[b3lha]

Yesterday was an epic day for this project. I made two major steps forward.

Firstly, I have successfully reprogrammed a TCU and it's quite easy to do:

You have to remove the existing ROM chip, then solder a socket onto the board in the space provided, then program the new eprom and put it in the socket. A Picture speaks 1000 words (but takes up more disk space):



To remove the ROM chip, heat each of it's legs one at a time with the soldering iron and slide a knife blade underneath to separate it from the board. Finish one side first then the other.



That choking noise you can hear is Joe having a fit because he's just realised that it is HIS TCU that I am experimenting on, with no guarantee that it will ever work again.

After removing the chip it is necessary to clean up any remnant solder around where the chip used to be to avoid shorting anything.



The next step is to clean out the holes where you are going to install the socket. This is a time-consuming process which involves repeatedly burning oneself with the soldering iron. The best method I found was to hold the board vertically, put the soldering iron on one side of each hole and the solder sucker (spring-loaded syringe) on the other side. When the solder melts you fire the solder sucker and it sucks the liquid solder out of the hole.