Advice for re-attaching component to motherboard. (Peeled solder resistant layer and ripped surface mounts)

Thread Starter

Ray Bryant

Joined Jan 31, 2019
16
Hello everyone,

I was swapping out my laptop battery and accidently pulled too hard on the port when trying to disconnect it and it ripped out of the motherboard. Looking for suggestions on how I should go about repairing this. I have a Weller soldering iron, and as a current college student I have access to a soldering lab. Any information resources or links to products I would need would be greatly appreciated. I'm also in the Buffalo area, if any of you happen to know of someone capable of this kind of repair.

The laptop turns on, its just no longer a laptop but a desktop since it must be plugged in at all times.
(Motherboard is $750 so I'd rather not replace it)
 

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wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
...accidently pulled too hard on the port when trying to disconnect it and it ripped out of the motherboard.
Man I hate when that happens!
I have a Weller soldering iron...
That alone is not sufficient. Even if you're skilled with using the tools, this is a fairly intricate repair. I'm pretty good with an iron but I don't think I'd tackle that one. It's the mechanical issues that concern me - that there are unseen damages. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had it in hand with a magnifying glass for very careful inspection.

One type of repair involves bypassing the pads and connecting the ribbon cable wires directly to the appropriate solder pads. Modern mother boards can have multiple layers though that make this virtually impossible.

Basically what I'm saying is that you'd be better off to find a professional that has the chops to do this right and maybe even guarantee their work. I don't know anything about your area but I know there are board repair companies doing online, mail-in business.
 

Thread Starter

Ray Bryant

Joined Jan 31, 2019
16
Hello Wayneh,

Would be willing to specify what other tools I would need? I can check what my university's tinkering lab has and order whats missing.

With regards to this repair, I wanted to know what I would need to execute the repairs below given the scope of damage that I can see.

1. I have to re-attach the peeled solder reistant layer to the pcb. Is there a specific adhesive for this?
2. I believe I have to repair the missing PCB pads for most of the SMD's. Any particular technique that works best?
3. I need to repair at least two broken traces. Both had very thin wires about the thickness of a hair. ^^ Same as above.
4. Where to find schematics for a specific motherboard.
5. And methods for trouble shooting. Ideally I would test:
- Does the battery itself work. (Battery is new, but doesn't rule anything out)
- Did my repair work.
- Did my repair work and some other component is causing the battery to not charge. (Asus motherboards seem to have charging problems caused by other components.

I'll try to get a quote from a mail in place. If its too expensive, I'll keep it at a desktop and maybe eventually try the repair. Just means I need to practice quite a bit for the next couple of months.

Thanks,
-Ray
 
Epoxy. It can attach the traces to the boad.
A motherboard can have many layers Probably 8, but I think the max is about 40. You can have all sorts of VIAs. A hole is plated, so it may connect to many layers. You may have to connect to all of them. X-ray capability is uefull for the real professionals.

63/37 lead solder is the easiest to work with.

Non-magnetic tools useful. Compatable flux useful. Compatable flux remover useful.

Razor blade or X-acto knife.

You can buy copper foil adesive tape. Rarely are they conductive on the bottom.

Wirewrap wire. It's like 28 AWG

Temperature controlled iron.
 

Thread Starter

Ray Bryant

Joined Jan 31, 2019
16
Okay, I'll make sure to get on that. I luckily have most of those, so I'll work on getting the rest.

I'll post updates on this thread.
 
I'm home so I had a chance to look at the picture. I can't quite tell what I'm looking at, but additionsl comments:

You ripped the entire connector off the board.

1. You might want to try to locate a connector.
2. Solder braid
3. Shine a light through the bottom of the board. Again - might help. Might not.

What you might have is a few pins together dedicated to supplying battery power and they might share pins. You also might be looking at connections to each battery in the string and finally two wires MIGHT be to a thermister of around 10K.

These are only guesses, but it might help.

In other words try to determine what the pins are before you try to attach them. See if you can fid a connector. The first thing you need is the pitch. You can take a photo of something known such as a ruler, drill bit, in the same direction and measure photographically.

It could just be a couple of pins to a large piece of copper, but I can't tell.
 

metermannd

Joined Oct 25, 2020
343
I work in electronics repair, and I would not even attempt something like this.

If you'd simply broken off the connector at the solder joints, it would be a straightforward matter of cleaning up the board and attaching a new connector, but the pads torn off are one of the connector mounts, part of a ground trace, and both sensing connection pins. Even pads that are merely lifted can be saved with a bit of super glue, but again, you've torn pads off the board completely.

