Hacking Post here if you installed your chip correctly!

[smea]

Chip: Cyclowiz v1 on PAL DMS console

Soldering experience: None at all. I bought an 15W iron and practiced on an old network card before trying on hardware worth 300 EUR.

The hardest part: Stripping the damn small wires! The soldering itself wasnt that hard. OK, the points are really really small, but I consider myself as not totally ungifted in fine mechanical iddues - now. Nothing for the shaky handed people, though.

Tips nobody told you: How to safely remove the dvd ribbon cable. Its quite easy if you know what to do...

Did you break or forget anything? Nearly killed the fastener that holds the DVD ribbon cable, actually broke some plastic there, but nothing too serious.

 

[trop67]

Chip - Wiikey

Soldering experience: None, practiced soldering wires to a old PCI card I had lying around for a hour or so before soldering in the wiikey

The hardest part: My very unsteady hands trying to solder such small parts

Tips nobody told you: As with above poster, take photo's to see where all the screws come from, I have 2 left over but I CBF'd pulling it apart again to put them back in.

Did you break or forget anything? - Couple of screws left over and missing a couple of the little plastic covers that go over some of the screws.

 

[panther_512]

Chip: Wiikey on PAL DMS Console

Soldering experience: Professional Electronics Engineer for the last 10 years.

The hardest part: No hard part.

Tips nobody told you: Thanks to all of you, I knew everything before opening my Wii.

Did you break or forget anything? : Nope

 

[moloko23]

I just got home from the shop where I got my Wiikey professionally installed... So far everything works like a charm hooray!

 

[spikemyke]

Chip: Wiikey on Pal DMS

Soldering experience: Nada... practiced on an IOmega zip drive PCB for 20 minutes

The Hardest part: Struggled to tin PCB with dirty iron. Cleaned iron and then it was ok

Tips nobody told you: I did my research so I wasn't lacking any info/tips

Did you break or forget anything?: Nope

 

[FuManChuu]

Chip - Wiikey

Soldering experience:

None, virtually no practice... went in balls first... somewhat regrettably

The hardest part:

Just call me Ali... My hands were shaking all over...

Tips nobody told you:

Ok... people have mentioned a lot of what I'm going to list... but I'll just reassert. There are a lot of f-ing screws... and they are all different sizes.... Print out a disasembly guide and line the screws up, or organize them in some fashion.... You WILL end up putting them in the wrong place putting it back together, and it WILL be a bitchmonger.

Next, GET THE RIGHT MATERIALS. Solder, isn't solder. There are different melting points... different thicknesses... I started out with a thinner hi melting point solder... and it caused everything to just bead up on the tip of the iron... terribad.

Make your wires short. Trust me... you are making them too long... I had to fold mine over like 7 times.

A torx4, is not a triwing. I bic pen, is not a triwing. A mashed up flathead, is not a triwing. You WILL strip your screws and you WILL make things harder.

On a lot of irons... the actual tip isn't all that hot... its the side of the iron. Probably if you have some fancy/quality stuff it will be better... but out of the three irons we tried... it was a LOT easier to solder brushing along the side than trying to poke with the tip.

Did you break or forget anything? - Well, we started modding 2 wiis last night, and uh... only one made it out... So I guess my friends Wii

 

[teapea]

Chip:
Wiikey
Soldering experience:
Several xboxs and loads of mini electronics projects and the like.
The Hardest part:
Soldering... (Actually soldering point 6... the little git!)
Tips nobody told you:
After you see the size of the points you need to solder too, I recommend you crack open the bottle of 25yo single malt you have so calm your nerves. 5 laters and I was all set to attack things!
Did you break or forget anything?:
Nope, all worked fine first time.

I must add - the only iron I had was a cheapo gas powered job whcih had a tip size of 3.2mm, some solder I found which was all black and also quite large in diameter and some 28 guage from an old A drive cable (so multicore). If i can be successful with this equipment and 1/2 bottle of scotch inside me, I'm sure anyone with 1/2 the right equipment can do it!

 

[plexo]

Chip - Wiinja V2, Wiikey, wiifree, Winbasic

Soldering experience: PS2's chipped + modded, Xbox 1's + countless controller port led mods, 360 glowing dvd drive,

The hardest part: nothing was really hard though but yesturday i was fixing a wii and the star head screws wudnt go in properly lol

Tips nobody told you: try not to burn yourself

Did you break or forget anything? - my own console i forgot 2 screws, after 5 installs on my own wii a pad lifted but was my fault i was getting pissed off at it lol, just soldered onto panasonic chip and worked a charm.

wiinja v2 ya all have heard of, wiikey ofcourse, wiifree well if u aint...were have u been, winbasic - a guy i done a console for supplied me with this chip, originally i thought it was just wiifree renamed, but appearantly its made by 2 german programmers, was able to source his chip an its £3.50 including wire and a socket including postage aswell, quite cheap must say lol

 

[dopestyle67]

Chip - Wiikey

Soldering experience: a little practice before hand

The hardest part: overall i thought it was not too bad, all the crappy installs had me worried...

