Chip

From Chiip-Wiki

Building the chip

(This part is just about adding the optional status LED and a capacitor to the modchip. It's no essential step, so if you want to know if the programmer you just built works, you can do the next chapter first)

Now we're going to build the actual modchip. The chip will work without any other components, but you may want to have a status LED for just a few cents more. And even if it seems to work fine without it, you're generally told to add a 100nF capacitor between VCC and GND. And this is what we'll do now.

IC1 is the ATmega8 - mind the notch! LED is the status LED (mind the polarity - the long leg of the LED is the one you need to solder to pin 26) R8 is the series resistor for the LED C2 is the 100nF capacitor. If you're not using an electrolytic capacitor, the polarity doesn't matter.

You are free to solder these additional components to either the IC socket or the chip itself.

I decided to solder to the chip, but soldering to the socket instead has two advantages:

• You cannot overheat the microcontroller. Microcontrollers are sensitive to heat, if you're not soldering fast you might destroy the chip
• Might be easier to do

If you decide to solder directly to the chip like I did - here's how I did it:

	I put the chip in the remaining IC socket because you can only solder to the upper part of the pins, otherwise the chip will not fit into the socket anymore
	I soldered the 100nF capacitor directly to the VCC and GND lines. BE CAREFUL IF YOU DO THIS - If you don't do the soldering fast, the heat might kill the chip!
	I soldered the LED to pin 26 and connected it to the GND pin through a series resistor. Again, BE CAREFUL, you could easily overheat the chip.

You can now continue with flashing the firmware.