I recently replaced the screen on a PSP I got off eBay, and it made me feel like a champ because I had never done anything like that. I took it to a repair shop first, and they wanted $100 to fix it. I got the replacement screen off Amazon for $14. I'm so glad I did it myself! I think your videos appeal to that DIY part of me, and I've been binging your "try to fix" series! Love them!

I really love these videos I hope you don’t stop doing them they’re really helpful and enjoyable to watch :)

The Wii U is such a painful console to repair. You always need both a working console AND GamePad; if one is broken, the other won't work. Replacement parts are hard to find and VERY expensive. I can only imagine how many working Wii Us there will be in a few decades. Obviously, Nintendo did all of this to help combat piracy and force proprietary parts on everything, but at what cost? At what cost?

Good try. We love your videos. We purposely do not look at the comments until the end so we don't know if you succeeded or not. Please keep this series going.

I love how you always stay calm, I'd be tearing my hair out

Vince, can I just say that these videos are awesome. This is stuff I would love to do in my spare time and you are getting me closer to achieving that goal. Keep up the good work brotha

I watch your videos to the end and truly enjoy and learn from them. Keep up the good work like you always do!

Hey Vince another awesome video! Although the desired outcome proved elusive, all of us benefited from this. For one, i didnt know the wii u controllers were region locked and we now know the swapped chip does not change the region lock. So you have saved the DIY community so much time! Thank you for sharing honestly so we dont have to make the mistakes!

Can't wait for another episode of this series it's really good !! Keep up the great work Vince ! 😀

I don't know why but these videos are always fun to watch and learn. You can be a very good teacher. You explain everything clearly.

I love that you have absolutely no fear! I have had decades of soldering experience, and I still get nervous when the solder (usually Pb-free) refuses to flow.

I enjoy watching you do what you do.. Very interesting to see you solve issues and learning and sharing what you know...

To see you on such a steep learning curve and self teaching yourself in this series is interesting viewing. Keep it up man and I'm liking the series :)

Man, I've been binging your videos for the past few days. Sucks to see this board not work, but it's cool to see your soldering skills clearly improving!

Congratualtions for getting it working Vince. That repair would have been beyond me.

I love your vids Vince. You help me fix my stuff!

Congratulations on your first successful chip removal and install Vince 👍 Those chips can take a fair bit of heat and if it had been damaged then it wouldn't have turned on at all..the board is the thing to worry about as they can't take as much heat before cooking Next time after you've got the chip in place you could go over each leg with the fine tip iron to add a little more solder but remember to tin your iron and use plenty of flux..once you get the knack of soldering it'll become a joy ...keep at it mate I'm enjoying watching your progress and if you need any advice feel free to drop me a message..electronics repair is what I do in my spare time 😉

Region locking a controller... Really Nintendo? Why?

Good try Vince. Just found your videos and been loving them.

Good try Vince! You are very dedicated and don’t give up easily. Keep up the great work with the videos!

Some soldering tips: 1) Use kapton tape on components in the area instead of tinfoil. 2) Use more flux, preferably the thicker stuff. Flux imho most beneficial effect is in helping old solder flow again. 3) After removing a component, clean the pads with some solder braid, (maybe clean it some more with isoprophinol if the area got quite dirty) and apply fresh solder. 4) Before desoldering, mix some fresh leaded solder with the un-leaded they use in production, it helps lowering the melting point. 5) You don't always need to use hot air to remove/replace smd components. For the IC you replaced you can just use the soldering iron. One technique is to put a ball of solder on one side, drag it up and down and lift that side up slightly. Drag soldering is very handy technique. You can solder packages like that the same way, again just use solder braid to remove excess solder. Really enjoy your video's. No critique, done worse myself.

Honsestly vince, I know you didn't manage to get the region working but the fact you managed to desolder and re-solder a flash rom chip sucessfully with hot air and no experience is amazing. Another great video even though the outcome must have been a little disappointing, still kept me entertained and on the edge of my seat!

unlucky mate, thought you had fixed it. You have encouraged me to try and fix things myself, keep up the videos mate love them.

Dang man! I was really rooting for ya! Keep up the great work!

uk motherboards are on ebvay for around £19, not coming from china too.

i love watching your videos!!!!!! dont care if u fail or not. just enjoying how u work on it and get it to work

It's all about the effort Vince mate.. We wait to see what the next move is!

Excellent vid Vince, great attempt at fixing it

It's really fun to see how much you invest in trying to understand the source of the problem. Keep uploading videos please! I saw a few days ago a screen for 2DS XL, I remember that when you said that their price was really high, do you remember what price you got to see? If the price I saw is lower I would be happy to send you a link.

