Undiluted Platinum Installation on a TA-081 PSP Showoff

[vb_master]

Last week I found a site selling the UP chip for $20 shipped, so I said why not and bought one. In the meantime when it was sent from good ole' Canada, I practiced my soldering skills on a spare TA-086 board which I got in a trade from ShockSlayer. I found that a 15 watt RadioShack iron, 0.015" silver bearing solder, generous helpings of flux, an Xacto knife, two magnifying glasses taped together, and a steady paw did the job perfectly! Now, a few pictures from the entire install:

Loot from a RadioShack run.

First mask applied for removing the solder mask.

Second mask applied for removing the solder mask.

First group of eight wires soldered onto the traces.

Overview of the first group of eight wires with a dime for size comparison.

Finished install.

I then hooked up a screen, power and the buttons, put the FPC into the UP's clip, then put the PSP into programming mode. Reading the internal PSP NAND was successful, however writing was failing for some strange reason (connections were fine, the UP flasher tool would have told me) I used the Dark_AleX flashing tool to reformat the UP NAND, and then the official UP flasher was happy. Flashed the Epsilon BIOS, and it booted!

Overall the installation was not very difficult, and the warnings and recommendation in the installation guides are overkill: you definitely don't need a 30x video microscope, which the UP team recommends. The most stressful part of the installation was scraping the solder mask off of the NAND traces. Seeing I had NEVER attempted soldering of this caliber, I had lots of fun doing this installation and learned that I can solder perfectly in dense areas.

[Axaj]

I'm very sorry I have to pain you with this horribly n00bish question, but what is the UP chip?

[Aguiluz]

I'm very sorry I have to pain you with this horribly n00bish question, but what is the UP chip?

Outdated way of loading Custom Firmware. Introduced shortly before Pandora's Battery.

[narutogod22]

I personally think that the UP is now almost essential if you are going to buy the newer official firmware REQUIRED (the disc now checks the ram to see how much is used if its Custom firmware it uses more than official)
if the AM check doesnt pass the game will refuse to run.
custom frimware on one flash,m then official on another

[weaver]

Could this be done to psp go to get custom firmware?

[samjc3]

Could this be done to psp go to get custom firmware?

HOLY BUMP! but, yes. thats what it was made for. however, its outdated ow, since the pandora battery exists.