VOGONS


First post, by tobiasrieper

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Managed to get a Voodoo Banshee 16mb cheap of ebay but sold as is. I have removed a lot of the corrosion from the pads but there are still a few fingers that are in really bad nick. Where should I go from here? Conductive paint or try and repair with some solder and kynar wire, bridging gaps etc. I already replaced a capacitor with roughly the same value that was missing (c51).
Should I get brasso or something to remove the stubborn corrosion? I removed alot with bicarb and distilled vinegar

Reply 1 of 10, by Thermalwrong

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Ah you got that one 😀 I was looking at it since I've got a banshee with broken memory from the same seller, was considering it for parts.

That actually looks pretty good in my opinion, all the pads are still present and the areas that will contact the AGP slot pins (wider part) are still mostly intact. Check that none of those pads are shorting adjacent ones.
Take care from here because cleaning too hard and detaching a pad will make it much harder to get it working. What I'd do from there is carefully scrape back solder mask where the pad goes into the trace - only where those appear black though. You could take an even more cautious approach and not do that, but scrape a little solder mask off further up the trace on the main PCB (not the edge) where it's uncorroded / undamaged, then measure resistance between there and the pad to see which ones are damaged. It could be that the solder mask has gone black but the trace is still okay.

Or you could just test it, now you've cleaned the pads up enough that it looks like they won't short with each other and you could use a full test to determine whether 100% of the needed signals are there or not.

For long term storage/use though, I do recommend cleaning off blackened solder mask and putting some fresh solder on that trace with flux. Put Kaptop/polyimide tape over the edge connector pads area to mask them off when doing that though, getting solder onto the gold pads area is impossible to clean off fully.

Reply 2 of 10, by tobiasrieper

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Unfortunately some of the pads were corroded that much they needed to be carefully removed. Only 6 of them mind.
Here's a photo.
Waiting for epoxy to cure then I'll join them to the traces. Underneath the card there's approximately 10 traces that need repairing as corrosion has eaten through where they join to the pads.

Reply 3 of 10, by tobiasrieper

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I'll keep this thread updated. If I give up I'll let you know.

If the glued replacement pads are no good I thought of using something like this and just solder the missing traces to it directly.
https://www.moddiy.com/productimage.php?product_id=3687

Reply 4 of 10, by analog_programmer

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tobiasrieper wrote on 2023-08-23, 15:11:

Managed to get a Voodoo Banshee 16mb cheap of ebay but sold as is. I have removed a lot of the corrosion from the pads but there are still a few fingers that are in really bad nick. Where should I go from here? Conductive paint or try and repair with some solder and kynar wire, bridging gaps etc. I already replaced a capacitor with roughly the same value that was missing (c51).
Should I get brasso or something to remove the stubborn corrosion? I removed alot with bicarb and distilled vinegar

Do not brush contact pads as some of them may detach completely from the textolite. Going by the first photo, some of the pads and traces will definitely need a touch-up with conductive (silver) paint. By the second - cleaning in ultrasonic bath.

P.S. Epoxy resin or some other type of glue doesn't fit for me in the case of stripped contact pads (I've successfully used in the past silver conductive paint to restore burnt contact pads on some RAM sticks), but you know best what you're doing.

Last edited by analog_programmer on 2023-08-24, 19:03. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 6 of 10, by tobiasrieper

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If the epoxy doesn't hold the pads I have soke conductive silver paint arriving in the mail Monday. I need the stuff anyhow for work.

Reply 7 of 10, by tobiasrieper

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Not perfect but should do the job. Going to finish up Monday (need to do the underside traces). Epoxy set alright . Learnt my lesson. Replacing pads are a real nightmare !!

Reply 8 of 10, by analog_programmer

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Honestly (I'm always honest, even when the people don't like this) I don't like these formed solder blobs on the contact pads. I think, now you have to use some solder wick to remove them (and even after this still I will not like solder over the goldplated pads 😁). I've already written, that in order to be "all flat" with the textolite, it's best to recreate the stripped pads with conductive silver paint - it's a fiddly job, but I've done this in the past with some RAM sticks and after they worked until they went out of use along with the whole computer system they were mounted in.

And don't take my critical remarks too personally, as we all learn best from our personal mistakes and experience. I congratulate you on the hard work of restoring the videocard! I'm following this topic with much of an interest and I hope at the end to have one more broken video card back to 100% working condition.

The word Idiot refers to a person with many ideas, especially stupid and harmful ideas.
This world goes south since everything's run by financiers and economists.
This isn't voice chat, yet some people overusing online communications talk and hear voices.

Reply 9 of 10, by tobiasrieper

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It's always good to have constructive criticism. The conductive paint sounds good I just don't have faith in it for some reason but I'll take your advice and try it out! Thank you 😀

Reply 10 of 10, by tobiasrieper

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OK so I've done the needed repairs. Looks awful but as long as it is electronically sound that's all I'm fussed about. Will test in when I get back. I've learnt alot and developed my skills, even if it doesn't work!