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Ok, I'm finally getting around to posting my experience putting my modchip into my PS2. If I do not do it soon, I will forget whatever I did (or didn't do), so here goes...
First off, this is purely for people with little to no experience who are trying to decide if they want to solder their modchip into their own PS2. I AM NOT A PRO! This is basically a blow by blow of what I was thinking throughout the process. As for experience, I took robotics in high school and I soldered a chip into my PS1 eons ago, so I would put it as "some"... as I mentioned in a previous post, if there is an installer in your area, get him/her/it to do it! Do not install it yourself to save money, it is not worth it! I did it because I wanted to.
Equipment I had:
PS2 v7
DMS4 Pro SE (from modchip.com)
15 watt soldering iron from radio shack
acid paste flux
toothbrush
helping hands (mounted alligator clips with a magnifying glass)
exacto blade
wire strippers
safety pin
permanent marker
voltmeter
file
glue gun
mini slotted screwdriver
mini Phillips
small Phillips
flashlight
compressed air
I bought the helping hands because I thought that my hand wasn't steady enough. It wasn't all that steady, but the helping hands did not help, so I didn't use them. I will return them soon.
I used the safety pin to scratch the coating off a couple of contacts, the brush to clean the residue or the oil that sometimes built up on the board. I also used the pin to apply acid flux to the contacts and legs.
While the unit is open, you may as well use some compressed air to blow the dust off.
I put the exacto blade in between the two contacts that are adjacent that must have wires soldered to them. I did not want to risk soldering those connections together. Again, if I was more experienced, I probably would not need half this stuff, but I learned as I went.
With the permanent marker, I wrote wherever I could to remind me of the way pieces came off. In the end, it was not that complicated, but had it been more complicated, this would have been useful. I also wrote numbers right on the screws to correspond to the diagram number.
Speaking of diagrams, the diagrams provided by DMS4 were good enough, but not idiot proof. There are two better sets of diagrams on the net for modding a v7 PS2. I can't find them at them moment, but if you need them, send me a message.
Before you start, clear yourself as large of a workspace as possible. This may sound obvious, but I found that my workspace kept getting more and more cramped the further I went.
I chose to work on a wooden desk. I grounded myself by sticking a fork in an elec...er... by touching the back of my desktop computer (power supply) and the monitor sometimes. At the start I was more worried about the risk of shocking the board, so I wore running shoes. By the end I was manhandling the board in socks on carpet, and all seems to work fine. Just ground yourself here and there.
To kick it off, I cut the warranty sticker (oh no!) and removed the screws. If you cannot separate the PS2, you probably didn't cut the sticker enough (3 lines must be cut). I'm not listing all of the steps here, you need to follow a set of diagrams.
As soon as I separated my PS2 a small metal piece fell out. It is still sitting on my desk. I only discovered where it went a couple of days after my PS2 was back together. If you want to put it back where it is supposed to go, check out figure4 in modchip.com's pdf.
I then pried out the reset/eject buttons (with a pop!) and decided to pull the cable out of the unit right away so I didn't have to mess with it.
Once I removed the guts from the other half, I taped down the controller unit so it wouldn't flopcock around (which I later discovered could have been removed right away). The fan and power button stayed firmly in place, but can be removed at your convenience. There is a screw below the power button that may be removed at this time. It saves you flipping the unit over and back an extra time.
Once you remove the next set of screws, and the power connector, you are set to remove the power supply board. There is a direct connection between the board and the rest of the unit (which is not explained well in the instructions). Just look at it from the side and you will see it. I also chose to remove the metal heat sink plate at this time (the one with the triangle and "!" on it). Well, it wasn't by choice... I just got ahead of myself, but no harm done.
Once I removed the fan power cord, I tucked it into the cavity above the fan itself so it wouldn't get pinched while reinstalling it. The metal shield (not the heat sink) was easy to pry off and should come off easily, given that you've removed all of the screws.
Here's the point where they recommend removing the ribbon cables. You may have already removed some, but if you haven't, do it now. Again, I originally wanted to label everything with the permanent marker, but you can't (or I couldn't) really put it back in the wrong place. If you're really clumsy, you may want to label stuff. There is also a note that says "pay attention to which side faces up on the ribbon!"... if you can't tell on your own, this is where I'd seriously consider putting the PS2 back together and sending it to someone else... on second thought... just send them the pieces.
The DVD drive was not hard to remove, just pry the single tab on the one side and slide it out from the other two tabs. The metal heat sink plate (as it said in the instructions) did appear to be glued to the unit. I pried on all the sides and corners with the small screwdriver and then just tugged on it with my hands all around until it came off.
Go get a beer... the first and hardest (ha!) part is done (yeah right).
Soldering... be one with the iron.
I sharpened the iron to a fine tip before I started. Not only are you working with a more fine point, the heat is also concentrated to a needle point, very good for precise soldering. I also used the file after working on every second connection to clean the tip of all residue and solder. Once I started doing this, it made the biggest difference for precise and easy soldering of connections.
I placed my chip in the most popular place, in between the usb ports and a/v connections. I glued it in place with the glue gun. I did notice afterwards though that most of the diagrams are for the DMS4 Pro and not the SE version. So after I glued it down, I questioned the orientation... maybe it would have been easier had I rotated it 90 degrees? 180 degrees? Meh.. it worked fine for me. Just realise that the points on the chip are not exactly the same as the DMS4 Pro. I ran some wires around the outside of the chip (to the right), to get them to where they were supposed to be.