Hi Vince, I’m a long time viewer. Have you thought about doing some reaction type video looking back at your early days in electronics and quashing some of the myths you appear to be concerned about when starting out. This one and the previous one (Switch M92 chip removal) are the first time you used your hot air station and you were very concerned about burning chips and other components would be a great starting point, given how far you’ve come. Love your work, please keep it up. Tony

Good Vid Vince! Your attitude is wonderful! It's a 'Never give In' attitude and that's how you get things done! Remember the saying 'Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained'.

For soldering the chip back on, you'd just want to clean / wick the pads with flux, then put more flux down to "stick" the chips legs down to the board. Then, using your soldering iron, solder two opposite corner pins, then work your way along each pin with your soldering iron. With good use of flux, you can touch the iron to the pad and the leg right at the end of the leg and that will head the pad and leg simultaneously, so the solder should flow nicely onto both. Not a bad job for your first try, though!

Always smart at entertaining videos.Never clicked faster

Oh mate, that sucks, i was really excited hoping you be able to fix it

This was such an enjoyable video! You did some things wrong, but I've rarely seen someone realize a mistake and do a turnaround so fast, especially when lacking experience. One tip: get some higher density flux like the Amtech 559 or 223 that comes in a syringe or jar (even the knock offs will do at this point). You may need to clean it up a bit afterwards, but the type you're using will crackle and smoke a lot more, and also evaporate, leaving you dry again.

The chip swap seemed extremely plausible. I'd recommend going in with your fine-tipped soldering iron and adding just a tiny bit of fresh solder to each pin. The lead-free solder that the factories use on these chips isn't great, and it can get brittle; that can lead to a joint that looks fine, but that causes erratic behavior when you try to read from it at high speeds. But if you flow a little new solder on, it'll alloy with the old stuff and spread much better. I wouldn't give it a *great* chance of working, but it's definitely worth a try. The same trick actually helps when removing chips, too--you can use alloying to convince the chip to let go at a lower temperature. There's even special extra-low-temp solder they make specifically for this purpose; it goes under the name "chip quik," at least in the US. I wouldn't recommend it for use in joining, but for removing things it really does help. In fact, though, it seemed like you did fine removing the chips; this is just good to know if something puts up more of a fight in the future.

You’ve done a great job!

Gutted, my new fav KZfaq channel

Wow, what an ending LOL. I'm happy you managed to solder the chip correctly though.

Flux makes the solder flow, else it tends to clump together like water would on a waxed car window or like water in a bowl of oil. Use the wick to wick away the solder completely on both sides and you should be able to lift the chip up from the board. I do like the content, very entertaining to watch, keep trying and one day you'd fix anything. EDIT: Using the wick, you should keep the heat on longer then you did, that way the solder has the time and heat to flow into the wick.

Your flux seems strange (in a felt tip way) I just use a tin of cream stuff that I can put my solder into when required. You learn from your mistakes and you learnt a lot today.

Bloody good effort and skills. I have every faith you will get it all sorted. Love your videos. Thanks Vince. 👌

Flux lowers melting temperature of solder and helps with flow of it :) Before desoldering try to add leaded solder (60 - 40 mix it's my prefered solder). On chip like this in video You can try drag soldering, but before You must clean the pads with wick and solder two pins in opposing corners, after that add flux, solder on tip and just drag across the pins :) My prefered temperature for soldering is 350 C, but it can differ, if board has big ground planes i add around 10C and preheat the board, if i solder small smd component with little traces i usually lower temp by bit. But really nice job with this soldering, no pads gone missing :D

Good effort Vince :)

Wow Vince that mistake a lot of skill in effort great job keep up the good work

When using the hot air station, i've seen people cover everything around the chip in "Kapton tape". It's a heat resistant tape (up to 400 deg C) that might be just enough to not destroy everything around it. I've never used it because it's pretty hard to find in my area and too expensive (student budget) to order. However, i really suggest trying it if you can find it for cheap.

