Picofly AIO Thread

[htluga]

press down both RUN and BOOT and then release only RUN

thanks, that method worked!

 

[meowylamb]

Hello! I got this modchip (i assume it's a RP2040 HWfly clone) off AliExpress. Is there anything to consider with it? In particular, there's no soldering point at the marked spot, which is different to videos I've seen.

 

[jkyoho]

Hello! I got this modchip (i assume it's a RP2040 HWfly clone) off AliExpress. Is there anything to consider with it? In particular, there's no soldering point at the marked spot, which is different to videos I've seen.

I bet you watch a video is not rp2040 based modchip. The area you label is for 3.3v from old hwfly or elder mochip,where rp2040 uses different 3.3v source from motherboard.

 

[Noonbaster3358]

I assume this is Picofly Rp2040 variant? If yes, how do we flash this thing to install new firmware?

 

[dehydrated_lemur]

I assume this is Picofly Rp2040 variant? If yes, how do we flash this thing to install new firmware?View attachment 416925

plug into pc while holding BOOT. it will pop on. drag the firmware you want into folder the folder. Thats all

 

[SylverReZ]

Hello! I got this modchip (i assume it's a RP2040 HWfly clone) off AliExpress. Is there anything to consider with it? In particular, there's no soldering point at the marked spot, which is different to videos I've seen.

I don't think it should matter.

 

[GelmerB]

plug into pc while holding BOOT. it will pop on. drag the firmware you want into folder the folder. Thats all

Is one quick green flash okay? Or do i need to bridge it to get the red flash still?

 

[Crung]

Just saw the stuff you guys talked about in january. In my humble opinion, its on you, the modder to do a good job that will last for years,and charge accordingly. Even if they drop it lightly your work should not get affected.
Also can we stop fighting over adapters/reball? Reball is not better from my experience. My first 2 oleds came back. They were shipped during autum-winter times . One lasted 1 month and the other 1 day The 1 month one had a short on 3.3v and gnd that fried the picofly, and the other one had a short to ground and cmd line. Had to REBALL AGAIN.. All im saying is fk reballing also. I ve had help from a friend with experience and the reballing was done correct.. Maybe im using bad solder balls? who knows.
All im trying to say is: can we give some love to kamikaze? <3 (and dont forget about front mounted mosfet ) With this method i sleep good at night . And its braindead easy. Just need a grinder off aliexpress that is like 15-20 euros, and 0.2 mm grinding heads. And it only takes like 15-20 minutes (reballing is the same ). The risk is ,in my opinion, 0% if you watch sthentix video 3 times,and you practice doing holes on a dead board. Might look overwhelming "oohh i could break the switch" , well yeah but at the same time imagine they come back after 2 months and you have to redo it again without knowing if it will hold.
There are my toughts .. Never tryed adapters. Failed on reballs.
Also dont forget to give front mosfet mounting a try ( 28/30 awg wire for mosfet to cap). Once you go black, you can never go back. who has time to open apu cage,clean all that mess, solder those sh*ts down, be carefull not to bridge, and so on and so forth. Just barabing baraboom, tin the mosfet, solder 2 wires that go to cap. put mosfet on board, solder the wires from mosfet to cap. solder 0.1mm enammeled wire to mosfet for picofly,cover it in solder mask to keep it secured and you re DONEEE. haleluia.

 

[Nephiel]

Also dont forget to give front mosfet mounting a try ( 28/30 awg wire for mosfet to cap). Once you go black, you can never go back. who has time to open apu cage,clean all that mess, solder those sh*ts down, be carefull not to bridge, and so on and so forth. Just barabing baraboom, tin the mosfet, solder 2 wires that go to cap. put mosfet on board, solder the wires from mosfet to cap. solder 0.1mm enammeled wire to mosfet for picofly,cover it in solder mask to keep it secured and you re DONEEE. haleluia.

A downside of that method is not having a pull-down resistor for the mosfet gates. If the Picofly connection fails (for any reason: a severed wire, a short, malfunction, user intervention...), the mosfet could keep dumping power into that poor cap, until something burns.

A pulldown resistor added right next to the mosfet (to not depend on the wiring) is safer. Most flex APU cables already have such resistor in place.

 

[GelmerB]

I am getting blue flashing light on pico and then goes 3 times yellow then boots OFW. It glitches sometimes but its not consistent. I've looked over all the connections and they seem solid. Any suggestions? Bad pico board?

