Hacking Hardware Picofly - a HWFLY switch modchip

[snaker]

Don't use adapter if you're selling it as a service. It's as simple as that.

out of curiosity, why do you avoid kamikaze when you know soldering makes a solid connection? plus it saves time.

I did Kamikaze back at the old days of xbox 360 because there was no other method. In order to unlock the drive you had to do it.

If you go lot of pages back at this thread when everyone was reballing to avoid the dat0 adapters i was also very sceptical! I did the first consoles and i was expecting them to come back because of all of this fear that was spread at the posts. You can call the 1st oled luck, the 2nd the 3rd but you cant call luck so many consoles that not even ome came back. The quality of the adapter and the method that you use are the only two points you must be careful. You could even read threads that these adapters, that use capton as matetial, can bend from heat.... I didnt know if all these information was correct. I dont like to reball or drill things that are new if i dont have to. If dat0 adapters didnt work i would be the first to tell you believe me. The time you need to place a dat0 adapter is not compared to reball or do the Kamikaze. Also the mess that kamikaze does with all of these tiny pieces even if you use flux and the reason that you must be extremely careful doesnt make it the ideal solution. Reballing on the other hand using these high temps to desolder is also not the idea solution.i make reballs on switch consoles,iphone ics and other stuff because i have to not when i have a different choise.I assure you that with the correct dat0 adapter and the correct method there is no luck. It works 100% because i have seen it with my own eyes.

 

[jkyoho]

and I've seen many dat0 adapter customer turn to my side for help with kamikaze with my own eye. YMMV thing this is, stick with your fav, nothing 100% correct. and I like the idea @abal1000x said, let customer decides

 

[lightautodark]

It's amusing that you think flex cable is bad and unreliable but have high praise for the dat0 adapter.. isn't the dat0 adapter technically a flex too?

 

[snaker]

It's amusing that you think flex cable is bad and unreliable but have high praise for the dat0 adapter.. isn't the dat0 adapter technically a flex too?

There is a very distinct difference between a gold plated pad that has a high tension against a soldering ball and a soldering connection at both ends. And this is the main reason that all dat0 adapters failed at early implementations.

Some thought that applying solder at the gold plated leg of the dat0 adapter and reflawing the emmc in order to make a soldering connection would work better than tension from the adapter itself but it was all wrong. Simply because the cold soldering joints are the sillent killers of any soldering job. All of those adapters failed because sooner or later the soldering joint was cracked because of mixing lead free and leaded solder together.

Most of the people these days coming at this thread have missed all the discoveries that made through time and after almost 2 years of experience on switch consoles i want to share things that will help other not destroy their consoles. Do you think that lot of professional installers visit this thread anymore? We all did back then when the firmware came out to learn the implementations. If you advise someone who wants to mod his switch and that person doesnt have good experience to do the kamikaze or the reball when there is a much easier choise of a good quality dat0 adapter there is a very high chance for that person to destory his console.

I dont want to be rude but i have done my lessons and i am 100% sure that i know what works and what does not, that is why i am so confident about what i am saying.

If you want to do the kamikaze or the reballing just do it. Both methods work 100% but i can assure the less experienced users that if you find a good quality adapter, you apply enought tension to it ( but not as much to bend it) and use good quality NO CLEAN FLUX, your modchip wont have ANY dat0 errors or nand corruptions!

And here is a post of my findings back then:

Look at these adapters.
Number 1 and 2 came from a batch from a store that later shipped bad adapters. These adapter are the real deal.
Number 3 came with intinct-nx chip. This will also work fine.
Number 4 came with the board you mention. Now this is how a horrible adapter looks like. Never use something like that.

I have mostly done oled consoles. Maybe not much old switch consoles in my place. With such adapters i never had a dead console. After many installations. I also havent got any returns yet due to adapter installation.

 

[abal1000x]

If someone ask me, i will answer number 1 is emmc pcb adapter, and number 2 kamikaze.
Avoid dat0 flex adapter.
Its preferences, i have bad experience with it, maybe i am not skilled enough.

 

[deeps]

I do all my oled installs with emmc pcb adapter because I believe it is the cleanest, neatest and most robust method.
I also believe anyone who defends dat0 flex adapters has no pride in their craft and simply wants to maximize profit.

 

[snaker]

I do all my oled installs with emmc pcb adapter because I believe it is the cleanest, neatest and most robust method.
I also believe anyone who defends dat0 flex adapters has no pride in their craft and simply wants to maximize profit.

