My N. Choc Mini died, believe it's fixable. Would like some help!

[kanthos]

So I've had my Noppoo Choc Mini (Browns) for a few months now and it's been working flawlessly so far, until a few days ago where I had a little accident. I managed to put too much pressure in the middle of the keyboard by accident when I lost my balance and had to catch myself. After that the keyboard refuses to work. I don't believe it was hard enough to break the plate or whatever but when I opened the case to check, the connector for the USB cable came loose.




I'm pretty clueless about this stuff but something tells me that if I solder these back in place it should work again? It's the only visible damage I'm able to find on the board. Hopefully I'm right about this so I don't have to buy a new keboard, especially not when I'm practically broke.

Thanks in advance for the help guys, hopefully I'll be able to fix it!

[polpo]

You could try resoldering but you may have a hard time of it because the copper pads have been ripped off the board. Fortunately the Choc Mini has a 1-sided PCB, so you don't have to worry about those holes having vias. You have a few options. You could scrape off some of the solder mask and try to solder to the traces, which are pretty wide. But when that connector's down on the board it blocks the traces. What I'd do is glue down the connector with epoxy, and run jumper wires to where those traces end up.

[eth0s]

I have one that I never used, do you want to buy it?  Noppoo Choc Mini with MX browns.  PM me an offer, if you're interested.

[nubbinator]

You could try resoldering but you may have a hard time of it because the copper pads have been ripped off the board. Fortunately the Choc Mini has a 1-sided PCB, so you don't have to worry about those holes having vias. You have a few options. You could scrape off some of the solder mask and try to solder to the traces, which are pretty wide. But when that connector's down on the board it blocks the traces. What I'd do is glue down the connector with epoxy, and run jumper wires to where those traces end up.

Normally that's not hard to do, but if you look at the trace, it looks like two of the traces run to an SMD part.  That will be some tricky soldering.  It would probably be easier and better to expose the trace by carefully scraping with an Exacto knife and make a solder bridge to the trace. 

[kanthos]

Thanks a lot for the replies guys. I handed the keyboard over to one of my friends who can probably handle the soldering job, so I hope that fixes the problem.