General How did I kill 2 EPROM ECUs?

[ziggo0]

I'm very fluent with electronics. I do lots of soldering for volt mods etc on computers and various other electronics. I bought 2x ZIF sockets from Moates, desoldered the chip off one and cleaned up the holes. Soldered the new socket on and burnt a quick chip to make sure the ECU was ok.

Pop it in, put the keys to ON and it starts CLICKING like MAD, stops then comes back, car does not start. So I figured I killed the ECU somehow. I had a second one as backup, did the same to that one and now the same case.

HOW did I kill 2 ECU's via socketing and chipping? Or am I overlooking something? Both were in perfect working order previously.

 

[gieri002]

have you messed with the 02 sensor wiring at all? The same thing happened to me and it ended up being a simple wire error when I was soldered the wrong wires together somehow.... Same symptoms though including the clicking.

 

[ziggo0]

I have my wideband feeding the stock narrowband, it's wired right by the ecu. Perhaps I tugged on it a bit hard. I'mma go check

 

[twdorris]

If it's a 2G ECU, buzz out the connections and figure out which track(s) are broken.

buzzingout2gsocket [ECMTuning - wiki]

Thomas Dorris
ECMTuning, Inc.

 

[viperlp01]

He probably didn't leak the solder through enough . That seems like the most common problem

 

[steve]

The traces are pretty small on the 2Gs and it's easy to crack them desoldering the EPROM.

So as long as he didn't put the chip in backward that's the most likely cause.

 

[ziggo0]

If it's a 2G ECU, buzz out the connections and figure out which track(s) are broken.

buzzingout2gsocket [ECMTuning - wiki]

Thomas Dorris
ECMTuning, Inc.

This is exactly what I was looking for last night, to bad I didn't see it before. I gotta start checking your site out more often, it already found 1 problem with a trace I did break and repaired! (or not!)

He probably didn't leak the solder through enough . That seems like the most common problem

I did notice this happening, however I kept the zif socket up high enough so I could see if I was leaking through, and this definitely was not the case.

The traces are pretty small on the 2Gs and it's easy to crack them desoldering the EPROM.
So as long as he didn't put the chip in backward that's the most likely cause.

That would explain that lovely crack I heard while desoldering the chip...wasn't prying or anything, just a slight crack, I thought it was the tip of my soldering iron (she is very old!)

Edit: Just got done, fixed up a small blotch of solder that caused pins 3 & 4 to become in contact on IC2. Put it in the car and it still clicks but not as bad as it used to. Where to now?

 

[steve]

Just got done, fixed up a small blotch of solder that caused pins 3 & 4 to become in contact on IC2. Put it in the car and it still clicks but not as bad as it used to. Where to now?

You check all the connections for each pin both before and after your repairs?
Did you also check to make sure none of the adjacent pins were shorted together?

 

[ziggo0]

You check all the connections for each pin both before and after your repairs?
Did you also check to make sure none of the adjacent pins were shorted together?

Actually pin 3 was just fine. It was pin 4's trace that had to be repaired. The wire I used to repair the trace was soldered to where pin 4's trace would go but was touching where pin 3's trace would go. After repairing this I noticed it was clicking less but it is still not wanting to work.

On another note, I grabbed the other eprom board and cleaned it up some and did the buzz test to all of it's traces. They all checked out ok. I don't have a socket for it quite yet.

 

[steve]

I'm not sure that really answered the questions.

I ask because most of the EPROM pins are connected to both the ECU and the port expander. Sometimes by one trace on one side of the board and one on the other with the through hole being the common. Pin 4 is like that. If you don't check all the connection to both chips you can miss a break and the ECU won't work.

Let's assume that the board is now fixed. Did you try putting the stock EPROM in the ECU in case the problem is with the chip you burned?

 

[ziggo0]

Sorry I wasn't able to answer you correctly. I know a decent amount but apparently not to much. I decided to set the eprom board with the broken/repaired traces to the side and checkout the other one. The conductivity test shows that all traces are good and are not grounding out with the adjacent pins. This ECU however acts exactly the same as the other one so I'm beginning to think it was a bad socket install...I went ahead and ordered 2 sockets similar to the ones that are used by twdorris instead of the high rise zif ones. I also am getting 2 new C2 SST 27SF512 chips incase the one Ive been trying to use it junk. If all else fails I guess I'm going to send it in

 

[steve]

While I do install ZIF sockets for customers, I'm not a fan. I have from the beginning recommended people use the machine pins sockets for ECUs because of the secure grip they make on the pins and past experience with chips popping out of the low quality wiper sockets.

I don't think you using a ZIF socket is the problem and that's why I asked if you tried using the factory EPROM. I'm suspecting the problem might be chip you made. It may not be a defective part, rather it might be incorrectly programmed.