Hacking Burned / removed pads?

[paOol]

So if you burn a pad on the DVD Drive from a bad install or whatever, does that mean you can never install another modchip on it?
or do you just apply more solder and there can still be a connection?

just curious

 

[FAST6191]

No you have to solder to the pins then or remove some of the covering from the trace running to it and solder to that or remove trace and run a line of conductive ink to solder somewhere (I run ink to a strip of foil as there is a nice load of free space nearby and trying to solder to most ink is an excercise in frustration (it is doable but no stress can be applied).
Have a read of this site:
http://www.circuitrework.com/guides/guides.shtml

Be warned that the techniques can be difficult (far more so than the soldering) and the equipment expensive (decent ink and epoxies certainly are).

I am not 100% sure but some of the wlip stuff might work/be able to help as well (the stuff designed for cut pins).

 

[paOol]

i just wanted to know if i can "start over" if i should mess up with my install.
like if install the wiikey, and for some reason theres a bad connection somewhere can i desolder everything and try again?

 

[FAST6191]

If it is just a bad connection/bad solder joint then it is easy enough to repair, you mentioned burned/lifted pads though so I thought you wanted something more in depth.
The only real problem will come if you join pins as it can be a bit hard to remove (i.e. get a desoldering braid and maybe a solder sucker).
I am not normally one for old adages but the practice makes perfect one does apply here: get an old mouse/soundcard/whatever and practice on that.

 

[wtflux]

okay, i have a similar question.

i'm a little unfamiliar with the terminology, but i'm guessing the "pads" referred to here are the silver soldering points that you solder the wires(or the entire wiikey) to.

well, in soldering my wiikey, the final point(point 6) to solder... well, i soldered it successfully twice, removed once because it was too close to another.

so i soldered it on a second time. i -very lightly- tugged on it to check if it was secure, and it came off--but it SEEMED that the soldering point(pad?) came off along with it. the place where it was is a little dark and it seems like i can see a little copper-colored material on the bottom of the wire now(that could just be from my soldering iron, however, which is now colored like that and has been for awhile).

below are links to extremely blurry pictures of my install, but it's they are best res i could get it at that distance with my camera. the second is a smaller, cropped pic with explanations that i HOPE will be helpful.
http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w8/will...ar/DSC00020.jpg
http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w8/will...ikeyinstall.jpg


ANY help or useful info is appreciated. do i have no choice but to use the pins now? if the pad is burned off, i would VASTLY prefer to repair it if possible. would it be dangerous to try and see if i can get it soldered back where the pad was(or maybe still is? can you tell definitively from the picture?) as it is now? is my wii dead? is a quick solder method still possible or is it risky? do you hate long posts?

thanks for your time if you've read this far.

EDIT: SH** one last question: when i soldered my first point onto the wiikey(point 1), the gold plate got a little silver before it actually connected solidly(i had to try 2-3 times). is this ok or did i irreparably burn it or something?

 

[FAST6191]

One diagram of alt points as all the various numbering used by people has left me confused:

If you have lifted the pad then you could stick it back down.
If you have lifted the pad but there is still some trace you could solder somewhere else, you will need to scrap back some of the covering (do it away from the wii's chip so as not to pull up more) to reveal some copper and then bridge to somewhere else and solder to that.
If you have lifted the trace to the leg then it is a leg install for you.
You say dull as well, it could something as simple as bad cooling left it dull although I would not wager on that one.

 

[wtflux]

well, i tried soldering to the pad again. i got it once, but the connection was just too weak.

so it looks like i'm either going to have to replace the burnt pads or solder to pins, both of which i have no real idea of how to do.

in the first image in the post above, the pad that's colored green is burnt off. am i correct in saying that i can still just solder to the green-colored pin and the wiikey should work?

the green-colored pin seems far too small for me to solder to. the smallest wire i have is around 28-30awg(not sure exactly). i can't solder it in a way that will connect multiple pins with solder, right?

i'm really at the end of my rope here, i will probably bring it into an electronics shop tomorrow and ask if they can repair the pad or perhaps solder to the pin themselves.

also, even though my #6 pad is burnt off, is it still possible to do a quicksolder(soldering the chip directly to the wii) job?