Yo Vince, a good tip for removing old solder is actually applying new solder to it first, I know this video is a bit old now so I don't know if you'll read this, but if you apply some flux and lay down a new coat of solder over the old solder it makes it much easier to remove :)

Just a quick point as you mentioned it in the video. The flux helps prevent the solder from oxidizing after you've finished.

eevblog got me into and taught me so much about smd repair. He gets into detail. Voultar is a good channel......he deals with game consoles but his soldering techniques and advice are golden. Dont turn it on....take it ah part! -eevblog

The solder job was ok, you did good (and using the tinfoil to cover the components, most important when plastic components are around, they need protection with tinfoil or better, kapton tape). The flux helps alot when using a hot air station (or soldering iron), so is a must. As for temps for using a hot air station, depends. I use from 350 to 450Cº with a air flow from 75 to 100 (or more) Litres per minute (most cheap air stations won't go over 50 L/m (some not even half of this) but can take most components out with preheating). I can take most chips in less than 30 seconds (some with big ground point can take a few seconds longer), but all this depends from component to component. Theres lots of videos out there you can see from different components and size of them. But those are some of the "easier" ones to take out. Few legs and big ones. The faster you take the chip the less will it get some thermal shock or end up with some faulty, because some don't like to be heat up for a long period (meaning more than 1 or 2 minutes with a high temp setting). In the end, sad to hear that chip wasn't the one with the region information, i never worked with a Wii U so i don't know the right chip and if it will even work or might end up with firmware error code or compatible error. So you did a good choice in gettin a new replacement board for it.

This is enjoyable keep it up

I have a question, with the wii u, when playing old wii games do you NEED a wiimote or can you just use the gamepad as the controller for wii games instead?

i love yore videos

Brilliant video ,thanks so much

Well done hopefully new board you bought does the trick. 👍

Good use of foil there to insulate the other components. I still suggest grabbing a big roll of kapton tape as it has other uses for electronics, like taping down that broken connector, but foil certainly does work in a pinch. You should use that broken wii u board to practice soldering. Just do it while watching some of the videos that people have been suggesting. With any luck you can eventually go back to that Switch and properly repair it.

you can buy a uk/eu game pad motherboard for £18. Just goes to show doing a bit of research before buying would of saved you there but, it might have helped other people doing the same fix. Regardless, great video as always :)

Hey! It is pretty sweet though, how you didn't mess it up. Good job.

I would of applied a lil fresh solder to help the heat gun , but my hat goes of to you for trying to learn and try to do this very few people try and have this ability we learn by doing and have the will to learn well done regardless if it don't work if you don't try u can't succesed

Just start using aluminium foil to cover the parts you don't want to heat up with the hot air. In the future you don't want to do that with the iron but the hot air. The chips are made to sustain heat. They were made in insanely hot temperatures. Don't worry about burning them out. Just tape strips of foil around the chip and apply hot air. Edit: Ok, I see you finally did that. Good work.

At least you tried and learned something new. Good job anyway. Thumbs up.

Very good try, unlucky mate. Little tip about the reflow, it was pretty good (if not slightly hot and brutal) it would have been better to put a dab of fresh solder on each connector pin at the end. But yeah, probably need to change more components as well to change that region and/or flash the chip.

Nice. Here is an advice if you don't mind. Lower the air speed to avoid blowing SMD components away. Use Kapton tape to protect plastic connectors.

hey vince i hope you are doing good, im wondering if there is any development with the xbox one situation ?!

@13:00 Cues up the theme song from Doogie Howser 😆

Good effort mate I really thought you done it there. Why Nintendo makes a controller region locked is beyond me..

I'm falling for this guy :)

Nice video and info , practice makes perfect they say . Thumbs up from me👍

I do like watching your videos there good

It's a good practice to not stay on one spot for too long with the hotair reflow nozzle. Even heat distribution is less stressful for chips and you get the solder flowing on all sides equally. Flux is a tool to let the solder flow better and onto parts it's supposed to stick to only (metal) and also preotects it from oxidation while being soldered. But apart from all that, Your desoldering/soldering attempt didn't look too bad. To make sure the legs of the IC are on the corresponding pads, press down one after the other with a soldering iron that has a tiny bit of solder on its tip. But I think transplanting the chip worked fine, just that it seemingly didn't fix the region lock issue. Better luck next time ^_^

Thanks for sharing =) Sorry about the Wii U =(

Dang i really thought he had this for once still these videos are very interesting

No need to use the hot air station for that chip when soldering back. You can just use some flux and with soldering iron do every leg untill there is contact. Anyways you did great and im sure you will get better at this :)

Well, at least you have transplanted a chip from one board to another and seems to be functional, even if it's still the wrong region lock

idk about working on a rug you worried about esd, also what netbook you use there?

Hi i love watching the video's and admire the way you stay CALM if it was me i woud have smashed the f--in thing to smitherines.

hi vince. do you have a cfw on your wii u? maybe there is region free gamepad updater homebrew out there.

