ducky led keyboard help

[lunr]

my ducky shine 2 originally had a faulty switch (the down arrow key). i bought couple of brown switches and gotten some time to take it apart and replace the faulty switch. i dunno how or what i did but now the leds for the fn, down arrow key and left arrow key are not lighting up anymore. though, the new switch works great.

some advice or help would be great.

thanks

[Photoelectric]

Could you post a high resolution photo of the PCB around the arrow keys?  It could help to see if anything was damaged during desoldering / resoldering.  Sounds like some trace got damaged that's responsible for those lights.

[lunr]

http://puu.sh/3VmYj.JPG

did i cock up beyond no return?

[Photoelectric]

Quoting the image here:



It looks like the PCB is burnt around the rims of where the switch pins are inserted o.o  And some around where the LED pins are inserted as well.  It could be that you damaged a particular trace enough to mess up the link to the Down, Left, and Fn LEDs enough to not supply enough / any current as a result.  More knownledgeable people will probably chime in, but from what I understand, you could fix it using thin copper wires to restore the connection(s).

[lunr]

is it easy to do? i'm not the best messing with these kind of stuff (look at that solder) but if anything i'll just live with it  .

[invariance]

I wouldn't say that I'm more knowledgeable, but i can say that the black is the flux/rosin.
For the led problem, there is too much solder on the led pads (the top pair) which are probably shorting to the ground screen (the cross-hatch pattern).  Now I'm making the assumption that the ground screen is connected to ground.



To attempt to rectify this?  I would desolder the led with a sucker or wick and ensure there aren't any joining dags of solder left behind, maybe even run around the space between the pads and ground screen with an art knife or the like.
Then power up the kb and test to see if the previously working leds are operating again.
If they are working, resolder the down arrow led being careful to not produce a large 'blob'.
Now, if the other leds are still inoperative after desoldering the offender, then it would involve tracing the tracks back to see if the group of leds run off the one dropping resistor and testing/replacing it.

[lunr]

all the sudden, the down arrow key stopped working. is it because of too much solder? currently gonna try to do what you explained invariance.

[Photoelectric]

Invariance made a very good point that I didn't know about.  But that black stuff still looks like burn marks to me, unless you can clean it off with high % alcohol, in which case you'll know it's flux remnants.

[lunr]

i desolder the switch and the leds for the left arrow and fn still doesn't work. i tried cleaning it with alcohol... looks like it's burn marks.

edit - after i cleaned it, this starting to come off (the left, the right one isn't as bad as the left). should i be worried?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dowccps1izkic7i/20130806_221019.jpg

[lunr]

sorry accident. delete this please.

[Photoelectric]

Kind of looks like burned-in flux mixed with PCB plastic?  Hard to tell.  That hole on the left seems to be in a rough shape.  Can you clean it more with alcohol to see if the trace was affected and generally to get to clean metal?  If it's all neatly cleaned, I'd try resoldering with less solder.  What soldering iron are you using--seems like you're getting the solder too hot or maybe are holding the tip too long on the PCB.  When soldering back in, make sure to heat the pin and the metal ring around pin holes on the PCB at the same time, and let those parts melt your solder line (to avoid "cold solder joints").

[lunr]

just a generic soldering iron from radio shack.

i soldered back the switch and it works fine for now but the leds for the left arrow key and the fn still doesn't want to light up.

[jonathanyu]

maybe you put the led in a wrong side, or  maybe the led had burned out? Do you have another led that can try it?

[Photoelectric]

just a generic soldering iron from radio shack.

i soldered back the switch and it works fine for now but the leds for the left arrow key and the fn still doesn't want to light up.

The desoldering tool AND soldering iron from RadioShack?  The desoldering tool is decent (though the tip gets corroded in no time), but it does get very hot, so I wouldn't hold it next to the PCB for very long at all.  As for the soldering irons, I know they have a selection.  If you have one that can vary temperature, I'd use the lowest temperature you can get to melt solder efficiently and not go higher.  Otherwise, check out the Living Soldering Thread here for some good cheap iron recommendations.

