Anyone up for a little FV-1 brain surgery?

[p_wats]

Not really a build report or anything, but I'm high on adrenaline from having just done some risky FV-1 brain surgery.

I've been feeling like a bit of an idiot lately, as I keep somehow damaging FV-1 chips by pushing builds a bit too far. The good news is I've gotten pretty good at removing/soldering them!

One of the damaged ones seems fine aside from the fact that it's stuck on internal programs (confirmed in multiple circuits). I couldn't help but notice the Leprechaun only needs the internal programs to work, so a devious idea was born.

Long story short, I carefully desoldered the FV-1 from the Leprechaun and replaced it with the one that's locked to internal programs and it worked!

That means I can use the working FV-1 to replace the one I'd already stolen from my Deflector PCB to fix a half-built Arachnid, completing the 3-way brain transplant.




You can see from the above photo (before I had finished all the transplants) that I have somehow damaged 2 other FV-1s(!) in my travels: one now only emits noise and another has a loud high pitch whine (both were working fine until I shorted something out).

The moral of the story is that if I can do it, you can do it, but also that you should never need to do this if you build more carefully than I do! Basically, don't listen to me, but if you end up in this situation, it's not that hard with the right tools (some low-temp solder is key).

 

[zgrav]

good idea to swap out your fv-1 chip with your leprechaun!

 

[dawson]

Wow- I was impressed with myself for just soldering an FV-1 properly, so this surgery you're doing truly is impressive to me.
No pressure, but I'd deem this process video-worthy if you've got the means sometime..it would be great to see your iron set-up and technique.

 

[p_wats]

good idea to swap out your fv-1 chip with your leprechaun!

Thanks! I was perusing the FV-1 projects list wondering what I could do with a chip locked to internal patches and reached out to @PedalPCB to confirm it should work.

I owe it to you for suggesting the low-temp solder though! It made all this so much easier on both the chips and the boards.

Wow- I was impressed with myself for just soldering an FV-1 properly, so this surgery you're doing truly is impressive to me.
No pressure, but I'd deem this process video-worthy if you've got the means sometime..it would be great to see your iron set-up and technique.

It's not too difficult, just nerve-wracking. The key for me is the low-temp solder that stays liquid longer, along with a super cheap IC chip extractor tool that came with my station (but you could do without that if you've got the low-temp solder, probably). Oh, and magnifying visor, to inspect my SMD joints and check for bridges, etc.