Hello guys, I did look everywhere online for this, but could not find it. I want to swap my instrument cluster with second hand one, but trying to avoid paying for reprogramming at dealership. My question is where abouts on circuit board and how looks memory storing device please? There are few black blocks, I assume the one with loads of connections all around is a CPU. I'd like to attempt swapping two memory devices over so car would think that I have never swapped clusters and my mileage will remain the same. Has any of you done it already? Is it next to impossible task?
Any help will be much appreciated,

 

Chris, I am not aware of anyone that has done a chip swap like you are talking about. While it has been a long time since I have had an X-Type instrument cluster out, I do not recall any chips that were held in place by friction. To the best of my knowledge, they are all soldered in place. While in theory it is possible to swap the chips, you are very likely to have major issues if you have to desolder everything and solder it all back together.

As for which chips would need to be pulled and swapped, I would need to have an instrument cluster in front of me and then look up the numbers to the chips to see what kind of chips they are and then do some thinking on it.

The big thing with swapping chips like you are talking about is having the correct station set up. Chips that are soldered to a board are pretty safe from any damage. But, you remove the chip from the board, even a very minor static discharge is enough to make a chip worthless. In short, you need a conductive mat with a special wrist strap (has a high resistance resistor in the cable connecting the mat to the wrist strap). Then you can rest the instrument cluster on the mat and you can remove the chips then. In an ideal world, having a second cable running from the mat to the instrument cluster would be recommend just to ensure the cluster, you, and the surrounding area all remain at the same potential.

I can't tell you how many chips I have screwed up because I thought I could swap a chip without that stuff. I have now figured out how to keep my arm perpetually in contact with other stuff to keep myself grounded.

 

I have no idea how to do this, but have had my cluster out and can tell you that the car will not even start unless it is fully connected. If you know what you're doing, go for it. If not be aware that you may end up with a giant paper weight.

 

I am attempting to swap out the instrument cluster from my X-Type w/o message block (please see photo 1) to one with a message block (please see phone 2).
I would be buying it through a used parts place. Is this possible? I have heard yes it is and I have heard no it is not. But thought I would ask here.

 

Sorry, I don't know the answer but regardless you have to get it programed by a Jag shop. That being said I would directly ask the shop that would be doing that for you.