Recommendation to repair water damage on FC660C?

[ranker]

I spilled a little water into my stock Leopold FC660C and it fried a few circuits on the pcb.  Can anyone recommend someone that is good at repairing this type of problem?  I was going to use the Artisan section to find a vendor but modifying with working parts is different than repairing so I'm hoping someone knows a guy who knows a guy.

Is it even worth fixing? 

[suicidal_orange]

Topre?  Assuming you have actually fried the chip and it's not just goo stopping the contacts conducting your best bet is to get a Hasu controller.  It's a lot cheaper than a new board so worth doing in my book.

If the contacts look damaged a pic would be good to assess it.

[Maledicted]

Yes, what are the specifics? Sometimes removing the corrosion itself as soon as possible, without applying power, is all that's necessary to bring a pcb back to life. Trace repair is pretty easy with some bits of wire and a nice sharp knife or flathead, and a soldering iron. If specific components have been burnt to a crisp, it isn't always even fun trying to figure out what they originally were.

[ranker]

Yes, what are the specifics? Sometimes removing the corrosion itself as soon as possible, without applying power, is all that's necessary to bring a pcb back to life. Trace repair is pretty easy with some bits of wire and a nice sharp knife or flathead, and a soldering iron. If specific components have been burnt to a crisp, it isn't always even fun trying to figure out what they originally were.

Topre?  Assuming you have actually fried the chip and it's not just goo stopping the contacts conducting your best bet is to get a Hasu controller.  It's a lot cheaper than a new board so worth doing in my book.

If the contacts look damaged a pic would be good to assess it.

I'll take some pics but the keyboard doesn't work at all.  It used to work even after the water spill but one day it randomly stopped working like 5 years after the water incident.

[Maledicted]

I'll take some pics but the keyboard doesn't work at all.  It used to work even after the water spill but one day it randomly stopped working like 5 years after the water incident.

5 years?  It is a wonder it took so long. Here's to hoping it looks better than I imagine.

[yui]

I'll take some pics but the keyboard doesn't work at all.  It used to work even after the water spill but one day it randomly stopped working like 5 years after the water incident.

with a 5 years delta i would not expect your water incident to have any link to your controller dying, i may be wrong but for that seems like unrelated issues, still it is dead, does not hurt to open it up and see what's wrong with it it may even be that there was still just enough humidity to corrode a contact somewhere. it might be a problem similar to the ibm M2, with a dead cap killing the board (electrolytic caps can die off pretty fast, 5 years if the usb 5V is dirty might be enough to kill one)

[ranker]

5 years?  It is a wonder it took so long. Here's to hoping it looks better than I imagine.

with a 5 years delta i would not expect your water incident to have any link to your controller dying, i may be wrong but for that seems like unrelated issues, still it is dead, does not hurt to open it up and see what's wrong with it it may even be that there was still just enough humidity to corrode a contact somewhere. it might be a problem similar to the ibm M2, with a dead cap killing the board (electrolytic caps can die off pretty fast, 5 years if the usb 5V is dirty might be enough to kill one)
[/quote]


Whoever repairs it definitely needs to have a solid basic understanding of troubleshooting and repairing pcb's.  It's been a long time so it's hard to recall all the details but I remember the keyboard not working immediately after I spilled the water so I put it away in storage.  It obviously dried out because it worked when I tried using it 5 years later...but I remember putting it away in storage because it stopped working from the water.  But I also might have had a faulty usb port which could have completed a problem that was started initially by the water.  I'm going to try and post pics today.

[ranker]

Yes, what are the specifics? Sometimes removing the corrosion itself as soon as possible, without applying power, is all that's necessary to bring a pcb back to life. Trace repair is pretty easy with some bits of wire and a nice sharp knife or flathead, and a soldering iron. If specific components have been burnt to a crisp, it isn't always even fun trying to figure out what they originally were.