So you also agree that the headers on modchips and every thechnician that has ever used them has no pride in their craft. These are not soldered right? Really i have no idea what i do right and what you do wrong with these adapters. It is not rocket science. After about 150 oleds that not even one came back to me you still call it luck and unproud! ...ok... end of discussion from me. Have a nice day.

 

[ItzMeGab]

Hello to everyone!
Do you guys have the gerber files for this?

 

[deeps]

So you also agree that the headers on modchips and every thechnician that has ever used them has no pride in their craft. These are not soldered right?

Any decent technician would know that surface oxidization is a huge issue in pressure contact solutions. Most metal surfaces will oxidize in contact with air which leads to loss of electrical properties. The most common solution to this is to add a very thin coat of gold to the contact point, which almost all modern products, including the Nintendo switch, use for their internal connectors. That's why the pins, ribbon cable contact points etc have a slightly yellowish tint to them.
Another detail worth considering is that connector pins and pads are designed to have a decently sized contact surface to improve conductivity.
The dat0 solder ball under the emmc is not designed to be used as a contact point and is not gold plated - it will oxidize and lose contact with the flex adapter eventually. How long it takes depends on many variables, but the point here is that it is not a permanent solution.

It is not rocket science.

I was going to be rude here but I'll settle for a smiley:

 

[snaker]

Any decent technician would know that surface oxidization is a huge issue in pressure contact solutions. Most metal surfaces will oxidize in contact with air which leads to loss of electrical properties. The most common solution to this is to add a very thin coat of gold to the contact point, which almost all modern products, including the Nintendo switch, use for their internal connectors. That's why the pins, ribbon cable contact points etc have a slightly yellowish tint to them.
Another detail worth considering is that connector pins and pads are designed to have a decently sized contact surface to improve conductivity.
The dat0 solder ball under the emmc is not designed to be used as a contact point and is not gold plated - it will oxidize and lose contact with the flex adapter eventually. How long it takes depends on many variables, but the point here is that it is not a permanent solution.



I was going to be rude here but I'll settle for a smiley:

Just because again you mislead. You can check at the pics what surface of the pad covers the header when it is closed. The contact point is almost like a needle tip and again you have a solid connection exept for certain situations when you dont have hight quality flex cables as i stated before. Dat0 adapters have much bigger surface contact than this needle pin . And for your information dat0 adapters are gold plated too (maybe you havent seen one before from close but you have opinion). Your switch would probably be dead until the contact points have been oxidized from other reasons.

 

[jkyoho]

Just because again you mislead. You can check at the pics what surface of the pad covers the header when it is closed. The contact point is almost like a needle tip and again you have a solid connection exept for certain situations when you dont have hight quality flex cables as i stated before. And for your information dat0 adapters are gold plated too (maybe you havent seen one before from close but you have opinion). Your switch would probably be dead until the contact points have been oxidized from other reasons.

Try not close down the flip and use those cable when you want to compare them with dat0 adapter.
The spring tension from the fpc connector is way more than your pushing force on dat0 adapter.

 

[snaker]

Try not close down the flip and use those cable when you want to compare them with dat0 adapter.
The spring tension from the fpc connector is way more than your pushing force on dat0 adapter.

I dont speak with theories. I speak from personal experience. As long as not even one switch came back and all have dat0 adapters the tension in more than enough. Maybe people that use them dont use enought tension. I use as much tension as needed just before it can bend the adapter.

And again that which you suggest is simple touching, not a horizontial adapter pressed against on a vertical soldering ball. Its a very different thing.

 

[lightautodark]

DED

 

[rull_bull]

So you think that people started researching other ways to connect dat0 was because they where bad technicians that didnt know how to handle a flex board?

So they just started to lift emmc, make custom pcb:s, reball and solder it back because it was to difficult handling a flex?

Or bought grinders with small tips and started experimenting and grinding the motherboard several layers with risk of destroying the switch because the flex was to difficult.

Yeah that seems like the way to go…. Or was it because dat0 flex adapters was not reliable

 

[snaker]

So you think that people started researching other ways to connect dat0 was because they where bad technicians that didnt know how to handle a flex board?

So they just started to lift emmc, make custom pcb:s, reball and solder it back because it was to difficult handling a flex?

Or bought grinders with small tips and started experimenting and grinding the motherboard several layers with risk of destroying the switch because the flex was to difficult.

