PlayStation Mod Chip!

Back in 2004 or so I figured it might be fun to mod my PlayStation.  Ever since then, I've been thinking about how much fun it would be to learn to solder.  The problem is, I kind of put it off and off and then the chips got pretty hard to find...  Recently I started searching again and found a PlayStation modding community that sells mod chips online.  They're pretty cheap and you can even pay with a credit card.  (There are some other sites that only take money order, which makes me a bit nervous.)

It took two weeks to ship from Bangkok, but eventually the mod chip arrived:

The chip was tiny!  It's about half the size of a fingernail.

After watching some YouTube videos on how to solder, I started practicing on some old broken electronics...

Then I disassembled the PlayStation.

Here's where the mod chip gets soldered on my particular model of motherboard:

Then I soldered the 30 AWG wire onto the legs of the mod chip:

You can see that pin 2 has no wire.  It doesn't need one for this install.

Soldering onto the board was SUPER tricky!  Soldering is definitely an art.  It's like driving a manual transmission - there's a particular motion you have to get used to.

The guide recommended I put some fresh solder onto the points on the board, so I did that...  then I trimmed the wires to the right length and attached to the points.  First half done:

Now onto the second half:

Then I applied hot glue to the solder points to prevent shorts and corrosion, hot glued the legs, and then taped the chip to the board.

Now I can play whatever game I want!