Solder free unlocking for ECI modem

I'm sure many of you will have seen this - hacking the ECI modem solder free

http://hackingecibfocusv2fubirevb.wordpress.com/2012...

But I've ordered the bits and I'm going to give it a go!

"Solder Free" but a real cowboy job with a clothes peg!

Indeed - but you only need serial access for a few mins to unlock and my soldering skills leave something to be desired!

Quicker for me to solder than line up the connector and fit the peg!

In reply to a post by MHC:

Quicker for me to solder than line up the connector and fit the peg!

Yes I agree, but if a peg is is going to be used then the Tesco value wooden one takes some beating (it has a spring like Arkwright's till)

Do make sure to remove any coating on the solder pads which may impede connection.

question how do I know if I have a ECI cabinet?

I thought I'd do it properly, but that ground pin hole was a real pig to unsolder!

Now I've got the pins soldered in I'm getting no output in Putty, I've checked continuity between the pin and the next solder point on the track and all appears ok. My adapter works ok when I try it in loopback, and I can't see any blobs of solder where they shouldn't be.

Should have just used the cloths peg method or better still just bought one of the unlocked ones from ebay! (I have two new types and one old type ECI modem now!)

PS. My adapter has a green and red LED, anyone know what they mean, it's the same one that ASBOKID linked to on eBay in his Kitz post, starts PL2302 something (at work at the moment)

Edited by R0NSKI (Wed 28-Nov-12 08:15:43)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

question how do I know if I have a ECI cabinet?

Find it and look.
http://www.robertos.me.uk/html/street_cabinets_etc.html

Or - once you have unlocked your modem, you can tell from the pbParams.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Quicker for me to solder than line up the connector and fit the peg!

Maybe for you! Last time I tried to solder any electronics I ended up having to throw the whole lot in the bin!

Huawei128 looks the closest.