Tips nobody told you: nothing

Did you break or forget anything? everything is like it was before i took it apart (besides the wiikey of course!

)

 

[dslknight]

Chip - Wiikey

soldering Experience - Xecuter 360 modchip install, some small soldering projects

The hardest part - Those tiny points ... never had to solder anything that small before

Tips nobody told you - Turn off Connect24 BEFORE opening up your case. Delete your wiivotes information to get it working again.

Did you break or forget anything? - Everything's all good

 

[zosh]

There are a lot of f-ing screws... and they are all different sizes.... Print out a disasembly guide and line the screws up, or organize them in some fashion....

Hint: Take a piece of cardboard (or rip some off a cardboard box), sketch the Wii's faces on it, push the screws into the cardboard as you take them out. They won't roll around and you know exactly where every screw goes. Simple but effective.

 

[plexo]

i just put them into a little tray... the small (thick) star heads go on top sides of console, triwings at bottom sides

 

[KKajun]

Chip - Wiikey

soldering Experience - PS1 mod, GC mod DUO-Q

The hardest part - Extracting a stripped tri-wing screw

Tips nobody told you - I always use a little bit of solder flux (paste) on the point i'm going to solder to right before.

Did you break or forget anything? - Stripped a tri-wing screw

 

[ssj4android]

Chip - PIC12F629, with cable running out by the USB port to an external socket

Soldering experience: None, practiced soldering wires to a old souncard.

The hardest part: Getting the faceplate screws out.

Tips nobody told you: Well, there are more like tips people did tell me, but whatever. You can use IDE cables instead of buying 30 gauge wire. You don't need to disconnect the DVD drive. You just need to tin the end of the wire and apply heat to it while it's attached to the contact point.

Did you break or forget anything? - I couldn't get the faceplate screws out, so I eventually just drilled through them. Screw extractor didn't work, but I was able to get the faceplate off. Screw heads are still in there. The battery screw won't screw in, maybe because I broke part of the washer, so I have it taped down.

Other than that, all screws are back in place.

 

[cdmoore74]

Soldering experience: Degree in electronic technology so I basically had a course in it. Worked as a repair tech on medical devices for 8 years. Car audio installs over the years. PS1, PS2, xbox modchip installs. The PS2 chip was the hardest and makes the Wii chip install kids play.

The hardest part: None for the install. Keep your work area clean and organized. I followed the youtube video for disassembly which made it easy. Hardest part was deciding on which chip to pick. Decided on the Wiikey over the wiinja deluxe.

Tips nobody told you: None really. I have been reading reviews and installs for the last 5 weeks. Take your time and have a plan in place. I learned about the pads coming off due to other people mistakes.

Did you break or forget anything? No, every screw went into its original position. I decided to keep the white labels off just because I do not mind exposed screws.


My tip for follow chip installers is to have the proper equipment. Burning holes in your system or striping screws is non-sense. Spend the money and buy that $6 tri-wing screwdriver off of ebay or that 15 watt soldering iron. And take your time.

 

[Inert]

Chip: WiiKey

Soldering experience: Plenty, though I haven't done it in years.

The hardest part: Getting the two recessed screws on the DVD drive back in.

Tips nobody told you: Make sure to have a magnetic screwdriver on hand for the DVD drive screws. As much as you think it will help, DO NOT pull the DVD power cable out of its hole.

Did you break or forget anything? The screw holding the battery door in place was slightly rounded and I may have tightened the DVD drive screws a little bit too much.

 

[D1MX]

Chip: WiiKey

Soldering experience: None whatsoever

The hardest part: Coming to realization that I had to desolder the quicksolder job on my Wiikey for the damn setup disc to be recognized.

Tips nobody told you: If the brand of DVD-R used for the setup disc mattered

Did you break or forget anything? Well I just ramshackled everything together w/o the screws just to make sure the Wiikey is working properly...I'm not sure...but should the DVD-R read speed be @ 6x? Or lower?

 

[Louse76]

Chip: WiiKey - No reason to even think about anything else, this was an easy decision.

Soldering experience: That day, I bought the necessary tools (after giving up on others, waited forever) and tested a few points before, that's it.

The hardest part: Getting the cables back into the DVD-ROM when putting it back together.

Tips nobody told you: I had plenty of tips, but my instructions didn't mention the EMI shield to remove.

Did you break or forget anything? I used a muffin tin, so I didn't lose anything. I wanted it to be perfect, but there was very, very slight damage taking off one of the feet (not noticeable). Also, the gamecube doors don't snap closed like they used to.

 

[modshroom128]

i did

 

[modshroom128]

Chip: WiiKey... DUH!

Soldering experience: once, on an old cd player... (and i failed at it

)

The hardest part: getting the god damn 2 security screws off

Tips nobody told you: Magnetic screwdrivers help... ALOT!

Did you break or forget anything? lacking a compatible triwing that can take off 2 security screws, i melted off the whole entire faceplate with a soldering gun