This is my third install.

EDIT: Now its glitching but it takes a while, ive always done double resistors. Should i try single resistors?

 

[Constep]

I am getting blue flashing light on pico and then goes 3 times yellow then boots OFW. It glitches sometimes but its not consistent. I've looked over all the connections and they seem solid. Any suggestions? Bad pico board?

This is my third install.

EDIT: Now its glitching but it takes a while, ive always done double resistors. Should i try single resistors?

I also have the rpi2040 which makes a blue LED and 3 yellow LEDs, 3 yellow and 3 yellow but I haven't installed it yet, I don't know if it's normal

 

[Crung]

I also have the rpi2040 which makes a blue LED and 3 yellow LEDs, 3 yellow and 3 yellow but I haven't installed it yet, I don't know if it's normal

have you looked at the documentation before doing the install?. the lights can be used to diagnose the problem....
to read the error, only look for the yellow light. its going to give you 3 sequences . aka its going to give out error,pause, then error again, pause , then error again before shutting down the rp2040

Post automatically merged: Feb 15, 2024

A downside of that method is not having a pull-down resistor for the mosfet gates. If the Picofly connection fails (for any reason: a severed wire, a short, malfunction, user intervention...), the mosfet could keep dumping power into that poor cap, until something burns.

A pulldown resistor added right next to the mosfet (to not depend on the wiring) is safer. Most flex APU cables already have such resistor in place.

HM. Educate me. The mosfet gates are normally opened. They only close and let current pass through when voltage is applyed from the pico. The current bypasses the cap through the mosfet and goest into other places,stalling the proccesor.
A severed connection to the picofly command wont make anything bad since the mosfet wont be closed (I have previously powered on boards without problems with only the mosfet installed,without picofly ) right?
Im not sure how a short on picofly will affect the mosfet functionality . From what i know, since we are powering the picofly from the nintendo board, if there is a short on the picofly (therefore also putting a short on the nintendo board), it wont attempt to boot (the nintendo board) aka no voltage on the proccesor/cap? Im asking.

Post automatically merged: Feb 15, 2024

@abal1000x can i do this and have same effect like the flex apu?

Or it needs to be like this? (second picture is similar to flex, but hard to replicate in real life )

Also what resistor should i get? I found a 0603(0ohms) with a power rating of 0.1W . is this the right one?

 

[jkyoho]

have you looked at the documentation before doing the install?. the lights can be used to diagnose the problem....
to read the error, only look for the yellow light. its going to give you 3 sequences . aka its going to give out error,pause, then error again, pause , then error again before shutting down the rp2040

Post automatically merged: Feb 15, 2024

HM. Educate me. The mosfet gates are normally opened. They only close and let current pass through when voltage is applyed from the pico. The current bypasses the cap through the mosfet and goest into other places,stalling the proccesor.
A severed connection to the picofly command wont make anything bad since the mosfet wont be closed (I have previously powered on boards without problems with only the mosfet installed,without picofly ) right?
Im not sure how a short on picofly will affect the mosfet functionality . From what i know, since we are powering the picofly from the nintendo board, if there is a short on the picofly (therefore also putting a short on the nintendo board), it wont attempt to boot (the nintendo board) aka no voltage on the proccesor/cap? Im asking.

Post automatically merged: Feb 15, 2024

@abal1000x can i do this and have same effect like the flex apu?View attachment 420165
Or it needs to be like this? (second picture is similar to flex, but hard to replicate in real life )
View attachment 420167

Also what resistor should i get? I found a 0603(0ohms) with a power rating of 0.1W . is this the right one?

it assume you taking about pull down resistor which normally uses 1K ohm or above. 0 ohm resistor would simply makes the gate short to ground and never control the mosfets on CPU you put on.

 

[Nephiel]

HM. Educate me. The mosfet gates are normally opened. They only close and let current pass through when voltage is applyed from the pico. The current bypasses the cap through the mosfet and goest into other places,stalling the proccesor.
A severed connection to the picofly command wont make anything bad since the mosfet wont be closed (I have previously powered on boards without problems with only the mosfet installed,without picofly ) right?
Im not sure how a short on picofly will affect the mosfet functionality . From what i know, since we are powering the picofly from the nintendo board, if there is a short on the picofly (therefore also putting a short on the nintendo board), it wont attempt to boot (the nintendo board) aka no voltage on the proccesor/cap? Im asking.