Besides evaluating the process of repairing the board, you also need to evaluate the long-term reliability of said repairs and whether it would impact fit / form / function.

Your best bet is to find someone parting out a laptop of the same model.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
Your best bet is to find someone parting out a laptop of the same model.
Or be that person. Take the hit, sell it for what you can and move on. Your time is better spent elsewhere. I’ve seen broken items sell for far more than they’re worth. I don’t mean fraudulent sales.
 

Thread Starter

Ray Bryant

Joined Jan 31, 2019
16
Well after putting some thought into it, I do have a spare laptop of similar specs that I can use for the time being. I might keep the current one as memory or a dedicated server, since it works plugged in. Sent in a quote request to some motherboard repair experts, we'll see what they say. If its sub $250 I'll probably do it just to get it done with.
 

ApacheKid

Joined Jan 12, 2015
1,533
Hello everyone,

I was swapping out my laptop battery and accidently pulled too hard on the port when trying to disconnect it and it ripped out of the motherboard. Looking for suggestions on how I should go about repairing this. I have a Weller soldering iron, and as a current college student I have access to a soldering lab. Any information resources or links to products I would need would be greatly appreciated. I'm also in the Buffalo area, if any of you happen to know of someone capable of this kind of repair.

The laptop turns on, its just no longer a laptop but a desktop since it must be plugged in at all times.
(Motherboard is $750 so I'd rather not replace it)
Ray,

I've studied the picture and have a feeling this is close to impossible. The core problem is the damage to the two center solder pads on the board, where the yellow and white wires went to.

The picture seems to show that the delicate tracks coming from these have been ripped away, so establishing a solder connection to these is the most challenging part and seems very challenging.

The rightmost center pad seems to go to a thru-hole solder connection, that seems to be accessible and could be soldered to.

But the leftmost center pad seems to have had part of the fine track ripped off. However that track may simply have been connected to the tiny soldered area visible just below the little six pin chip, if one of those small areas of solder was where the track went then that could be soldered to.

If that were solved the rest is relatively easy in my opinion, the three right pads are all joined together on the board as are the three left pads, no doubt they wanted three red and three black wires because of the significant current that's pulled from the battery.

It also seems that the solder rectangles near the letters "B" and "Y" were purely mechanical, played no electrical role, it was these that were intended to bear the load of the mechanical strain for the socket - it looks that way anyway.
 
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ApacheKid

Joined Jan 12, 2015
1,533
Here are some additional photos from this morning.
The left most image above you can easily see that the three pads on the right (one of which was ripped off) were all attached to a single area of copper, that the blueish rectangle you can see:

1615919173469.png

That solder blob on the right looks like an intentional bride between two regions too, basically all three red wires need to connect to that blue region, a similar things holds for the black, all three of those need to connect to this region:

1615919320788.png

That's not overly difficult to do with some patience and common sense.

This is the real challenge:

1615919376257.png

Its hard to tell from the images, but it could be that those two tracks are joined by that solder blob, if that's true then the yellow and white wires are technically joined too, so it may be that the yellow and white can be soldered together and soldered to that blob. The above picture also gives me a slight feeling that the track hasn't in fact been ripped away after all.

Ultimately you want to extract the black socket, clean up its solder connections (get rid of bits of torn pads) and solder new wires to its pins, then solder those wires to the appropriate places on the board.
 

Thread Starter

Ray Bryant

Joined Jan 31, 2019
16
The left most image above you can easily see that the three pads on the right (one of which was ripped off) were all attached to a single area of copper, that the blueish rectangle you can see:

View attachment 232915

That solder blob on the right looks like an intentional bride between two regions too, basically all three red wires need to connect to that blue region, a similar things holds for the black, all three of those need to connect to this region:

View attachment 232919

That's not overly difficult to do with some patience and common sense.

This is the real challenge:

View attachment 232922

Its hard to tell from the images, but it could be that those two tracks are joined by that solder blob, if that's true then the yellow and white wires are technically joined too, so it may be that the yellow and white can be soldered together and soldered to that blob. The above picture also gives me a slight feeling that the track hasn't in fact been ripped away after all.

Ultimately you want to extract the black socket, clean up its solder connections (get rid of bits of torn pads) and solder new wires to its pins, then solder those wires to the appropriate places on the board.
I can confirm that one of the tracks was ripped out because there was a wire hanging off the end of the surface connection on the port. I think it only ripped half of it out, meanwhile the other track was ripped out to the solder blob.
 