[lunr]

well the down arrow key stopped responding after 5 minutes... think this tells me that i shouldn't go near a soldering iron ever again.

thank you for the help photoelectric and invariance. i think i am going to admit defeat and just live with this or get a new keyboard when i get the money to do so.

@jonathanyu - i don't have any spare leds to try it but i am pretty sure i didn't got the leds orientation backwards. the leds were working before i destroyed my keyboard.

[Photoelectric]

On that note, you did check that you have the correct pin orientation for your LED?  Cathode pin to + and anode to -?  Now that they've been cut, you'll have to look into the LED to see which is which, or perhaps there's a notch on the plastic housing.

Maybe you should post a photo of your soldering iron tip   Are you making sure to keep it clean and shiny silver as you solder?  Just trying to figure out if your joints are bad or if indeed damaged traces / pcb are at fault.

[Xenderwind]

yeah I would look at the other leds to make sure you have it facing the right direction.  I dropped mine after trying to resolder my qfr and that was how I figured out which way they went.

[lunr]

yes, i checked before hand about the led orientation. they were in the correct direction before i solder it.

everything is clean and I always tin the tip of the soldering iron. i know the basics of soldering but i'm not the greatest doing it.

now the down arrow key randomly works. strange.

[Photoelectric]

It really sounds like poor / intermittent connection, for the switch itself at least.  When you solder the pin, are you melting the solder line with your soldering iron, or are you heating up the switch pin + ring around the PCB hole and letting those in turn melt the solder?  It's important to do the latter and not let your soldering iron touch the solder.  Or you can end up with solder that won't properly meld with the switch and the PCB.

[lunr]

i did what you said as suggested on a previous post. i did not let the solder touch the soldering tip but instead i melted the solder using the heat from the pin + ring.

[Photoelectric]

When you clean them, are the solder joints nice and shiny silver?  How old's your solder? Are you using 63/37 kind?  I'd also ask in this thread if you don't find a solution:

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=42824.0

[lunr]

well it looks shiny to me. i have no idea about how old is the solder (it says 60/40), i just found it in my tool bag.

[Photoelectric]

Generally people use 37/63 for PCB stuff.  I'd try the soldering thread, as I'm not really an expert, and my own soldering went smoothly   Just trying to think of possible solutions.

[lunr]

thanks. i'll see if 63/37 solder will work.

[Photoelectric]

I'd ask more questions before doing more desoldering / soldering, as it's not very good for the PCB to do those things repeatedly.

[tgujay]

Your solder joints should not look like balls, I think if anything that is the problem.

[Photoelectric]

Should have asked: your solder has rosin core, right?  It's important to have enough corrosive flux for proper joints.  If it does not, I'd either get good rosin core solder (37/63) or also add flux while you're soldering.  Apparently rosin core solder has a certain shelf life, in that the rosin can eventually eat through the solder line and leak out, but I assume you'd see that your solder does not look good on the spool.

[tgujay]

I'm also really confused that you bought a $130 keyboard with a faulty switch and instead of RMA'ing it, you having never soldered before, took a super cheap iron to it...

[CPTBadAss]

You might want to try desoldering the joints and then resoldering them. They should look like little round mounds, not balls. The extra solder could be messing with the traces or be a symptom of a bad joint, i.e. there was a bad joint and then you added more solder to try and fix it. I've done that too and it doesn't work =(.

Look up WhiteFireDragon's Youtube videos for soldering tips and how things should look.

Also the PCB looks pretty burnt. You may need to jump it like Photoelectric said. But I'm not 100% positive on how to do so.

[lunr]

@photo - yes, it has rosin core in it. i'll take an updated picture today.

@ tguyjay - i bought it from pchome and it was the only one in stock since i believe the shine 2 was out of production because of the shine 3. i have solder before but like i said i am not the greatest in the world. i wasn't too sure how to rma through ducky since they required some warranty card or something from the place you bought it from.

@cptbadass - thanks, i'll take a look at the youtube videos.