I'll take some pics but the keyboard doesn't work at all.  It used to work even after the water spill but one day it randomly stopped working like 5 years after the water incident.

with a 5 years delta i would not expect your water incident to have any link to your controller dying, i may be wrong but for that seems like unrelated issues, still it is dead, does not hurt to open it up and see what's wrong with it it may even be that there was still just enough humidity to corrode a contact somewhere. it might be a problem similar to the ibm M2, with a dead cap killing the board (electrolytic caps can die off pretty fast, 5 years if the usb 5V is dirty might be enough to kill one)

Sorry for the slow pics but here is the damage....thoughts?

[Leslieann]

I agree with Maledicted, it seems odd to work so long then nothing.

Does it light up at all? Does the system recognize it plugged in? The spill damage should allow it to at least be recognized.
If it does neither then odds are it has nothing to do with the spill, something else failed much earlier in the chain of parts. I'd be looking at that daughter board, caps and resistors.

You also may want to take some alcohol and a small brush to clean you that spill area and remove the corrosion (let it dry for a bit after). This might fix it, but I don't think it's the problem.

[Maledicted]

I second cleaning off the corrosion, having seen the pictures. I have never seen that much corrosion on a pcb that functions, but I don't know that I have ever encountered a case where something that didn't work due to liquid was stored away for 5 years and just worked again when connected the next time either. And since you stored it away without an intial teardown, maybe a lot of that is literally just mold? I wonder if the liquid itself shorted it enough to prevent function initially, but once 5 years of storage dried it out like an old attic, it once again functioned until the corrosion did it in again? How long did this thing work after you started using it again?

Those little surface mount resistors often like to burn up with even half as much liquid damage as that.

[yui]

for me only R32 seem corroded, the white stuff being minerals left here when the water evaporated, or mold. anyhow the best way to clean that would be alcohol (not the drinking one) and a small brush, adding more water will most likely not help much, and the corroded resistor seems to be the 203 (20KOhm) if it happen to be badly damaged those things cost cents (depending on the format you can get more than 100 for one euro/dollar)
looking again at the photo i do see something else that might be the cause of your problems, the vias (copper path between the layers of a pcb) are badly oxidized i would expect this board not to have too many layers, so if the cleaning and resistors are not the problem i would look at bypassing those vias with pieces of wire from one side of the board to the other, luckily they seem to all be ground, (or you have more than 2 layers but then you may need a new board altogether)

hope this helps, and you can get your board working again.

[Maledicted]

for me only R32 seem corroded, the white stuff being minerals left here when the water evaporated, or mold. anyhow the best way to clean that would be alcohol (not the drinking one) and a small brush, adding more water will most likely not help much, and the corroded resistor seems to be the 203 (20KOhm) if it happen to be badly damaged those things cost cents (depending on the format you can get more than 100 for one euro/dollar)
looking again at the photo i do see something else that might be the cause of your problems, the vias (copper path between the layers of a pcb) are badly oxidized i would expect this board not to have too many layers, so if the cleaning and resistors are not the problem i would look at bypassing those vias with pieces of wire from one side of the board to the other, luckily they seem to all be ground, (or you have more than 2 layers but then you may need a new board altogether)

hope this helps, and you can get your board working again.

I'm not sure what the technical term would be, but I'm not so sure that it is all minerals. I have seen boards look like that after a few minutes of attempting to power it, while most of the water is still present. Great insights though, as always.

[yui]

I'm not sure what the technical term would be, but I'm not so sure that it is all minerals. I have seen boards look like that after a few minutes of attempting to power it, while most of the water is still present. Great insights though, as always.

short version: Maledicted is right, i forgot solder could form white oxide
Long Version:
tin or aluminum oxide do look white like that as well, but op said he put it away for 5 years, so the water would have not been present still when powering up. but i did not think about tin oxidizing, it is possible although tin and aluminum do not oxide easily at all, and if you powered it for a long-ish time (given the amount of the white stuff) submerged in water, well who knows if and how the chip might be damaged
i would expect to see more green (copper oxide, from the pcd) and red (iron oxide, from components) than white (tin from the solder), but if the pad are gold plated and the components are well tinned then yeah only tin oxide would from, and most likely very little damage for a while.