Hi,

Well, having a bad day and burned part of the PCB on 2 motherboards. I
was installing into an old Compaq case for my neighbor. I left a
mounting screw where it shouldn't have been. Two motherboards later I
realized the mistake. What I get for doing this at 11 PM after a long
day at work. Thankfully these were cheap PCChips boards so I was only
out 85 dollars.

Long story short, there is an isolated part of the motherboard that is
damaged. If I tape a small piece of aluminum foil to bridge the gap in
the PCB track the motherboard will boot up however the display flickers
and one can tell that the motherboard is not working so well. Any
advice on how to fix damage on the surface of a PCB caused by a short
like this? I don't want to simply try and return these motherboards
since I think this would be rather dishonest given my mistake. Not
much experience in small electronics repair so any obvious advice is
appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Tony

writes:

Hi,

Well, having a bad day and burned part of the PCB on 2 motherboards. I
was installing into an old Compaq case for my neighbor. I left a
mounting screw where it shouldn't have been. Two motherboards later I
realized the mistake. What I get for doing this at 11 PM after a long
day at work. Thankfully these were cheap PCChips boards so I was only
out 85 dollars.

Long story short, there is an isolated part of the motherboard that is
damaged. If I tape a small piece of aluminum foil to bridge the gap in
the PCB track the motherboard will boot up however the display flickers
and one can tell that the motherboard is not working so well. Any
advice on how to fix damage on the surface of a PCB caused by a short
like this? I don't want to simply try and return these motherboards
since I think this would be rather dishonest given my mistake. Not
much experience in small electronics repair so any obvious advice is
appreciated.

If the trace is visible, it's a simple matter to solder a jumper wire
over the damaged part. Possibly nothing else is wrong.

--- sam

wrote:

Hi,

Well, having a bad day and burned part of the PCB on 2 motherboards. I
was installing into an old Compaq case for my neighbor. I left a
mounting screw where it shouldn't have been. Two motherboards later I
realized the mistake. What I get for doing this at 11 PM after a long
day at work. Thankfully these were cheap PCChips boards so I was only
out 85 dollars.

Long story short, there is an isolated part of the motherboard that is
damaged. If I tape a small piece of aluminum foil to bridge the gap in
the PCB track the motherboard will boot up however the display flickers
and one can tell that the motherboard is not working so well. Any
advice on how to fix damage on the surface of a PCB caused by a short
like this? I don't want to simply try and return these motherboards
since I think this would be rather dishonest given my mistake. Not
much experience in small electronics repair so any obvious advice is
appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Tony

How many traces are damaged? Trace repair can be done. But its not for
the feint of heart. The copper traces usually have a paint or protector
over it. You have to carefully scrape or sand this off on both sides of
the break to be able to solder to the copper traces. You then need a
pencil soldering iron with a very fine point tip. There are two ways i
do this. One is a direct bridge repair. The other is a wire bypass
repair. On the direct bridge repair, i find some find multi strand wire
and take it apart to get a single strand. If its coated, then i scrape
the coating off with a razor blade. Then i try to carefully tack it on
the the board on both ends with solder. Then i form fit it to the
damaged traces and try to flow solder on the whole length of the repair
wire. Note if there are many small traces close together this is dicey
because you can easily cause a solder bridge when you do the next one.

The other way is to use a small insulated wire to bypass the traces. In
the past, i have used wirewrap wire to do this. You can heat the ends
and tin them without stripping the insulation off. You then find a point
somewhere on either side of the break to solder on each end of the wire
bridge. The cleaning the paint off the copper applies here too.

If its a large ground plane type of trace, i save old clippings off
resistors or such to use as bridges.

If your NOT proficient soldering and have the right tools, i would not
recommend doing this.

Good luck.

Bob Urz

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

Well, having a bad day and burned part of the PCB on 2 motherboards. I
was installing into an old Compaq case for my neighbor. I left a
mounting screw where it shouldn't have been. Two motherboards later I
realized the mistake. What I get for doing this at 11 PM after a long
day at work. Thankfully these were cheap PCChips boards so I was only
out 85 dollars.