To prep the wires, I stripped the 22 awg wire with the strippers and the 30 awg with my teeth. I put a bit of solder on the iron, dipped the tip of the wire into the flux and touched the wire to the soldering iron... ooo.. shiny. Make sure the exposed wire is as short as possible (check the surrounding area to get an idea).
Cut the wires a bit longer than you think you will need.. just in case (I almost ran out within a cm, twice). Do a rough routing of the wire to get a good idea of the length. Someone mentioned that they use ribbon cable wire... wow, what a time saver that would have been. Try not to bend the wires around unnecessarily. They are much easier to work with when they are straight.
To prep the contacts, as mentioned above, I cleaned off the contacts first. I then added a bit of flux, then touched the iron, with the solder on it, to the contact. If the solder "just sorta" goes to the contact (or leg), you may want to put more until you know it's there (somewhere in between a huge glob and a slight shine). I had one wired soldered on a contact that I tugged on and thought it would hold... two hours later is was dangling in the air.
As for "tinning all of the locations" right away or doing it as you go... chose your preference. Obviously you should familiarize yourself with all of the locations you will be working with before you even plug in your iron.
I chose one area to work with and soldered all the wires on in that area. I then routed the wires, copying a diagram I got off the net from one of the pros. Well, I sorta copied it, and made some modifications of my own, due to the "SE" contact configuration. I tried not to glue individual wires (unless they were in fact all alone), but instead tried to glue many together. In the end, "pretty" was not my goal... I was praying for "working". Where there were too many wires in one spot, I glued a bunch in one spot, then a bit further down glued the others. I followed the other common instructions... ie: try not to cross wires... keep length short etc.
When glueing, I attempted not to put glue on small black things (ie chips, resistors, diodes..) I figured that they probably heat up enough as it is. I started applying glue with the pin... wow.. was that ever a pain in the ass.. just use the gun. Make sure the glue is not only on the wires but actually touches the board as well. As well, I did not glue too close to the connection points until the very end. As I said, one of my wires popped off and it is much easier to put back on if you have some wire to work with.
Soldering was pretty straight forward. I didn't leave the iron on my contacts for too long. If you have to leave it on long, you probably don't have enough solder, haven't cleaned the contact right or are doing something else wrong (is your iron plugged in?). I soldered onto the PS2 contacts first, then onto the chip. My iron also acted as a pretty good tool to determine when I should go to bed... when I burned though my finger.. I called it quits... as simple as that.
The legs weren't as hard to solder to as I thought they would be. The contacts on the other side of the chip were definitely more difficult. Contact "x" caused me the most grief, but wasn't impossible.
When all the soldering was done, I tested all of the connections with a voltmeter. Here is a paragraph that could be titled.. voltmeters for dummies. I used the resistance setting to check... works great. When I didn't have the leads on anything, the meter would read 1. Now set your meter to... well it doesn't really matter... lets say 20 k-ohms. Now touch the leads to each other... you get what.. zero? If you have a crappy meter, maybe 0.01? Now check the resistance through a wire... you get 0.03... 0.04? So, when using the voltmeter to check your connections, you do not want these readings. Now touch the leads to a couple of random places on the board... do this a couple of times... hey higher numbers. This is what you want. Now check your connections and all adjacent contacts... high numbers... good! Super low numbers? Better look over your work closely. For checking the contacts, I found it easiest to place the tips of the voltmeter leads in the small copper circles on the same circuit.
So it works?!?! Well, there's no way to find out until you put the unit back together. Put it back together the way you took it apart (duh). Keep a couple of things in mind:
-Do not force anything. If it does not go back together, back up a couple of steps and look it over.
-Some steps you may have to do in a different order. For example: No matter when you decided to pull out ribbon cables, it is almost impossible to put them back in after you put the metal shield back on.
-Use electrical tape to hold parts down that are flipping around. My controller unit flipped down and smacked the desk. A couple days later one of the three, three-holed female black connections broke off. Doesn't affect the unit, just nice to keep things... well... unbroken.
-I also put some electrical tape on the underside of the metal chassis that presses up against the modchip.
-Stupid mistake on my part... at one point I didn't read "now lift the contents out of the bottom cover", so I didn't end up putting them back in. I had nothing to screw my screws into and was very puzzled.
-The reset/eject button snaps very abruptly back into place. Make sure to route the ribbon the way it was.
-If the two halves of the case are not aligning right, take it apart... do it again.
I may not be the best person to take re-assembling tips from... I had to take it apart an extra two times because I forgot to attach ribbons. And in the end I was left with that metal piece I mentioned and a screw (I know where it came from... just not worth putting it back in).
I plugged it in, fired it up and got the disabled screen.. huzzah!
Yes, this was really long-winded and a lot of it has already been mentioned, but I thought I'd tell you from start to finish what I did to eventual success (I think I may have forgot a bunch of things). More so, if you own a v7, want to mod it, and have some questions about something I didn't cover here, drop me a line. I'm not on the net all of the time, but I will eventually respond.
~N.
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