Yeah that seems like the way to go…. Or was it because dat0 flex adapters was not reliable

A lot of people dont want to rely on dat0 adapters, dont want to pay for them at all and they cant order from 5 different aliexpress stores, praying every time for the seller to send the correct ones. There are countries that the shipping costs 10 times the cost of 10 adapters. I completely understand that and as i said all methods work but i cant stand when someone assumes things and post misleading information. If i dont know something i just dont take any stance. Imagine that you where in my situation when you have modded sooo many oleds with dat0 adapters and not even one came ever back! And then you hear that all dat0 adapters lose connection and brick nands. It is either i am a liar, crazy or i do something different from the others. Either way i just wanted to help and to share my thoughts about the adapters and that the correct dat0 adapters will save switches not destroy them.

 

[Danook28]

I have 5 dat0 adapter from AliExpress very very bad not same pic becarefull bad scam seller....

 

[LuigiGad]

Unfortunately, despite the procedures to exclude errors, I had big problems on 4 OLEDs in a row.
With a virgin console, I immediately expose the Dat0 and check the value and boot. Ok
I solder the cable, check the value and test with boot.. ok
I proceed with the other soldering points in clear or in any case extremely easy for those who are in the trade.
I test all the values that I find correct.
I start with the modchip... All ok.
After a few reboots, the freezing problems begin, strange hekate errors, etc. etc.
I solve it, I don't even know how, by heating near the kamikaze area despite in my opinion (and after about twenty successful kamikazes) a perfect exposure of the dat0 and/or Replacing the cmd resistor. This caused me great stress and wasted a lot of time with the doubt of whether to continue the kamikaze practice... Has it ever happened to you?

 

[lightautodark]

Unfortunately, despite the procedures to exclude errors, I had big problems on 4 OLEDs in a row.
With a virgin console, I immediately expose the Dat0 and check the value and boot. Ok
I solder the cable, check the value and test with boot.. ok
I proceed with the other soldering points in clear or in any case extremely easy for those who are in the trade.
I test all the values that I find correct.
I start with the modchip... All ok.
After a few reboots, the freezing problems begin, strange hekate errors, etc. etc.
I solve it, I don't even know how, by heating near the kamikaze area despite in my opinion (and after about twenty successful kamikazes) a perfect exposure of the dat0 and/or Replacing the cmd resistor. This caused me great stress and wasted a lot of time with the doubt of whether to continue the kamikaze practice... Has it ever happened to you?

Yes it has, when the kamikaze was not soldered properly. In my case the freeze doesn't happen immediately. Sometimes it would be during sleep, sometimes in the middle of testing game play. Then it just froze, can still hear audio and button clicks. Cleaned and redid the wire on kamikaze, and that solved the issue.

Another problem I had was switch sometimes booting into ofw. Dat0 values were fine too. Solved it by redoing the soldering to kamikaze point. If you have any problem it is nearly always the kamikaze point, even when the values are correct (0.6-0.8)

 

[LuigiGad]

Yes it has, when the kamikaze was not soldered properly. In my case the freeze doesn't happen immediately. Sometimes it would be during sleep, sometimes in the middle of testing game play. Then it just froze, can still hear audio and button clicks. Cleaned and redid the wire on kamikaze, and that solved the issue.

Another problem I had was switch sometimes booting into ofw. Dat0 values were fine too. Solved it by redoing the soldering to kamikaze point. If you have any problem it is nearly always the kamikaze point, even when the values are correct (0.6-0.8)

I also recovered this OLED perfectly. among the tests I did I increased the dat0 and CMD resistance and replaced the cmd resistance. perfect result. but too much time wasted. then to start the stock I had to do a boot with a patch on sysnand
Ok there could be a poor connection on DAT0, but if you unsolder the problem disappears in stock. Even unsoldering the whole screen is black for me, then fiddling here, fiddling it gets back on its own... I can't figure it out. If 6/7 points I'm 100% sure, a point that in the end was still valid gave me a lot of headaches

here is the gallery of horrors

 

[thesjaakspoiler]

I also recovered this OLED perfectly. among the tests I did I increased the dat0 and CMD resistance and replaced the cmd resistance. perfect result. but too much time wasted. then to start the stock I had to do a boot with a patch on sysnand
Ok there could be a poor connection on DAT0, but if you unsolder the problem disappears in stock. Even unsoldering the whole screen is black for me, then fiddling here, fiddling it gets back on its own... I can't figure it out. If 6/7 points I'm 100% sure, a point that in the end was still valid gave me a lot of headaches

here is the gallery of horrors

That NYX error might indicate some data corruption on your SD card.