Page 1 of 1

I screwed up and ripped off a trace

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 9:49 am
by Okay
Hello,

Upon waking up this morning and finding out that the minty pi 2.0 build guide had been released, despite being pretty tired from the night before, I decided to get started on a build. This soon turned out to be a great mistake as I ended up screwing in the raspberry pi on the wrong way round and as a result of this when I tried to solder the first points up to the board (A and X) I found that it wasn't working when I went to test the points using my multimeter. Confused by this I repeated the process multiple times on the same points. Unfortunately by the time I had realised my mistakes and went to unscrew the pi from the board I found that I had lifted the X button solder pad off of the board and now it had taken off half of the trace. I tried my best to save it but the damage had been done. Unfortunately, from all the moving and twisting around, a large length of the trace had now broken off (see photo below)

Image

Please take a moment to laugh/facepalm at my stupidity

Is there anything I can do to connect my X button such as soldering a wire to the corresponding X test pad or do I need a new board?

Re: I screwed up and ripped off a trace

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 9:55 am
by abrugsch
The X button is just a straight short to ground on the button so I'm going to guess you can solder a thin wire (kynar or some other thin gauge wire) from the test pad (x) to the pi at the corresponding header hole... (as denoted by the nice little guide just above the GPIO header...) but be aware that it might not sit well in the tin once you do...)
I'll check my board, but helder will probably get here first to confirm before I can check mine

Re: I screwed up and ripped off a trace

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 9:57 am
by wermy
abrugsch wrote:
Tue Jul 18, 2017 9:55 am
I'm going to guess you can solder a thin wire (kynar or some other thin gauge wire) from the test pad (x) to the pi at the corresponding header hole... (as denoted by the nice little guide just above the GPIO header...) but be aware that it might not sit well in the tin once you do...)
Yep, was about to suggest the same thing. This is your best bet for fixing it. I don't *think* having the wire in that spot will be a problem - just try and keep it thin.

Re: I screwed up and ripped off a trace

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:11 pm
by Helder
Actually all you need to do is solder a wire to that X test pad and to the Pi GPIO that is where the X was supposed to be, the via looks to be ok so it's going to the top of the pcb where the trace led to. Use the image below for reference:

Re: I screwed up and ripped off a trace

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:35 pm
by Okay
Helder wrote:
Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:11 pm
Actually all you need to do is solder a wire to that X test pad and to the Pi GPIO that is where the X was supposed to be, the via looks to be ok so it's going to the top of the pcb where the trace led to. Use the image below for reference:
Whew! that's a relief! Thank you so much :)

I've seen quite a few people say this already but I really appreciate all the work you guys have done on this project , especially making it so available and idiot proof (The irony :? ).

Re: I screwed up and ripped off a trace

Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:40 pm
by Helder
In all the things I've made and have thought it was fool proof there is always something that goes wrong. Mistakes happen especially when you're tired and atleast you didn't burn the trace or pad off so that's a big plus in my book. :)