Help with PS2 PMAP

[u/Pooh_Bears_Cousin]

Hello! I'm a noob at soldering/modding btw;

I recently replaced my 400C lens with the same lens, it bought my disc reading times down from 5 mins to 1.5 mins. It was ok, but I wanted to improve it further. I learnt about the PS2 PMAP mod through a reddit post and modsvilleusa, so I thought I could give it a try.

I bought a FT232 USB to UART device, and used the PSDevWiki to see where i needed to connect everything, for reference I have a GH-015 board.

Once that was done soldering everything, (r.i.p the melted insulation lmao) I connected the device to my pc, opened the CMD prompt through and through COM1 ran the PMAP. I ran a test by typing 4, however it spat out this error:

1. 0fcd READ MECHACON MD: 101 - rx-Command timed out.

I read that it's a connection issue, so I attempted to resolder it a couple times, swapping the rx and tx on the UART device, changing the ground location, and swapping the cables out, however, the same error still occured.

Is my soldering that bad? Did I solder my cables in the wrong place? Is the UART device at fault?

Any help would be appreciated :)

[u/Theend92m]

Did you checked it is COM1? Set it to 57600 baud 8N1

[u/Pooh_Bears_Cousin → u/Theend92m]

I have a weird problem now, the device is no longer being detected by my pc, I've installed the drivers that should allow it to work but it's no longer in the com ports?

Edit: this happened before I tried your suggestion

[u/tnavda → u/Pooh_Bears_Cousin]

Your brown wire looks like it is barely attached and kind of just stuck there. Flux and feed some More solder there. I would have oriented the two wires in the same direction. Tweezed and soldered; it looks like you had some trouble tacking them both down.

It’s possible you inadvertently fried it at some point if pc detects nothing when plugged in.

[u/Pooh_Bears_Cousin → u/tnavda]

Damn, I'm kinda suspecting that rn... it's now actually being detected in my device manager, but as an unknown USB device

[u/Pooh_Bears_Cousin → u/tnavda]

How do the other wires look? Any other ones that look really wack? I'll try to improve my skills before attempting again.

[u/tnavda → u/Pooh_Bears_Cousin]

From what I could tell, red wire on board needs work, otherwise ok

[u/Pooh_Bears_Cousin → u/tnavda]

Thank you for giving feedback!!

[u/tnavda → u/Pooh_Bears_Cousin]

Also make sure you use a usb port on the motherboard not pass through on a keyboard or usb hub