Fixing damaged traces?

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Cut with a razor while cutting zipties so as much as it looks like a surface scratch that doesnt cut the traces it definitely did

 

Put a stick in the 2nd channel and no post so i definitely know the 2nd channel is fucked

 

How would i go about fixing this?

Do i simply add some solder or something? Since the cut isnt exactly large

[GOTSpectrum]

Urgh... memory traces are very temperamental, the older the memory generation the easier it is, the correct way to fix it is to have a jumper wire cover the gap. 

 

You can try just solder, but micro-soldering is hard at the best of times, not talking about when trying to fix traces with it 

[IkeaGnome]

If you go on either side of the cut you can remove the masking layer then solder wires on and go to both sides of the cut. It's what I've been doing for cracked PCBs. 

Typically, I'll use an exacto knife to scrape the masking layer off the trace I'm soldering, solder the new wire in to bypass the trace crack. Mask over it, then move to the next trace.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

11 minutes ago, GOTSpectrum said:

the correct way to fix it is to have a jumper wire cover the gap

Just solder on a jumper wire or something?

And what size does the jumper wire have to be?

[GOTSpectrum]

2 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Just solder on a jumper wire or something?

And what size does the jumper wire have to be?

Something like 40AWG magnet wire 

[Levent]

You won’t be fixing that. Memory traces are very sensitive as mentioned and these are hard to fix at best of times when you have the equipment. Just scratch the solder mask of the damaged traces gently and hope that you can jump damaged parts with tiny bit of solder.

[GOTSpectrum]

1 minute ago, Levent said:

You won’t be fixing that. Memory traces are very sensitive as mentioned and these are hard to fix at best of times when you have the equipment. Just scratch the solder mask of the damaged traces gently and hope that you can jump damaged parts with tiny bit of solder.

I mean, they are length sensitive more than anything, depending on if you can easily see the whole trace, you could theoretically fix it with a carefully placed jumper either for the whole length of the trace by "tracing" it with the wire (bad pun) or by trying to jump a portion of it. 

 

As you said you could try to jump it with solder but with how close and small they are it would be hard to bridge them correctly 

[mariushm]

You get a fiberglass pen or something abrasive and clean the solder mask (coating) off the area where the cut is (a few mm up and down the cut point on each cut trace)

 

Get FLUX and pour liquid or gel / paste flux over the trace where the cut is.  Heat a soldering iron, add a blob of solder to the tip  - that's why you need flux to be on the board, because the flux in the solder will be burnt off - and bring the tip down and drag it several times up and down the length of the trace in the area where you removed the coating off the trace.  The idea is to tin with solder a few mm of trace BEFORE and AFTER the cut, and you'll form a solder bridge over the cut.

You can use a multimeter on continuity with one probe on the tinned trace before the cut and the other probe on the tinned trace after the cut.

If you don't have continuity, add flux again, put solder on iron again, drag tip along trace again, measure again. 

If you still don't have any luck, find some ribbon cable or some stranded copper cable, strip insulation, get one of those thin strands of copper from the wire, flux it,  tin it with your solder iron, put the thin copper strand over the length of the trace,  again put some flux, hold the wire down with some tweezers or something, drag solder iron with solder over the wire and the trace so that the wire will be soldered on the trace.

 

When you have continuity, clean the trace with some isopropyl alcohol, and ideally you would put some uv curable solder mask over the trace to protect it (and use UV light to cure the mask). Some kapton tape will work if you don't have or don't want to buy uv curable mask

[kb5zue]

The best thing you could do to fix the board would be to replace it.  In terms of frustration trying to fix, it just isn't worth it.  Sorry, but that's the way I feel about trying to "fix" problems such as this.  When trying to fix something of this nature, you only get one chance because in all actuality, you're most likely to make the situation worse than it is when trying to soldier something of this size.  Like I said earlier, in terms of frustration, it just isn't worth it.  Just my honest thoughts on the problem, sorry.

 

Take care and good luck.

 

[manikyath]

if you have to *ask*, i dont think you're gonna manage fixing this. it's very fine, it's a very high frequency signal, it's a very low voltage signal.

 

you'll need at least a magnifying glass to see what the heck you're doing, something to rub away the solder mask, a very fine tip soldering iron (45 degree chisel remains best, but the finest pencil tip otherwise), and VERY thin solder so you have very good control over the amount of solder applied.

 

but even then, you're likely to rip back the damaged traces. at least it's in a place where they're at least spaced by a bit.

 

i wouldnt bother adding a wire on top, the cut is narrow enough, as long as you dont lift any of the traces solder will make enough of a bridge.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

7 hours ago, mariushm said:

You get a fiberglass pen or something abrasive and clean the solder mask (coating) off the area where the cut is (a few mm up and down the cut point on each cut trace)

 

Get FLUX and pour liquid or gel / paste flux over the trace where the cut is.  Heat a soldering iron, add a blob of solder to the tip  - that's why you need flux to be on the board, because the flux in the solder will be burnt off - and bring the tip down and drag it several times up and down the length of the trace in the area where you removed the coating off the trace.  The idea is to tin with solder a few mm of trace BEFORE and AFTER the cut, and you'll form a solder bridge over the cut.

