I've bricked a couple now and at the rate I like to "Tinker" i'll probably brick a couple more. I have 0 soldering/electronics skills and probably will stay that way.

I've heard of people "socketing" their PCMs to allow easy replacement of chips when the flashing process halts. I believe I still have to program the chips before I flash using some sort of eprom programmer? I know very little about this and searching and reading on the topic only makes my head hurt. If it were as simple as paying someone to socket my PCM, picking up a handful of chips and spending a couple hundred on said programmer i'd say count me in.

Input and thoughts?

 

I worked in electronics manufacturing for 25 years. Doing software now so don't have access to some of the rework equipment that I used to, but still pretty good with in iron and solder wick.

Problem is I would want to see a guide on what needs done and couldn't find anything. Never opened up the PCM but always thought that it was potted which could make things next to impossible.

 

Ion Soltan was the only person I remember offering it as a service back in the day. He packed up that business long ago.

IIRC he charged about $75-100 for it, which is the price of 2-3 used PCMs, and that's not including the chips or the burner.

Just keep an eye out on forums and pick up spares when they're cheap.

All that being said, I've been playing with GM PCMs for ~16 years now and I've only bricked one and that was right at the beginning . Every brick is the result of user error, so a better approach would be to figure out why you're breaking them and stop doing that.

 

Slikrider20, this probably doesn't help you, but here is a guide to socketing PCM's if you could find someone with those skills.

How to fix the PCM Flash Memory

Probably best to do what sbs suggested and just pick up a used one.

 

Give TC at Tunercats a call, they've fixed 2 PCMs for me

 

Yeah I had TunerCat repair two of my PCMs, and socketed one of them. I've flashed it probably 20 times in the last month and haven't had a problem yet. The user error you speak of is the fact that the user is using Windows 10 haha.