Discussions

Uh-Oh! Don't try this at home!

Posted by Nathaniel Caner on June 15, 2010 at 4:40pm

Today is not my day! Did you ever have one of those days, when you should have stayed in bed? Today was that day for me!

Has anyone had this happen to them? I was doing a few bench tests and I wanted to use my GPS with u-center, so I carefully pried on the connector and........Uh-Oh! I was quite surprised and dismayed. I'm not sure if I'm up to the task of soldering these pads....looks like about .050" spacing...I don't think I have a tip that small.

Ah well patience

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Replies

Admin

Morli June 18, 2010 at 7:52pm

Thanks Nathenial and Earl for your feed back and photos. Am sure it will be appreciated by many.
Earl June 18, 2010 at 5:31pm

Got one better. Real bad day yesterday.
I was trying to solder a wire onto the 328 chip for my sonar sensor and I heated the crystal can.
Well the metal can came off....but the REAL bad part was the crystal came undone from the holder !
I thought what the heck, it's not running anyway, so I tried to re solder the crystal element to the gold ends inside the can !
What LUCK. It worked !
Now I'm thinking of hot glue to hold everything but I don't want to push my luck!
Here is the yucky pics.
BTW, the sonar wire works good.

Earl
ken wood June 16, 2010 at 9:15am

The tip in one issue but you need to use solder that is really tiny. I used to use .035 or smaller organic core solder. Here is a Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Kester-Organic-Core-Solder-Spool/dp/B00068IJY0 @ $27

The best thing about organic core is that it is water wash up and self cleaning. No need to use flux or harsh chemicals to prep your work. It does smell a bit like horse manure.
Developer

Mark Colwell June 16, 2010 at 6:54am

I too have been down this path....
I use a toothpick to apply a small drop of medium super glue on each side to secure shell to PCB. I also have bent pins over inside this connector, I straitened them out with 00 tweezers. I now take a second and align connectors carefully before seating. If plug does not seat well, check for a bent pin, usually 1 or 6. I have plugged / unplugged these connectors a couple hundred time now, testing IMU and several APs & GPSs
Developer

John Arne Birkeland June 16, 2010 at 5:03am

Same here, came of when I tried to disconnect the cable plug. Easy to re-solder. Just align the pins and re-solder the fastening joints (the knife blade in the picture is pointing to one of them) so that the connector is secured before you solder the smaller data pins.
Don LeRoi June 15, 2010 at 5:45pm

Nathaniel,

Yes, the same thing happened to me. It may be a bad batch.

If you don't feel up to fixing it, would you like to sell it?

- Don
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson June 15, 2010 at 4:46pm

You can resolder that, but you do need a tiny tip and just the TINIEST bit of solder. It's happened to me after big crashes, and I've usually been able to fix them.