Post automatically merged: Feb 15, 2024

@abal1000x can i do this and have same effect like the flex apu?View attachment 420165
Or it needs to be like this? (second picture is similar to flex, but hard to replicate in real life )
View attachment 420167

Also what resistor should i get? I found a 0603(0ohms) with a power rating of 0.1W . is this the right one?

A severed line could leave the mosfet gate "floating" in an unstable state. In that situation, the mosfet should be open, but a short to any other point carrying power (or any stray current picked up by the wire) could cause the mosfet to close. A pulldown resistor prevents that by grounding the gate before it can do any harm.

A 0 Ohm resistor is a short! The Picofly would not be able to overcome it. The pulldown resistor needs to be a higher value, so it doesn't overload the Picofly output pin (I've checked which value is used in V3 flex cables and found 0.5K Ohm, but it has also been discussed here). And it should be placed as close as possible to the mosfet to be safest (second picture but using a 0.5-1K resistor and making the green line as short as possible).

In any case, the pulldown resistor is just a precaution, it's up to each installer to decide if it's worth the effort to add it.

 

[Crung]

it assume you taking about pull down resistor which normally uses 1K ohm or above. 0 ohm resistor would simply makes the gate short to ground and never control the mosfets on CPU you put on.

A severed line could leave the mosfet gate "floating" in an unstable state. In that situation, the mosfet should be open, but a short to any other point carrying power (or any stray current picked up by the wire) could cause the mosfet to close. A pulldown resistor prevents that by grounding the gate before it can do any harm.

A 0 Ohm resistor is a short! The Picofly would not be able to overcome it. The pulldown resistor needs to be a higher value, so it doesn't overload the Picofly output pin (I've checked which value is used in V3 flex cables and found 0.5K Ohm, but it has also been discussed here). And it should be placed as close as possible to the mosfet to be safest (second picture but using a 0.5-1K resistor and making the green line as short as possible).

In any case, the pulldown resistor is just a precaution, it's up to each installer to decide if it's worth the effort to add it.

oh ok i was under the impression that was a 0 ohm resistor . i remember v2 flexes have 2 resistors and a 0 ohm resistor.
ok so i need a 0.5-1k.
Understood if wire come loose its a problem indeed. but that wont ever happen in my installs. i secure the wires.
For example,what if the picofly goes bad (shorts itself). Will that affect the picofly command cpu pin? How>? Because that is the only scenario left where its unclear if i would need a resistor

Also i ve looked at the flex ,trying to understand what that resistor does. Is it acting like a fuse? If there is a shortcircuit on mosfet command, the resistor will get hot,lose its resistor values and dump everything into ground? In that case i assume the wire from resistor to command should be longer > resistor to ground right? so the current will take the resistor path instead of command path?

 

[jkyoho]

oh ok i was under the impression that was a 0 ohm resistor . i remember v2 flexes have 2 resistors and a 0 ohm resistor.

there is a 0 ohm resistor for bridging the 2 mosfet gate together, but this doesnt mean you using 0 ohm resistor to short gate to ground.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/hwfly-lite-cable-components.626438/

 

[Nephiel]

For example,what if the picofly goes bad (shorts itself). Will that affect the picofly command cpu pin? How>? Because that is the only scenario left where its unclear if i would need a resistor

Also i ve looked at the flex ,trying to understand what that resistor does. Is it acting like a fuse?

There are tutorials about those concepts (like this one) but it might help to think of that resistor as a "spring" that is always pulling on a door. When nobody is holding it open, such a door will tend to close by itself, right?

So you (the Picofly) can open or close that door (gate) at will (allowing or preventing the flow of current between source and drain) but if you forget to hold it open, or let go for whatever reason, the spring will always close the door (stopping the flow) for you. Without spring, the door could stay open, air currents might make it move, etc.

 

[Agusnana]

Hello, I want to ask, I accidentally removed the CLK resistor on the Nintendo Switch OLED, where can I find the same resistor?

 

[Vagabond31]

My picofly installed switch lite boots to ofw sometimes(about 1 out of 10 boots) is this normal behavior?

 

[abal1000x]

My picofly installed switch lite boots to ofw sometimes(about 1 out of 10 boots) is this normal behavior?

no