VOGONS


First post, by Kahenraz

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A motherboard I ordered from eBay come with a damaged trace (among other surprises).

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There were several possible approaches to this. What I ended up doing was folding back the copper traces and soldering a resistor lead that I had cut to size as a brace and flow solder over the entirety to secure it in place.

I considered cutting the trace and running a thin piece of wire but I felt that if the lifted trace could be made to stay flat beneath a bit of lead then it would have a larger surface area to bond to and be stronger overall. If this didn't work then I could always cut the traces and run a wire later.

This ended up working fine and the repair is very sturdy. I did have to flatten the lead in my pliers first to keep it from rolling away.

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Here is a close up before and after I applied a bit of kapton tape to add a bit of extra protection.

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The finished repair zoomed out for scale.

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Reply 1 of 4, by mkarcher

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Looks great. I usually cut traces, run 0.1mm enemalled wire, and secure the replacement using nail polish. Your repair looks way more professional than that, though!

Reply 2 of 4, by jbenam

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I often do this as well - works pretty well. Cut resistor legs are very useful, I tend to save them for repair jobs like this 😀

For thinner tracks I usually use kynar wire in the same fashion. Looks pretty snazzy and unless you are looking at it intently, you can't even notice it.

Reply 3 of 4, by Zerthimon

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Nicely done. I using a wire-wrapping wire for this sort of works.

Reply 4 of 4, by Kahenraz

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This trace is actually pretty wide. For thinner traces I've had to use strands of solder wick which are surprisingly perfect for fine pitch repair.

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Intel Slot 1 slocket troubleshooting and repair

I don't like using wire wrap because it's difficult to scrape off the enamel on either end to solder to it.