Thread Starter

Ray Bryant

Joined Jan 31, 2019
16
Okay, quote came back at $465. So I guess I'm gonna spend the next couple of months learning about PCB's, soldering, and other
relevant skills and attempt this repair on my own. I'll post my updates in this thread, thanks for all of the help guys.
 
There is tape such as this: https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/156/leadertech_11052018_LT_CopperFoilTapes_(11-02-18)-1500455.pdf

It almost looks like 3 wires (same point), 2 wires (PROBABLY thermister), 3 wires (same point)
So, see if that's true or looks true.

lets' see if we can identify the connector by getting some measurements.

JST is always a good place to start: http://www.jst.com/home2.html

Your repair won't be as rugged when your done.

There were some lands that appear to be "NOT CONNECTED" to the foil. Look at them very carefully because sometimes thay have like a crosshair connection to reduce the thermal mass.

So, a plated-thru hole, an annular ring, and then 4 orthogonal traces to the large PCB plane.

`
 

Thread Starter

Ray Bryant

Joined Jan 31, 2019
16
Okay so,

Here is the list of items I'm going to purchase:

Copper Tape
63-37 Solder
Copper Braid
Copper wire
PCB epoxy
Flux
Practice board
Practice board two
Isopropyl alcohol and wipes
Lint-free cloth

I have an adjustable soldering iron, x-acto knives,
Let me know if I am missing anything. Does anyone have experience using third party soldering tips with Weller Brand soldering irons?

As far as I understand here are the steps for the repair:

1. Identify and purchase new connector
2. Clean off all excess solder and clean area in general
3. Epoxy torn off solder resistant layer
4. Use copper tape to repair pads
5. Rewire traces using uninsulated copper wire
6. Solder connector back on
7. Test connections with multimeter

Anyone have a goode resourc for troubleshooting motherboards with a multimeter? I want make sure the Chinesium battery
works, since I can't rule that out. Asus motherboards also have a component that causes the battery to never charge if its faulty. This was the original problem, so I want to make sure its not that either.

Thanks everyone.
 

ApacheKid

Joined Jan 12, 2015
1,533
Okay so,

Here is the list of items I'm going to purchase:

Copper Tape
63-37 Solder
Copper Braid
Copper wire
PCB epoxy
Flux
Practice board
Practice board two
Isopropyl alcohol and wipes
Lint-free cloth

I have an adjustable soldering iron, x-acto knives,
Let me know if I am missing anything. Does anyone have experience using third party soldering tips with Weller Brand soldering irons?

As far as I understand here are the steps for the repair:

1. Identify and purchase new connector
2. Clean off all excess solder and clean area in general
3. Epoxy torn off solder resistant layer
4. Use copper tape to repair pads
5. Rewire traces using uninsulated copper wire
6. Solder connector back on
7. Test connections with multimeter

Anyone have a goode resourc for troubleshooting motherboards with a multimeter? I want make sure the Chinesium battery
works, since I can't rule that out. Asus motherboards also have a component that causes the battery to never charge if its faulty. This was the original problem, so I want to make sure its not that either.

Thanks everyone.
Soldering isn't difficult but doing it well does take practice. The kinds of problems that practice can help you avoid are:

1. Accidentally using too much solder, bridging pins or tracks, it is very hard sometimes to undo such bridges.
2. Too much heat, getting the area too hot for too long, can damage the copper cladding or even board material.
3. Dry joints
4. Failure to clean the area, poor flux application or flow.
5. Clumsiness, general delicacy
6. Generally not appreciating the behavior of molten solder, flux, copper, dirt etc

I soldered a great deal when I was in my late teens and twenties, that was when this hobby required soldering for almost any project, plus my college courses involved a lot of soldering both heavy duty and delicate. I solder infrequently now but can do a pretty good job since these skills were learned over a couple of years.
 

ApacheKid

Joined Jan 12, 2015
1,533
There is a distinct possibility that the two middle traces (temperature sensor?) are shorted with a solder bridge.
I noticed that too, yet the machine worked, so if that's true it makes the overall repair a bit easier, simpler, because the yellow and white wires can just be soldered to that blob.
 
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So, try to do the following.

With the 2 sets of 3 end terminals with the battery connected. Check for voltage. If none, check for resistance.

Middle terminals. Check for voltage (laptop off). Check for resistance toward battery. Around 10K at room temp is common.

Then check for resistance (middle pins) toward the laptop at the connector. I doubt it should be a direct short.
 
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