making this garbage bios clip work

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Basically the garbage test clip that came with my ch341a dont work at all

 

My idea to make the stupid thing work is putting a small drop of mercury on the bios chip im trying to flash, the mercury will help conduct electricity by acting like a wire between the bios chip legs and the test clip pads

 

Would this work? The mercury should help conduct electricity and as long as i keep the droplet small shouldnt bridge to other pins, im not sure what the legs are made of but if its aluminium the oxide should protect the aluminium so it doesnt amalgamate with the mercury

[Levent]

Sounds like a lovely idea to both harm yourself and the devices you are handling, either de-solder the chip and flash it that way or build yourself a jig (its only 6/8 pins, I have done it couple of times) so that you can flash it that way.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 minute ago, Levent said:

build yourself a jig (its only 6/8 pins, I have done it couple of times)

What kind of jig? Any example pics?

 

The only idea id have to build a jig would be attatching an sop8 socket to some wires with some solder which should be pretty doable even with my cheap garbage solder iron, though dont have any flux other than in solid form which hopefully i dont need since i have flux cored solder

[BiotechBen]

27 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

What kind of jig? Any example pics?

 

The only idea id have to build a jig would be attatching an sop8 socket to some wires with some solder which should be pretty doable even with my cheap garbage solder iron, though dont have any flux other than in solid form which hopefully i dont need since i have flux cored solder

I've never needed extra flux to get a good solder, my experience with flux core solder has been "the addition of extra flux just makes a mess that's hard to clean up.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

7 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

I've never needed extra flux to get a good solder, my experience with flux core solder has been "the addition of extra flux just makes a mess that's hard to clean up.

Maybe the reason im having a hard time is just because i was attempting to solder on old mobos >12 years old, solder just wouldnt stick to that metal unless i completely surrounded it

[trag1c]

5 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Maybe the reason im having a hard time is just because i was attempting to solder on old mobos >12 years old, solder just wouldnt stick to that metal unless i completely surrounded it

Get some actual flux on there. There's probably too much oxidation for flux core to remove. Flux core is great for new components and boards since there tends to be very little oxidation but if something has sat for a while it might not produce the best results.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

3 minutes ago, trag1c said:

Get some actual flux on there. There's probably too much oxidation for flux core to remove. Flux core is great for new components and boards since there tends to be very little oxidation but if something has sat for a while it might not produce the best results.

Could i just sand the oxidation off?

I only have rosin flux aka the solid flux thats basically unsuable for all i know without mixing in some IPA

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Actually i have a more accesible idea as a replacement for the mercury, why not i just put a small dab of water on the bios chip im gonna be flashing so the damn clip will work? Who needs the mercury anyways its not like water dries that fast, with the 1-2mb chips im working with water drying is likely a non issue

[mariushm]

Such stupid ideas.

Both mercury and water are CONDUCTIVE ... you can't control it, you can't make it sit on just SOME contacts ... inevitably some pins will be shorted. 

You have voltage, ground, data in, data out, clock ,  enable  /  make read only pins ... how can you be so *** to think you can just put a blob of mercury there. 

 

FLUX attacks the oxides on the surface when it gets up to the operating temperature, in its default state (liquid, gel, paste it's not active). It also has a secondary role, preventing air and gasses from entering where solder is introduced to make the chemical connection between the lead and the pad. 

 

Desolder the bios chip from the motherboard  either using hot air gun or solder  ... add a few drops of flux over the pins, then add some solder over all the pins, then alternate the solder iron tip between chip sides until you can lift the chip.

 

You can get small pcbs to adapt soic or other footprints to DIP or some through hole version to solder wires ... you don't even need to solder the chip on those boards, it's enough often to just put some pressure on it while you program the chip.

 

Worst case scenario, for chips with pins/leads, you can bend every other pin of a chip at 90 degree and with a bit of flux, you can solder wires directly to the pins . When you're done, you can straighten the pins and solder it to the pcb. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

14 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Desolder the bios chip from the motherboard  either using hot air gun or solder  ... add a few drops of flux over the pins, then add some solder over all the pins, then alternate the solder iron tip between chip sides until you can lift the chip.

Dont have the tools and its alot more inconvenient than just taking a screwdriver and taking out the bios chip and shoving it onto the bios programmer

 

14 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Both mercury and water are CONDUCTIVE ... you can't control it, you can't make it sit on just SOME contacts ... inevitably some pins will be shorted. 

The point is to get better contact with the bios test clip, i assume this worthless pos clip doesnt work cause of abysmal conductivity between the bios chip and pos test clip, i mean ppl have fixed their issues with these garbage clips by just sanding down the bios chip pins so i assume if i just give essentially a wire between the chip and the pos clip the pos clip will work, all i have to do is just take a tissue to dry it, not like a massive blob of water but closer to a slight coat of it on the contact area, also i have some dead boards to test on so i can use my dead ud3p as a test dummy before trying to upgrade bioses