Quote:
Originally Posted by kevin_lufc
CivPilot, great work. How long did the work take to do? Did you need any special tools? On a scale of 1-10 (1 being very hard) how easy is the job?
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What I had easy to hand from memory:-
Philips head screw driver (small, make sure it's exact)
Scalpel with strong blade
Soldering Iron (fine tip is best)
Solder (used some very good lead free stuff that a mate provided, used on circuit boards normally so worth borrowing I guess)
Fine tip pliers
Fine tip tweezers
Drill or hole cutter (for the required wire holes in the module outer case)
Fine wire (the more flexible the better)
Dremmel (not really a must have, but usefull in cutting the inside of the new key in a few areas to help things fit snuggly)
fine snip cutters (As above, choose which. I used the dremmel and scalpel combined)
Patience
I think the whole job took me an hour or two as it wasn't that hard really, just a bit scary (I was cutting my key up!!).
The hardest part was removing the Transponder from the board as you must be very gentle (it's quite fragile feeling) but at the same time need to use a little bit of force to break the glue bond.
The other tedious part is trimming out the interior of the new key to help things fit snuggly. Mainly the bits to cut are around the transponder slot to allow room for the wire to slot into place. On page 17 of this thread Stef has posted some pictures to show what you need to cut. This just takes time removing a bit of plastic at a time until things fit.
In my key I also had to trim a couple of pillars from the other side of the case slightly as with them at full length the case wouldn't close properly.
If you have soldered before and are good at fiddly things (and have patience) then I would say the job is quite easy, it's just a bit daunting.
If you are at all worried about doing it, then best you don't until you are sure.
I'm sure someone will post up a detailed step by step "how too" sometime soon if you whish to wait. I didnt take any pictures along the way so it would be a waste of time for me to do it.