flashing zeta blue cam with joker 0.79

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Mine looks exactly the same as your picture. I tried last night (nothing on telly) by trying to hold two wires in the rightplace. Had to click the mouse with my nose.

Needless to say, it didn't work

[80sman]

I bought some conductive paint from maplins (£6) and used that, it I just scrapped a little more of the track free of it's green insulator on each side and painted an arc around the cut.

I just dipped a thin scriber in the paint and drew the paint on.

It worked perfectly.

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Pictures!

[80sman]

Originally Posted by Cafe.Rcaer

Pictures!

I'm in sicily at the moment and the cam is in the uk..... sorry...

What I can do though is use Jarvis' picture and show you how I modified the card.

The area in yellow is where I scrapped off the insulation coating on the top of the trace.

The blue area is the cut. Have to be a little careful here as if you get paint in this area it runs between the traces and shorts them out. Doesn't matter if you spill some in there, just clean it back out again before it sets, I used some kitchen paper towel

The red area is earth, this was exposed on my cam board, by the (maybe intentional) clumsy cut. You need to avoid this area too, as it will short circuit the chip.

The orange area is where I painted on the conductive paint, only thing to remember is to mix the paint thoroughly as the silver likes to fall to the bottom and go slow.

It all went wrong for me a couple of times when I was doing it, I just used some kitchen paper towel and some isopropal alcohol to clean and redo, without any stress of damaging the board with small solders.

When I was happy with the work I measured the resistance between point 1 (jtag connection) and the end of the track on the chip. And point 2 (jtag connection) and it's associated leg on the chip. Also I measured resistance between earth and each track.

Interesting to note that the resistance was higher than I would of liked on one of the traces continuity, from memory something like 50 ohms but still worked fine when I flashed it.

There should be no continuity between either trace and earth.

When I'd finished it all worked perfectly, took me about 35mins in total with maybe leaving it for 10 mins then flashing it successfully with joker 79

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Cool, cheers.

With that paint stuff, can you do the resistance measurement before it's dried, OR can you clean it off after it's dried if you get it wrong? It seems less likely to cause a problem...

[80sman]

I think the resistance improves as it dries. As the solution part of it evaporates. I didn't wait that long to check resistance which could be why I had 1 trace reading a little high.

You can just rub it off if it dries, but to be honest I wouldn't let it harden.

I guess you mean, you want to check that you haven't caused a short before it dries properly..... yes you can.

[80sman]

edit: double post

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Thanks - I got one of those pens from Maplins (£20 - Ouch) rather than the paint.

Scratched the tracks with a needle and a steel rule (used the rule along side the track, then ran the needle along it).

Dabbed the pen on, let it dry and tried it - no joy.

Fetched the multi-meter - I'd got the outer track okay, but not the inner. On the instructions for the pen it said something about heat curing being better, so I wafted my gas soldering iron over it for about 3 secs and - Hey presto... one flashed CAM!

Just tried it and it works fine, although it's a little "delicate" getting it in the FireDTV. (Damn, meant to take a picture).

Thanks again you two - timing couldn't be better as I have another FireDTV on the way...

[80sman]

mines not to bad, I only broke the weld on one side. I couldn't get solder to stick to get it back together, so I used an automatic centre punch on it, which makes it more secure although not perfect. This coupled with an elastic band make it good enough for use though.

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Don't get me wrong, it's fine once it's in the slot...

If it ever comes out again, I might try the centre punch.