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Help with broken RGB (infosec.pub)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by tequinhu@lemmy.world to c/mechanical_keyboards@programming.dev

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publicação cruzada de: https://lemmy.world/post/33514874

Hi there fellow people,

I was building an Aurora Sofle_v2 and I may have screwed things up. I melted one of the RGBs with the soldering iron and in the process of trying to remove it the solder pad was removed as well

After that I tried to "fix" it a handful of times, and now I believe that the connectors might be gone =(

Is there a way for me to salvage this RGB? (Or perhaps to link the previous one with the following one on the chain, so at least it works for the others)

I was thinking of connecting things using cables, is this an option?

Update: Bodge wiring worked! I got some spare cable pieces I had laying around and soldered it to the board The back doesn't look pretty, but at least it's lighting up (except the last RGB where I accidentally soldered two pins together, after this I'm not going through the troubles to fix it)

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[–] Mitchie151@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If you have lifted the pad off, the only way to fix it is to use a bodge wire. You should be able to run a wire between the broken pad and the previous functional one in the network. If you look up bodge wire you'll see this is a pretty standard practice, especially when prototyping PCBs.

[–] SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 3 points 1 week ago

Solder to the the far point first, lay down the wire, glue it in place, then solder the other end of the wire to the component.

Or one can scrape off the enamel coat from the trace, solder the bodge wire to the trace, and then tack it to the component.

Be sure to get the parts thoroughly wet with solder to cover any exposed copper. It will prevent corrosion.

[–] tequinhu@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hmmm, you mean a special wire for soldering right? I was initially thinking in soldering some scraps from a copper cable I had laying around but quickly realized it was not going to work

[–] Mitchie151@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You normally just use very tiny wire. Anything is technically fine but certain types make it easier. Generally something solid core, 30-40AWG. Some people have a specific preference for Kynar or Teflon but there's no hard and fast rules.

[–] tequinhu@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I see, the tiny wire I had was the problem then, it has multiple filaments that kept going off

I'll try this one today!

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You mean SW8? Hard to tell anything given how dirty the PCB is. You might need to clean everything to actually see the traces. The RGB above it does also look damaged.

[–] tequinhu@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah, it is evident that I am very bad at this hahaha, the other RGBs work fine (at least for now), but this SW8 is gone.

What do I need to buy to clean the PCB? (I'm based in Portugal BTW), I tried to use something that was labeled as a 'pickling agent', but that didn't work out well (as we can see in the picture)

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Anything with higher % of alcohol (say >60%) will work, including IPA based disinfectant. Ideally you use pure alcohol, specifically ethanol or isopropanol or propanol.

As the other person suggested, you can save it, but it is harder than soldiering, so perhaps practice.