Long story short, there is an isolated part of the motherboard that is
damaged. If I tape a small piece of aluminum foil to bridge the gap in
the PCB track the motherboard will boot up however the display flickers
and one can tell that the motherboard is not working so well. Any
advice on how to fix damage on the surface of a PCB caused by a short
like this? I don't want to simply try and return these motherboards
since I think this would be rather dishonest given my mistake. Not
much experience in small electronics repair so any obvious advice is
appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Tony


If the aluminum foil fixes it, just solder a piece of wire between the two
points.

wrote:
Long story short, there is an isolated part of the motherboard that is
damaged. If I tape a small piece of aluminum foil to bridge the gap in
the PCB track the motherboard will boot up however the display flickers
and one can tell that the motherboard is not working so well.

If you're pretty sure that the only problem is the burnt trace(s), then
fixing the trace more permanently may well fix it. Besides soldering a
wire across the trace, there are also pens that have an ink with metal
dispersed in it... you can "draw" a new trace on the circuit board. I
am not sure how fine of a line these will write; I just know they exist.

To use one of these, you have to make sure the good ends of the damaged
trace are bare (by scraping or heating the coating away), just like for
soldering a wire. Then, start drawing on the bare part of the trace,
and continue across the gap to the other bare part of the trace. It
will probably help if the gap area is relatively smooth, and not rough.
Once you're happy that the motherboard is working, you might seal the
repaired trace with something like clear nail polish to keep it from
oxidizing.

If you live in a big enough city, there is probably a local electronics
distributor (not Radio Shack) where you can go and buy one over the
counter. If not, you can get them from several mail-order stores.
Digi-Key sells Circuit Works conductive pens in both "standard" and
"micro" tips for $17 each (but they will charge you another $5 if your
total order is less than $25). Mouser sells a Tech Spray pen for $13,
and the same Circuit Works pens for $16 each, no minimum order.

If you want to try and solder a wire across the gap, you might have more
success if you can solder to where the ends of the trace are. Follow
the broken trace (with a magnifying glass) to see if it ends at a
component lead. Usually, the place where the component lead is soldered
to the board will offer a bigger "target" to solder to than the skinny
trace. It might end at a via, which will look like a little circle.
The via may go all the way through the board and the trace might
continue from the via on the other side of the board, or the via might
only go through a couple of layers (most PC motherboards have multiple
layers, most of which you can't see). If you can't tell where the via
comes out, then you'll have to just bridge the gap instead of going to
the end of the trace.

If you do solder a wire and the wire ends up being less than an inch or
so, you might seal the whole thing with clear nail polish as above. If
the wire is longer, use a couple of drops of epoxy or hot glue along the
middle of the wire to hold the wire to the motherboard, and just seal
the ends with the solder joints.

If you decide you want help, a local TV shop might be able to do it for
you - watch out for the minimum labor charge, though. Another place to
try is a local vo-tech school that has a class in soldering and circuit
board assembly; the instructor might turn your boards into a class project,
or be able to point you at an "A" student who will solder for food (or a
few bucks, or whatever.) If there are any companies in your town that do
electronic assembly, somebody there will know how to fix it, but it might
be hard to get to them through the front desk... see if you can make
friends with one of the assemblers and offer to buy her (usually, but not
always, it's a her) a nice lunch or an hour's worth of time to fix the
boards.

Standard disclaimers apply; I don't get money from any of the companies
mentioned above.

I don't want to simply try and return these motherboards since I think
this would be rather dishonest given my mistake.

An honest man!

Matt Roberds

in article ,
at wrote on 3/13/05 11:24 AM:

Hi,

Well, having a bad day and burned part of the PCB on 2 motherboards. I
was installing into an old Compaq case for my neighbor. I left a
mounting screw where it shouldn't have been. Two motherboards later I
realized the mistake. What I get for doing this at 11 PM after a long
day at work. Thankfully these were cheap PCChips boards so I was only
out 85 dollars.

Long story short, there is an isolated part of the motherboard that is
damaged. If I tape a small piece of aluminum foil to bridge the gap in
the PCB track the motherboard will boot up however the display flickers
and one can tell that the motherboard is not working so well. Any
advice on how to fix damage on the surface of a PCB caused by a short
like this? I don't want to simply try and return these motherboards
since I think this would be rather dishonest given my mistake. Not
much experience in small electronics repair so any obvious advice is
appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Tony



Jump the damaged traces with very fine insulated wire and solder at both
ends (wire-wrap wire is good for this and probably available at Radio
Shack).

Use glue to tack down the wire to the PCB along it's length.

Jon