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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: lakiozoon on Sat, 08 February 2020, 10:06:26

Title: Can this be repaired?
Post by: lakiozoon on Sat, 08 February 2020, 10:06:26

Due to my expert soldering skills, I managed to mess up the board.

My spacebar switch won't work anymore. As you can see I can no longer make a connection between the switch and the pcb.
PCB ring got stuck and pulled off by one of the switch legs.

Is there a way to fix this, any ideas?

Due to my expert soldering skills, I managed to mess up the board.

My spacebar switch won't work anymore. As you can see I can no longer make a connection between the switch and the pcb.
PCB ring got stuck and pulled off by one of the switch legs.

Is there a way to fix this, any ideas?

Title: Re: Can this be repaired?
Post by: Findecanor on Sat, 08 February 2020, 14:38:07

I can't see what the problem is. Did you damage the PCB or the switch or both?
If the switch is broken, just get a new one.
If the PCB has broken pads, solder wires from the switch's legs to the other Space bar switch position's pin holes.

Title: Re: Can this be repaired?
Post by: lakiozoon on Sat, 08 February 2020, 15:42:47

Pcb pads are damaged but only on one leg. I tried to improvise some wires on other pads for spacebar, but it didn't work.

Title: Re: Can this be repaired?
Post by: Maledicted on Sat, 08 February 2020, 18:31:19

As Findecanor touched on, you need to clean up all of that flux residue and find where the trace connects to the pad you lifted, then carefully scratch the solder mask off of the trace until you have a nice metal surface to solder to. If you've never done it before, a small jumper wire would be easiest, but I have had good success even with excess cut off from the legs of leds, diodes, resistors, etc.

I don't do the whole modular LEGO keyboard build thing, but my guess is that maybe the trace runs to the pad, then continues beyond it to the pad for other space bar switch position, so lifting the one pad may have broken the connection to the other as well.

Title: Re: Can this be repaired?
Post by: lakiozoon on Thu, 13 February 2020, 09:27:38

I managed to fix it, but not by myself. Someone more skilled in soldering connected the switch to the other spacebar pad on the right, using tiny wires.

So happy it's working, I invested so much time lubing and soldering the board!

Title: Re: Can this be repaired?
Post by: Maledicted on Thu, 13 February 2020, 09:52:37

Quote from: lakiozoon on Thu, 13 February 2020, 09:27:38

I managed to fix it, but not by myself. Someone more skilled in soldering connected the switch to the other spacebar pad on the right, using tiny wires.

So happy it's working, I invested so much time lubing and soldering the board!

That's great to hear.

Title: Re: Can this be repaired?
Post by: lakiozoon on Thu, 13 February 2020, 14:05:39

Here it is, in it's full glory ;D (potato pic)
Got to find a matching cable.

(https://i.ibb.co/DDHRGkw/TADA68.jpg) (https://ibb.co/PZv6T41)
pic hoster (https://imgbb.com/)

Tada68, alu case with lubed gateron yellows, DOMIKEY ABS Doubleshot SA Orange Dolch keycaps, GMK stabs - lubed & bandaided.

Title: Re: Can this be repaired?
Post by: Maledicted on Thu, 13 February 2020, 20:33:51

Nice. Looks good. I imagine a black and orange cable shouldn't be too hard to find.