(Mis)Adventures @ making a compact Falba ErgoDox

[b3Rz3Rko]

Hey guys, this is a Cherry MX Brown ErgoDox I'm trying to get completed, unfortunately ran into some problems


Right side completed



Gotta say IMHO this case looks amazing, one of the screws was missing, it kinda bothered me so I contacted Falba to see if I could get some info into were to buy it, but they offered to ship it. And I got delicious caramels included on the package because they're awesome like that.   



But me in my impatieness (and I love soldering stuff) went ahead and assembled the ergodox forgetting that I have to modify the teensy in order to get it to fit inside the case. Anyways as you can see I lifted some pads off the teensy pcb, I thought I was being delicate but apparently not delicate enough, no one to blame but myself, I'm preety aware of that, as frustrating as it is. I even practiced with another teensy that for some reason unknown to me shorted and burned a tray underneath the pcb.



Here's the pic of said teensy, anyway I'm looking for some advise on how take the USB port out of the teensy, I only have a soldering iron (it's a very decent one I got at a closing RadioShack for $40 at 60% off too good to pass up) but I'm currently looking into buying a hot air rework station (858d if I'm not mistaken) I have a new teensy coming up and definitely don't want to break that one.

[suicidal_orange]

Are you planning on using the USB connection at all on the Teensy you're removing the port from?

On the Teensy I have here the side mounting pads of the port cover don't have much solder on so I think sliding something thin (a mini screwdriver?) under the edge of the port while heating the pads nearest the edge should pop them up enough to be free, then repeat for the two pads further away.  The actual connections you could add some solder to bridge the four pins and then the port should come away, but you'll need something to clean off the solder if you can't just cut the traces to them otherwise it will short.

Looks like you burnt out the VCC trace so if it's still alive (big if )) you could just connect that pin to another VCC and use that Teensy, if you even need that VCC...

[b3Rz3Rko]

Does the ergodox needs a VCC?, anyways I'm sure that's fixable with a tracing pen.