GH60 seems to be broken

[zeshon]

I soldered up my first PCB last night, ran through the switches, and everything seemed to be working.I flashed it, then hit the sack. In the morning I was doing some more testing and found that my right shift didn't work. Since it appeared my right alt/function key was twisted a little, I decided to pull the case off and try to fix the two switches. After I re-soldered the off center switch, it wouldn't register presses. I tried re-soldering the right shift switch as well, and it didn't do anything. I tried jumping a few switches with a paperclip, and I was able to do so on all but the two broken switches. Included are photos of the solder points, can someone take a look and let me know if they see anything that jumps out? If I have broken keys from the PCB, am I just SOL or can I hand wire the broken keys?

I'm waiting on a multimeter to show up so I can start poking at the board to try and find the breakdown.

http://imgur.com/a/8WKNR

[pixelpusher]

Sounds like you scratched a trace somewhere. I see a solder blob above the D54 diode (above the right switch pin). May be nothing, but I would check all the traces leading from those switches back to the controller.  I had a similar issue a while back and it ended up being a tiny tiny scratch (that I only remembered in hindsight crating with an accidental screwdriver slip). If you see a scratch across a trace (or any copper exposed) you can just try jumping it with a very small wire and/or solder.

When you see a trace dead end in a circle, that is where it continues to the other side.  Hopefully your issue isn't there.

[SpAmRaY]

In general you gotta watch out how much heat you're applying to the switch pins or more specifically how long you are applying heat, it's hard to tell from the pics but some of those look like they're close to getting out of hand.

[zeshon]

Good call on the tiny scratches. I found a small one on top of the PCB after I removed one of the switches. I'm going to try and patch it and see if that works. For the other, I haven't seen anything but it's also mostly obscured by as stabilizer.

As for the heat look, most of that is just flux that brushes right off. for this one, I've soldered and removed it like 5 times so it is starting to look a little jankey, but thanks for the heads up.

EDIT: No good on the solder this time. I'll have to wait for the multi-meter.

[Joey Quinn]

This doesn't look like excess flux, it looks like a really bad solder job.



One thing you could try when it comes to finding broken traces without the multimeter is using a piece of wire and trying to short between the switch pins or where they end up connecting. As you move further away from the switch using the traces you should be able to narrow down where the issue is.

[zeshon]

This doesn't look like excess flux, it looks like a really bad solder job.

(Attachment Link)

One thing you could try when it comes to finding broken traces without the multimeter is using a piece of wire and trying to short between the switch pins or where they end up connecting. As you move further away from the switch using the traces you should be able to narrow down where the issue is.

Like I said, I'd re-soldered that one like 5 times and was bored of it not working, so I didn't clean up before posting pictures...

[tp4tissue]

multimeter..   use the beep setting.

[_rubik]

It looks to me like you used far too much heat. I think the rings surrounding each pad isn't excess flux, but rather overheating. Try using a multimeter over those solder points to see if it's actually letting current through. Also, if possible, check your traces; the heat could have messed one up.

[zeshon]

To record my humiliation for posterity, it turned out that I had flashed a Pok3r layout to my GH60, which was using the  wrong shift terminal. All of my messing with things broke the old board, but I was able verify everything working on the new board. Thanks to those who suggested my iron was running a little hot.

[pixelpusher]

To record my humiliation for posterity, it turned out that I had flashed a Pok3r layout to my GH60, which was using the  wrong shift terminal. All of my messing with things broke the old board, but I was able verify everything working on the new board. Thanks to those who suggested my iron was running a little hot.

But the cool thing is that you probably learned a lot and you'll be so much better at it next time.  Glad you figured it out