You can use a multimeter on continuity with one probe on the tinned trace before the cut and the other probe on the tinned trace after the cut.

If you don't have continuity, add flux again, put solder on iron again, drag tip along trace again, measure again. 

If you still don't have any luck, find some ribbon cable or some stranded copper cable, strip insulation, get one of those thin strands of copper from the wire, flux it,  tin it with your solder iron, put the thin copper strand over the length of the trace,  again put some flux, hold the wire down with some tweezers or something, drag solder iron with solder over the wire and the trace so that the wire will be soldered on the trace.

 

When you have continuity, clean the trace with some isopropyl alcohol, and ideally you would put some uv curable solder mask over the trace to protect it (and use UV light to cure the mask). Some kapton tape will work if you don't have or don't want to buy uv curable mask

Dont think i can get fiberglass pens, any alternatives? I do wanna buy some sandpaper to lap coolers since the used coolers i buy tend to have a buncha scratches and residue on the coldplate

 

I have some low temp solder paste so can i just use that and smear it ontop the trace?

 

Ive been meaning to buy a multimeter for awhile but havent bothered since im not voltmodding yet but hey another excuse to buy some equipment i desperately need

 

Usually id only have around 5-10$ for stuff like this but i dont think many ppl do this kinda trace repairing shenanigans and especially not some kid so ill just buy equipment under the guise of content creation

 

 

btw what other tools do i need for this kinda soldering? I will be playing around with voltmods in the near future so im sure thatd be able to use the equipment i need to fix traces

 

currently im looking at buying a couple cheap 60w solder irons (also need for desoldering a bios chip), some mechanic solder wire (cause my current solder wire is probs low quality), sandpaper, solder wick, and ofc a multimeter. Already got the flux and the solder paste laying around, so is there anything else missing that id need to buy?

[mariushm]

You can use a very sharp razor blade to scratch the mask off the trace.

Solder paste is mostly isopropyl alcohol and tiny solder balls.... so yeah in theory you could spread solder paste along the length of the trace bridging the cut and then use hot air at very low speed (you don't want to blow the paste away) to heat it up and melt it.  Tip of a soldering iron could also work I suppose.

 

My advice, stop spending money on shit and cheap crap, collect some money and get quality stuff that it will last you decades.

[freeagent]

R.I.P.

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

7 hours ago, mariushm said:

You can use a very sharp razor blade to scratch the mask off the trace.

Solder paste is mostly isopropyl alcohol and tiny solder balls.... so yeah in theory you could spread solder paste along the length of the trace bridging the cut and then use hot air at very low speed (you don't want to blow the paste away) to heat it up and melt it.  Tip of a soldering iron could also work I suppose.

 

My advice, stop spending money on shit and cheap crap, collect some money and get quality stuff that it will last you decades.

Time to dissasemble another cheap shaving tool cause idk where the hell i put the tiny razor piece which i used to delid my pentium 4, i mean if its good enough to delid a p4 maybe itll be good enough to take some solder mask off but it is kinda bendy cause super thin, or maybe i can use a normal razor?

 

I mean 2.5$ for an iron that ill problably delegate to other purposes anyways after this one time use (for fixing the giga x58 and some traces), im planning to build a heat chamber to dry my boards quicker after water dunk so i guess i can use a solder iron or 2 as a heating element, im looking at the somewhat half decent 2.5$ irons the ones that are "adjustable" but really just interested in the fact that they have swappable tips

 

 

But i can get some 7$ 1500w heatguns

 

ill just need to buy kapton tape, already got aluminum foil as a heat shield for desoldering a bios chip, and i only need to buy 1 solder iron, but im kinda worried that the heatgun will be kinda slow and also heat up other areas i dont wanna heat up hence why im more inclined on going with 2 solder irons

 

I do need to reflow my gts 250 but then id have to buy a didgital thermometer to make sure im following a proper reflow curve so that can problably wait

[mariushm]

That's not a hot air gun, that's a paint stripping tool ... it's too hot air, too fast airflow... you'll burn the motherboard.

 

Again told you several times... stop looking and buying cheap shit that you'll  try once, fail, and give up.  Get a soldering station, that seems like something you need either way.

[Beerzerker]

On 10/29/2023 at 1:33 PM, IkeaGnome said:

If you go on either side of the cut you can remove the masking layer then solder wires on and go to both sides of the cut. It's what I've been doing for cracked PCBs. 

Typically, I'll use an exacto knife to scrape the masking layer off the trace I'm soldering, solder the new wire in to bypass the trace crack. Mask over it, then move to the next trace.

A fiberglass pen works too instead of scraping the PCB. Takes longer but the results from it are worth the work to do it that way.
You can also open the broken PCB up as much as you want to expose as much of the trace as needed in an easily controlled manner to do the fix.