Unresponsive key after soldering

[TheCommon]

Hopefully this is the right place to ask. I recently finished doing an ergo-clear mod on my poker ii, but when I finished soldering all the switches back, the "H" key doesn't seem to work. I feel that I may have left the iron on the pcb too long, because I tried swapping the switch and there's no luck. I'm new to soldering, but I was told this forum would be to place to ask for help! Thank you in advance!

[inanis]

You should post up a picture of the soldering of that switch. Someone might be able to spot the issue. Did anything happen with the diode on that switch? Do you have a multimeter to test the connection?

[TheCommon]

Here are the images, the "H" key is the one to the right of the switch marked with white. I don't own a multimeter, is this something I should purchase?

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[ghostjuggernaut]

If you have access to a mulitmeter, you could use it to check the traces.  It's hard to tell from your pictures though.  I assume its the right switch, but if you could post a clear picture, that may help some people.

[TheCommon]

Sorry about the bad quality pictures, I'll try to get some better ones once I find my camera

[TheCommon]

Couldn't find a better camera, but what I did try to do was use a jumper wire to connect the different pins to other key switch pins. I didn't have any luck with the first pin, and the second pin that I connected with the "y" key changed the mapping of the "h" key to "y". I'm not too sure what that means, but I'm not sure if I can do something about that.

[TheCommon]

So I'm not sure how un-smart this was, but I started soldering accidentally with the keyboard still plugged in and at one point, when I was connecting two pins via jumper wire, the "h" started to repeatedly be pressed down. After connecting them pressing "h" still had no effect though, neither did pressing the other keys.

[merlin64]

You might have shorted out a lot of things.....use a multimeter to check.

[VoteForDavid]

Unplug it and let it sit for a while

Plug it back in and check function.  Then unplug before doing anything else!

If just one key is not registering, use a multimeter to be sure the switch closes when pressed, checking at the pins on the switch.  It seems obvious but double check anyway: make sure you have been pressing the proper switch, as it is easy to mix them up when the board is upside-down.  Check the diode associated with the switch, and the diodes of the other switches on the same string.  If the switch closes and the diodes are good, follow the traces back to the controller and see if the switch closes when pressed, checked at the pins on the controller.

If the switch closes when checked at the controller, or if no keys register, you may have killed the controller chip by grounding a hot lead with the soldering iron.  You may have also killed one string of keys.

[TheCommon]

Thanks for the heads up warning. The "h" key actually ended up working, but the caps lock key doesn't work now, so you might be right when you said that I may have damaged something haha. I'll let it rest overnight and then take a look at it tomorrow and see if it's back in working order.