I am requesting advice on a repair. I damaged the TELEM1 connector socket on a 3DR Pixhawk 1 flight controller during the removal of the male connector.
Several pins of the connector socket broke from their solder pads on the board; those I know how to re-solder, but one pad ripped from the board and that I do not know how to repair.
Anyone with experience with this kind of pad reattachment, please share any tips on how to repair this.
I have done some initial research, and it seems that the method is to clean the area with IPA, re-tin the underlying conductor, solder the pad back and possibly reinforce the area with epoxy.
If the entire solder pad broke free, you’ll need to expose enough of the connecting trace (gently scrape the solder mask away) to make a connection. Often, the traces are so tiny that this proves impractical.
You could also follow that trace back to another solder pad directly in line (if one exists) and use a small bodge/patch wire to connect the offending pin. But DF13 connectors and SMD pads are so tiny that this may also be futile.
Thank you for your reply. I was able to repair the connector using your first method. In this case, only one pad had torn loose - the other 5 pins of TELEM1 were just broken from their solder beds. Those 5 could be re-soldered easily, but pin 1 (+5V) had no metallic material to solder to. I abraded the area with a small steel blade to expose the copper pad, and after much difficulty, was able to clean it well enough to solder to. Then, I found +5v on pin 1, but then I created another problem - pin 2 (TX out) now read +5v, not the 3.3 v it is supposed to. I must have inadvertently created a bridge. By de-soldering 1 and re-soldering it, I was able to restore normal voltages on all pins for TELEM1.
Whether my solder joint will stand up to vibration and use, I don’t know. I will probably avoid using this port if at all possible.
For anyone trying this - be very slow with removing surface material on the circuit board itself - I don’t know how many layers of conductors and insulators there are, but they are quite thin - I suspect I interfered with a conductive layer feeding pin 2 and was fortunate that the damage was slight.