Let's start out by laying out all the materials needed
Dye DM4 Membrane Pad or equivalent. Timmy pads will not work.
Header Connector (PN = Samtec TSW-103-07-G-S)
5mm Red LED (PN = Liteon LTL-2R3VEKNT)
5mm Yellow LED (PN = Liteon LTL-2R3VYKNT)
5mm Blue LED (PN = Liteon LTL2P3TBK5)
Black Wire 28AWG (PN = Belden 8597 010)
Red Wire 28AWG (PN = Belden 8597 002)
Heatshrink 1/16" (PN = Alpha FIT-221B-1/16 BK)
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Start by measuring out the position for the membrane pad. Do not stick it on yet! Make sure to put it high enough on the back of the grip so the connector is straight and lined up with the bottom of the battery compartment. Mark it's position with a pencil.
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Measure out and mark the center line for the LEDs. Mark off three horizontal cross lines. The first one about 5mm up from the DM4 pad mark and about 8mm between each LED.
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Use a center punch to give the drill bit something to grab onto. This is important to ensure that the holes are all perfectly lined up.
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Clamp the frame in a vise using a folded paper towel to protect the frame from teeth marks. Make sure to clamp the frame by the lower handle only. If you clamp the frame on the upper section, you could easily squish the sides of the trigger frame together and the board will no longer fit. Drill a small pilot hole for each of the three LED cross-hashes. Use a 5mm drill bit to drill the three holes. For you yanks and your wacky imperial system use a 3/16" drill bit and enlarge the holes slightly with a circular file. Take your time when drilling and make sure to line it up perfectly with your center punches.
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Use a standard 82* countersink bit to finish the holes. Again, make sure to line it up on both x and y axis before lowering the bit. Remember to remove all flashing on the inside of the frame with a small file.
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Here's the modded frame. Paint the countersinks to match your frames colour.
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Now you have to break out your soldering equipment. I can't stress enough that the Ion board uses very small surface mount components. Most packages are 0603 size and the actual PCB is pretty low quality and fragile. Use too much heat and you'll lift the pads and destroy the board. A fine tiped iron is a must and a temperature control unit will help. A soldering gun will NOT work! A coldheat soldering iron will NOT work! You should have some water soluble flux and some solder wick to do a proper job. I highly suggest only attempting this if you have previous SMT soldering experience and the proper equipment. If you a soldering newbie and absolutely must attempt this, practice on an old cell phone board or an old graphics card or any other techno scrap you may have lying around. Try removing components and then putting them back on.
Desoldering SMT components is easier if you add a blob of solder to each side of the component. Then with the soldering iron, quickly bounce back and forth between the blobs like you're stick handling a hockey puck. Eventually, both blobs will be melted at the same time and the part will slide right off. Do not pry up the part with the tip! Do not leave the heat on one pad for too long! Make sure your tip is clean and tinned. |
First remove the power LED. It is labelled D3 on the PCB.
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When the LED slides off, make note of how it came out. There is a strip on the back side that shows the proper orientation. Write this info down just incase you want to put it back in for some reason. Clean off the old solder with some solder wick then add a touch of fresh solder.
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Flip the board over and locate D4 (Red LED) and D5 (Yellow LED) down by the trigger switch.
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Use the same procedure to remove these two LEDs. Go slow and take your time.
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Now that all the components are removed, we can start connecting the wires. The power button only needs one wire. The top pad on the power button and the top pad on the programming button both go to ground so we can get away with only one ground wire to the membrane pad. This works out well because the membrane pad's middle lead is common to both switches. Strip and tin a 1 foot length of red wire (we'll trim it down later). Solder it to the lower pad. Make sure that there is no solder bridges to any other components or the metal cover on the power button. Tie the wire to the sail hose to provide a strain relief.
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Strip and tin another 1 foot length of red wire. Solder it to the lower pad of the programming button. Again, make sure that there is no solder bridges to any other components or the metal cover. Feed the wire through the lower hole in the trigger swtich to provide a strain relief (not shown in image).
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Strip and tin a 1 foot length of black wire. Solder it to the upper pad of the programming button. Again, make sure that there is no solder bridges to any other components or the metal cover. Feed the wire through the same lower hole in the trigger switch to provide a strain relief.
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These three wires are all that's required for the Membrane Pad mod.
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Strip and tin a 1 foot length of black wire and 1 foot length of red wire. Solder then to the power LED pads as shown. Route the wires up through the hose cutout and tie them each to the hose to provide a strain relief.
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Solder a 1 foot length of red wire to the lower pad of D5. Make sure that there is no solder bridges to any other components and keep the end of the wire away from the edge of the board. That edge has to be clear so it can slide into the trigger frame.
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Solder a 1 foot length of black wire to the upper pad of D5. Make sure that there is no solder bridges to any other components and keep the end of the wire away from the edge of the board.
