many times over the years I have seen something I could fix, fired up an electronics cad or mechanical cad program, ran the numbers and while I don't mind having some fun I would rather not end up out of pocket.


I dare say the poster of that was thinking as the mod chips could be seen as a less than legit item one can not really call upon the law to fix it. See also you can't go to the police if someone sells you fake drugs/drugs not up to spec.
I am hazy here on what might go. Some might point to various court cases (though they seem to have to renew the ruling on their being legit or not), it might fall under a DMCA exemption, might be something else that troubles it. Depending upon the nature of the mod it could also change it -- you can hire me to install a microcontroller/fpga/cpld/some programmable chip on your device all day long, you turn around and program it yourself and that is all you. If my soldering bridged something it should not, came loose, was in the wrong location... then I have failed in my service.

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citrus3000psi said:

I can already predict there is going to be a lot of burned motherboards if this TX solution requires soldering. Soldering is easy, but also requires experience. We have no idea if soldering will be required or what needs to be soldered. If there are some nice easy test pads then yeah, most users will be fine. If there are multiple small vias then a normal user will rip that via off. Or if its soldering onto .5mm they will more than likely burn the board up.

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Quantumcat said:

It doesn't really matter what the law says - as soon as one console stops working and he refuses to help, that person will kick up a stink and his business will disappear. If he wants continued business he would have to do something like buy the person a new console it receive it back and do a repair.

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FAST6191 said:

Plenty of people had people install mod chips on the PS1 and things beyond that. Go up to the 360 with JTAG and RGH and it is also a thing. I don't doubt a simple "pop this file on yet SD card" type hack with similar access levels would lead to a lot more people in the scene (see also the 3ds, see also one of the reasons why it was so unpleasant).

The thing is not yet released but looking at likely exploit pathways it seems within reason that soldering will be needed. Also looking at teardowns ( https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Switch+Teardown/78263 ) the likely points for soldering are considerably smaller than most previous things we have seen (and the butchery done to so many wiis when mod chips appeared there... and that was only simple surface mount pads at first).
Anybody can solder two wires together.
Most people can get the hang of things such that they can solder through hole components.
Wider pitch surface mount is doable enough if you have somewhat reasonable gear.
Fine pitch stuff like the OP showed, especially rework and repair rather than PCB assembly, takes some skill and could well be in line with the switch requirements. Many could probably learn it but it is probably going to be a few more hours and a few bit more pricey than some care for (a decent tipped iron, possibly even temperature controlled, and a cheap aoyue hot air station is not quite pocket change.
BGA, much less fine pitch BGA, and beyond will need some proper toys (though ones which are dropping rapidly in price).

I don't know why this thread got as silly as it did. I don't feel quite as bad for the OP as I did for the poor guy that made a video out for the 3ds and people were jumping down their throat like idiots, and actually feel worse for the guy that wanted to sell a 3ds exploit. That said I have no reason to doubt the OP was acting in good faith and price wise it really is about in line with PCB repair and modification in the real world -- go get find some quotes for replacement of your laptop or phone power jack, will be about as much or higher, and this will likely be something more involved.
As far as this sort of thread being up then if it turns out the TX mod is plug and play then no harm done, if it is big boy soldering then there is somewhere people can look.

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FAST6191 said:

Is it going to be a non specific discussion of a service, possibly a rare and hard to come by one, for an upcoming device or something broadly similar? If so it might play.
If if it going to be a single device or an otherwise sharply limited amount then best stick to the trading area.

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Jonna said:

Well, he hasn't made any forum post anywhere for over a week now, so I think it's safe to say he was here only to advertise this sort of thing, and has left since he realized he has no market here.

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RyoX9 said:

Even if someone goes for the solder-less option i believe they still need skills to disassemble the switch so services will be required in a sense.

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mech said:

Fact? the thing has no showcase or images or any information out at all?

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subcon959 said:

There will also be a soldered version so it's not dead at all. Someone could still potentially be scammed here and it seems no mod is interested or willing to spend 2 seconds to click a move button to uphold the rules of the forum.

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Thirty3Three said:

First, this was posted before anything was known about it. Second, You're being pessimstic as fuck. He's probably not even scamming at all. The fact that you jump right into defense mode and get your moist panties in a bunch about it shows that you're just being a vagina about it.


EDIT: changed "dick" to "Vagina" because panties.

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yardie said:

no one should send you their switch to mod
thats just my opinion though

you have 20 posts since oct 2015
you didnt find it worthwhile to post until you saw them dollar signs
no one should trust you

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