hi members , i was wondering what method i should use for the below pic , i can either cut the pin and lift it or heat the pin up and lift it with a tool.
im not sure if there are any other methods..............
if theres any dangers or things to be careful about with the methods i suggested let me know
Personally I would desolder the entire chip and straight up swap the BIOS, but if you're going to do the piggyback method, cut pin 2 as close to the board as you can (without damaging the board of course), and carefully bend it straight and out.
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Ah, OK, so I'm assuming it's a DIP chip then? That image in the OP doesn't work for me. I would desolder the leg then lift it out, that's always better than cutting. But Apollo mentioned swapping the BIOS, if there's a hacked BIOS that doesn't require switches I would go with that too. I'm assuming if you're piggybacking BIOS chips then you'll have to install a switch.
Personally I would desolder the entire chip and straight up swap the BIOS, but if you're going to do the piggyback method
i originally wanted to remove the entire bios but through watching a Luke Morse video on Youtube i found out that the bios is soldered from the bottom and the top which i only know how to do the bottom only.
so im now preparing to do the piggyback method
I would desolder the leg then lift it out, that's always better than cutting
for lifting the chip leg should i buy one of these to do it ? or theres something else better ?
So I was just looking at the mmmonkey guide, and it looks like you're just grounding out a pin on the old BIOS chip to leave it permanently deactivated. I was assuming since you have to lift a pin that it would be to switch back and forth between two different BIOSes. But since this is not the case, yeah, I would just remove the old BIOS chip entirely.
s8n wrote:i originally wanted to remove the entire bios but through watching a Luke Morse video on Youtube i found out that the bios is soldered from the bottom and the top which i only know how to do the bottom only.
so im now preparing to do the piggyback method
Ah, I know exactly what you're talking about. NES carts and early SNES carts are the same way. Instead of having solder pads, the the legs sit in more of a via so the solder doesn't just sit on one side, it sits all the way through the board.
They are a pain in the ass to desolder, but it isn't impossible. You can get most of it with a desoldering iron, then cleanup with a good copper braid (the kind with flux in it). Some times you'll have to resolder a pin to desolder it better. And sometimes the Vcc and Vss pins have such large traces that they're hard to heat up. I know on NES carts I could never get them with my desoldering iron. I'd have to switch to my most powerful soldering iron to do it.
That being said, just go with whatever you're more comfortable doing. You're more likely to damage the board trying to desolder it since you haven't had any practice at that before.
As for cutting/lifting the pin, again, do whatever you think is easier. I generally avoid cutting things when possible, just as a general rule. But if you cut this one pin, it's not like you can't ever resolder it to the board. If you wanna lift it, it's easy. You just need a third hand. I would stand the board up so I can get a hand on the top side and another hand on the bottom side of the board. Heat the leg up with iron, then use your other hand on the other side to bend it out of the via. I would go to the drug store (or where ever) and get a set of dental picks. They're perfect for this sort of thing, and come in handy from time to time.
great tips Ziggy , i decided from your response im going to try and cut the pin first if that doesnt work im going to heat up the pin and try and lift it
i definitely dont have the skills to remove the whole chip which i would like to do
also i like it how you said i should do what i feel comfortable in doing thats great advice
