I've hit a roadblock trying to fix this USB A docking station with a broken USB cable, tiny soldering with a big crapy iron, and I'm out of ideas

[LloydLynx]

This docking station has a USB A input through an insulated ribbon cable, and a few types of display outputs.

 

I thought it would be a pretty easy fix, just solder in a new cable. Nope. The socket that the old ribbon cable slots into has absolutely tiny solder points all close together. I sanded down the part of the ribbon cable that broke and thought I could glue and bridge solder them together. Glue made too much of a mess to bridge solder.

 

I severely damaged the USB A end of the ribbon cable removing it from the rubber, so I had to cut it off. I did manage to write down the mapping of where the traces go from the USB plug, through the ribbon cable, and into the main board by continuity testing before destroying that end of the ribbon cable.

 

So at this point, I need to either solder wires from the main board to the USB port, or solder wires to the ribbon cable and to the USB port. My only soldering iron is a piece of crap that hardly makes a dent the factory solder. Everything is super tiny and I'm starting to feel like this is a lost cause.

 

Spoiler

 

Any ideas at all how to proceed?

[OhioYJ]

22 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

Any ideas at all how to proceed?

Are you using flux? What is it Louis Rossmann says? The bigger the glob, the better the job? Seriously though, especially with small stuff like that, and a less than ideal iron, particularly, if you don't have a lot of experience soldering small stuff, flux will really help.

[Bombastinator]

There a reason they call it microsoldering.  A magnifying system and a “third hand” vice, sometimes two of em, are de rigour for me to do that kind of work. Even a nail doesn’t have a sharp enough point. I’ve used soldering pencils where I took a nail, sharpened the tip to a fine point, and cut the back end off to use as a tip.
 

P.S.

I’ve never seen fingernails cut that way before.  I’ve seen it done the opposite way, dead flat, which is a lute  player thing, they use the comers of the mail to pluck the strings I guess, but I’ve never seen them cut to points that way. I’m suspecting some sort of musical instrument

Edited May 7, 2022 by Bombastinator

[startrek03]

Attaching any cable to such small traces will be a pain in the ass. It would be interesting to know whether the USB port is Gen 2 or something else since Gen 2 is way simpler than newer versions and therefore easier to work with.

[LloydLynx]

1 hour ago, startrek03 said:

Attaching any cable to such small traces will be a pain in the ass. It would be interesting to know whether the USB port is Gen 2 or something else since Gen 2 is way simpler than newer versions and therefore easier to work with.

Unfortunately gen 3 which is quite a pain to keep track of the pinout of everything.

[LloydLynx]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

There a reason they call it microsoldering.  A magnifying system and a “third hand” vice, sometimes two of em, are de rigour for me to do that kind of work. Even a nail doesn’t have a sharp enough point. I’ve used soldering pencils where I took a nail, sharpened the tip to a fine point, and cut the back end off to use as a tip.

I filed my solder tip to a fine point today just for this project.

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

P.S.

I’ve never seen fingernails cut that way before.  I’ve seen it done the opposite way, dead flat, which is a lute  player thing, they use the comers of the mail to pluck the strings I guess, but I’ve never seen them cut to points that way. I’m suspecting some sort of musical instrument

Nah, just an edgy teen thing I'll probably grow out of in a few years. I'm really liking having claws for now though. I've never heard of the flat cut nails for lute playing. Cool.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

I filed my solder tip to a fine point today just for this project.

Nah, just an edgy teen thing I'll probably grow out of in a few years. I'm really liking having claws for now though. I've never heard of the flat cut nails for lute playing. Cool.

I suspected you of playing a particular kind of banjo or something.  If you really want claws go to a nail salon.  Plastic fantastic.  There was a sprinter that did them and painted them chrome. Looked pretty scary.

[LloydLynx]

I was hoping to solder wires directly to the board. So I removed the ribbon cable socket and an essential solder pad came with it. With how tiny and complex this board is, I'm not recovering from this.

[Bombastinator]

55 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

I was hoping to solder wires directly to the board. So I removed the ribbon cable socket and an essential solder pad came with it. With how tiny and complex this board is, I'm not recovering from this.

Pulling off solder pads can be very bad

[OhioYJ]

7 hours ago, LloydLynx said:

I was hoping to solder wires directly to the board. So I removed the ribbon cable socket and an essential solder pad came with it. With how tiny and complex this board is, I'm not recovering from this.

Have you ever watched a Ben Heck video? If you notice he's not using a tiny soldering iron for the little stuff he's doing.  It can be done without it.

 

This is the soldering iron I started out with when I first started to learn surface mount soldering. Here are a couple images from my first board (flux really helps, no special iron needed):

 

 

 

Flux really will help. The biggest problem I see now, is where the missing pad, and sanded area is. Since the solder mask has been removed, you'll have to be really careful.

 

Also most all soldering tips made today are coated, and should not be filed / sanded. At least that's my basic understanding.

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

Have you ever watched a Ben Heck video? If you notice he's not using a tiny soldering iron for the little stuff he's doing.  It can be done without it.

 

This is the soldering iron I started out with when I first started to learn surface mount soldering. Here are a couple images from my first board (flux really helps, no special iron needed):

 

 

 

Flux really will help. The biggest problem I see now, is where the missing pad, and sanded area is. Since the solder mask has been removed, you'll have to be really careful.

 

Also most all soldering tips made today are coated, and should not be filed / sanded. At least that's my basic understanding.

*loves Ben Heck*