Those little chips are actually pretty tough, dude. Place most of your worry into the board and components around it. Just be careful about holding the heat in one spot too long. There was a time in there I was cringing a bit saying to myself "OMG move the heat!" Move it in little circles back and forth. Personally, I dont like to bother with flux until I'm placing the new component on the board. While technically, I guess flux can help heat things up, but mainly I believe it is just good for creating a cleaner connection for your solder joints. In other words, removing a chip - no flux needed. Putting a chip on, use it. Also, if I can do the job with just an iron I don't bother with flux at all. There is actually a flux core in your solder, so when applying new solder remember that. Also, Don't leave you work dirty, wipe it clean with an alcohol wipe. Lastly, I recommend a circuit board holder. It is kinda like a vice grip that holds the board suspended in the air for you. The baking sheet works I guess, but the baking sheet also gets hot and can burn you or someone else that might pick it up not knowing it is hot.

I really hoped it would work! Don't give up, wonder if there are PAL/ UK motherboards on eBay?

You can use a desolder braid and iron to remove chips, but your right your tip is to thin you need a chisel tip, 3mm is good. You can definitely solder in soic chips like this flash chip by hand, just take it slow and use plenty of flux. Use the old broken board to practice on! For hotair I use kapton tape to mask components that are close, chips can take more heat than you think.

Solid effort lad

You can't really mess up a board with heat. At least not the way you're doing so. As long as the silicon doesn't reach 100c. It's ok the board is mostly copper and fiberglass so damaging it is hard without basically setting it on fire.

Your soldering was OK. If you messed up, it wouldn't have worked at all.

Hi vince loved the video. if you still want to fix it there’s a European mother board on Ebay for £18.99 from Leicestershire. Hope this helps

👍

Dang I was excited

Hi What is the name of the UK company that you got the wii u game pad mother board from thank

Video after video I keep wondering why are you still working with such tiny parts on the floor? Are you comfortable that way? I know not everyone has the space to have a workbench, but... well I’m sure you get my point! Btw keep on with your videos and your optimistic attitude! ✌😁

Another great video again vince maybe as you have nothing too loose now how about trying too change the charger ic the original fault you had in the first place if the ic is easy too change, what i do too find the charger ic is put the details of each chip into google and look at the data sheet pdf and see what each ic does you can then check the voltages too and if ic is easy to change swap it from your china board.

Flux will remove superficial oxidation from the pads and the part you wanna solder to the pad, making the solder stick better.

You did good with that chip

Hey Vince, I have been watching your Trying to repair vids and I am so entertained. I am also not a proffesional, but I do soldering for a while now and if you dont mind I can recommend you a few tips. 1. When using hot air reflow station try to preheat the board evenly or at least the region you are soldering on, it helps with inner forces so if you for example overheat one spot, it wont tear your traces or somehow internally demage your board. (150 C is a good start) 2. While unsoledring big packages like SOIP and DIP you can heat only one side and lift it up to dismount the pins and remove the heat, after it cools down, you can release the chip, then repeat the proces to the other side. And also it is not necessarily a fast process, do not apply the heat from 1cm, keep it like 5 cm away and keep moving the pump to heat it evenly. 3. Use heat shielding only for plastic parts and stuff like electrolytic capacitors. smd resistors and ceramic capacitors wont suffer from the heat. 4. Very good practice is to clean the flux with isopropylalcohol. Some flux can be conductive and can cause interference in your circuits or even short them. Hope it is at least a bit helpful, goold luck with your future repairs.

Vince when you try to solder get some Kapton heat resistant tape to put on the surrounding components so they don't come off. It is how I do it and it works great.

are you sending the faulty consoles back to the sellers? or are you keeping them?

Sad that it not works, hopefully someone finds a way to help you. So don't throw the parts away 😉 But besides it's not working you do a really great work. And I say that as a professional, working in the industry of soldering and resoldering 😉

That one connecter that broke was actually the same kind of connecter that I accidentally broken on the DSi. You mentioned taping back together. What type of tape could I use?

dave from EEVBlog has great video tutorials on sodering, but since you already have a hot air station just take a look at time graphs for heating chips, there are proper ways to ensure you won't damage anything from either over temperature or shock

Don’t beat your self up at least your trying to fix them grate video

Vince, what if your Wii u screen is broken and you didn't do anything (like break it)? Any tips on that?

I think it's easier to add some low-melting point solder to the chip before heating it up with the heat gun, makes it easier to remove without overheating the chip or any neighboring components.