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Solder a 1 foot length of black wire to the upper pad of D4. Route the three LED wires around the trigger switch then back through the upper hole to provide a strain relief. Only three wires are required because both LEDs use a common pull up resistor (R6). They will be dimmer if both are turned on at the same time but SP decided that was ok in order to save 1 resistor.
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Clean the board throughly with isopropanol alcohol and q-tips. Remember, flux is conductive and you have to get it all out of there or your board will do funny things (or not work at all). Let the board sit for a couple hours (or blow it out with compressed air) so any residual alcohol can exaporate.
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Here is the modded board with all the wires in place. I brought the power led wires down in the groove on the side of the capacitor, then under the programming LED wires to hold them in place. They have to stay in the capacitor groove or the board won't side in to the frame properly. I routed the power button wire down the capacitor groove on the other side and through the lower hole in the trigger switch. This layout works very well and is very robust. All the wires have a strain relief and nothing binds when sliding the board into the trigger frame.
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Trim the two wires going to the Power LED. Make them long enough so that they can reach the LED holes in the trigger frame with the board just removed out the top of the trigger frame. Strip and tin the two wires. Put a 1cm length of heatshrink tube on each of the wires and slide them back out of the way. Grab a blue LED and figure out it's polarity. Look at the bottom with the leads facing you. You'll notice one side is flattened. The lead on the flattened side always goes to the black wire. Bend the leads at a 90* angle. Solder the black wire to the lead on the flattened side and the red wire to the other lead.
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Now might be a good time to test it. Attach a battery and push the stock power button. Make sure the board behaves as usual. Remember, it's going to blink rapidly because your eye board is disconnected.
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Trim the three wires going to the Programming LEDs. Make them long enough so that they can reach the LED holes in the trigger frame with the board just removed out the top of the trigger frame. Strip and tin the three wires. Put a 1cm length of heatshrink tube on each of the wires and slide them back out of the way. Grab a Yellow LED and bend the leads at 90*. Figure out it's polarity and solder the black wire from the upper pad of D5 to the lead on the flattened side. Solder the single red wire to the other lead then solder a small jumper (don't forget the heatshrink) from there to the anode of the Red LED. Solder the black wire from the upper pad of D4 to the lead on the flattened side of the Red LED.
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Here is a closer detail shot. The left LED is amber. The right LED is red. On the left side, the three wires go to the board in this order from top to bottom :
Red wire to the lower pad of D5
Black wire to the upper pad of D5
Black wire to the upper pad of D4.
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Shrink the tubing with a heatgun or a lighter. Be careful if using a lighter. You do not have to put the heatshrink into the flame, just close to it. Do not melt the plastic case of the LEDs.
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Trim the three wires for the DM4 membrane pad. Make them long enough so that they can reach the bottom of the trigger frame with the board just removed out the top of the trigger frame. Strip and tin the three wires. Put a 1cm length of heatshrink tube on each of the wires and slide them back out of the way. Solder the header connector with the black wire in the middle. The orientation of the other two red wires doesn't matter at this time. Do not heat the pin too much or the plastic carrier will melt. Move the heatshrink tubing in place and shrink it.
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Connect the membrane pad to the header. The lead closest to the top of the pad goes to the wire leading to the power button. Test out the board completely.
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Install the board on the firing assembly. The flex cable on the membrane pad does not hold up to abrasion very well. Wrapping the flat flex cable with electrical tape will make it last alot longer.
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Looking from the front you can see the wires are all positioned out of the way for when the board slides into the slots on the trigger frame.
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Plug the LEDs into the holes. They should fit just tight enough so that they stay in the hole but not so tight that you can't get them out when you have to remove the board. I put the blue on top, then yellow, then red. You can put them in any order you like. Completely remove the grips and clean the area where the membrane pad will stick to. Any oily residue will lessen the sticking power of the glue on the membrane pad. Peel the backing off the membrane pad and stick it to the frame making sure that the connector clears the bump on the inside of the battery compartment. Lay the wires neatly in the bottom of the battery compartment.
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Install the battery. If you did a proper job, there should be lots of room for the battery. Make sure the grips are not pinching any wires before you tighten the screws down.
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Tourney Lock
If you are in a tourney and need to tourney lock your Ion, just flip the connector to the membrane pad and leave one pin unconnected as shown.
The stock power button is still functional so you can use it if you membrane pad fails.
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Here's the simplified line drawing of all the connections.
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Here's the final product with Dye Membrane pad and Virtue Urban Camo pad.
Here's a vid of cycling through the settings.
http://www.chiumanfu.com/dlfiles/ion/mod_vid.avi
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Here's a shot of bre4kbeat's Ion with Foehn body and Element 85* frame. Now that is a hot one-of-a-kind Ion!
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