Connections

• Using ISP requires some means to connect the external programmer to the flash chip.
• Note that some external flasher(like the Openmoko debug board) lack a connector, so they do requires some soldering to be used. Some other don't. For instance The Bus_Pirate Has a pin connector on it.

Connect to a clip

• If your programmer has a pin connector, and that you want to avoid soldering, you can use Short Jumper Wires to connect it to a clip.

Common issues

• Wires length, connection quality: Long wires, and bad connection can create some issues, so avoid them. If you can't and if you're flash chip is SPI, then lowering the SPI clock can make it work in some cases. Many programmers do support such option(Called spispeed with most of them, or divisor with ft2232_spi).
• When soldering wires, the wire tend to break near the soldering point, to avoid such issue, you have to prevent the wires from bending near the soldering point. To do that Heat-shrink_tubing or similar methods can be used.