 

[Osaka]

wow, I have not seen a post like this in a LONG time. me burning one of the pads off of my WII while installing my mod chip is the reason I joined GBAtemp, and now, 500 posts later, I am posting in a thread of someone who did the same thing as me =P

The wii was the first thing I ever soldered and I got all the points but one, which I burned off. so I soldered it to the leg. I recommend that you try and cover the legs next to the leg that you trying to solder to.

yay for 500 posts ^^

 

[wtflux]

thanks, that does help... but those legs are insanely small. do you have a recommendation for something to cover the adjacent legs with?

also, to do that should i use something smaller than stranded 28 awg wire, or does it not matter since i can just create a solder bridge from the pin to the wire? i'm guessing the former.

 

[FAST6191]

You have a few options here.
"replace pad" Removing copper from PCBs (which are normally coated in the stuff) is a pain so only tracks are removed to allow the circuit to operate. This means there are often sections going entirely unused. Scrape away some covering to leave copper, solder to that and join to what remains of the track (I warn you now though that conductive ink is a pain to work with and fairly expensive). In a pinch or if you are not confident you have a unused section (I do not see why you would not be able to find one) you can shield (a bit of plastic) and then put some aluminium foil down to solder to and join that to the remaining track.

Leg soldering is a pain to pull off unless you have some nice tools and are pretty good with them. It can be done with lesser tools but the difficulty if you lack soldering ability/experience will be just shy of impossible.
In a pinch you can desolder a leg and pull it up to make it easier to solder to. If you fatigue it though (fatigue is where you bend something back and forth and it snaps) you are in a serious bind and will have to dremel/cut into the chip much like the d2b cut pins stuff (which is harder than leg soldering). The joints are not normally very strong so I would attach one end to the drives board and use the free end to sort it out.
As for shielding, solder and plastic do not like to join but finding some plastic to do it is a bit more difficult. A piece of cardboard can also work with a small slice cut into it but more commonly a u shaped length of material is used.

Wlip: a small device that plugs over your actual drive chip negating the need for soldering to the board. Cost is about $24 (which places it firmly in ripoff territory in my opinion) as I recall and they are fairly hard to find.

A lot of this is detailed in the link I gave earlier: http://www.circuitrework.com/guides/guides.shtml

 

[wtflux]

all right, thanks a ton. only question i'd like answered now is whether or not i can still solder the chip directly to the motherboard(quicksolder it). i don't see how it would be if the solder can't connect to the pad's location now.

 

[The Afroman]

place a wire on the point on the chip that does not have the pad then just solder that 1 wire to the chip.

 

[paOol]

i installed my wiikey successfully with no mistakes if anyone cares lol.

 

[wtflux]

after many trials i have finally come to the point where i think i may be able to solder to the pins. i don't have the technical expertise to truly understand most of the advice that has been given in this thread and NONE of the stores in my town are helpful in the slightest(they all simply say it's impossible and know nothing about pads or replacing them), so i'm going to go for the pin soldering route unless something that's easier is explained in enough detail for someone as ignorant as me to understand.

anyways, my concerns are:

1) My method of soldering to pins requires me to actually press the soldering iron against the pins and chipboard for a few(3-7?) seconds. This won't damage it, right? After all, the black thing is a heat sink.

2) I'm using very small, unthreaded(i believe) 30 awg "just wrapping" wire. this is acceptable, right?

3) It doesn't really matter how big the joint to the pin is, does it? I.e., you can solder to the tip of the wire with a very small amount of solder and as long as the joint holds it will be fine.

4) Is it OK to solder to the legs, or does the part of the pins that goes up+down need to be soldered to?

5) In case I mess up a few times... it's OK to have a bit of solder on pins, right? As in if I accidentally got some solder on an adjacent pin, it wouldn't be absolutely crucial to clean it completely off(although it would be crucial to make sure the pins were separated) in order not to disturb electrical flow or whatever.

thanks for your time and help.

EDIT: %(#@#% one last question, do i need to do anything to the place where i burnt off a pad to prevent problems? like cover it with electrical tape or something?

 

[wtflux]

i really apologize for the double post. i have got the soldering done now, but i still have one or two questions which would probably never be noticed if i simply edited the above post.

apparently two of my solder joints(between pads) are bridged together by a tiny amount of solder at their base. is this OK(in my dreams, right?) or am i going to have to find some method of separating them(removing and resoldering is most definitely NOT an option for me)?

i'd also like to know about any potential dangers in applying hot glue to the wii board. if i can just use hot glue to secure my solder joints then that would make things ten times easier(i need to reposition my wires).