HELP - I've butched my VCI trying to change LEDs!!!

[r1chardell1s]

Hi everyone.

What can I say. I feel flattened!

After performing the arcade mod with ease (and thoroughly enjoying it) some time ago, I thought changing the LEDs would be a breeze and yield great results - I'm colour bliind and have great difficulty in differentiating between the stock LED colours on the VCI.

After finding this tutorial:

http://www.djtechtools.com/2009/08/3...-a-button-led/

I thought I would easily be able to do this and have a great time in the process. Instead I have butchered my VCI-100. It seems that the holes that were milled for the LEDs were very tight, so needed some force along with the heat from the soldering iron to remove. In applying this, I seem to have broken some of the printed metal tracks and short circuited the PCB in other places. Now some lights don't come on and others are flashing like crazy when I press certain (LED modded) buttons. Also, The VCI is fluctuating between power on and off.

I can visibly see the couple of tracks which need repair, but this is beyond my skill set.

Do any electronics wizards on here live near London and want to help me try and remedy this (or is this an insane request)?

PLLLLEEEAAAASSSEEE!

[sarasin]

OH SHIT.......

Good luck bruv...

[Villinus]

man, that's rough. can you post some pictures of the damaged tracks?

not all hope is lost, as circuit board connections can sometimes be re-routed using solder and wire.

[r1chardell1s]

Ok - Some photos uploaded - Peep these:

[DJPhaidon]

Can't see the pics cause I'm at work and they block em, but as a microminiature tech, I do these kind of repairs all day. If you are trained, one lifted/broken metal track will take you at least 2 hours and usually requires some special tools. You could use jumper wires, but first you'll have to use a scalpel or knife to remove the track that's shorted. Could be a lot of work

[midifidler]

Rats,

Yeah I think your best bet is too replace the broken tracks with wires, but also check for shorts in areas that you have broken. Most local electronics repair outfits could do this for you if you are not confident enough after your disaster.

The best way to remove LEDs it to add enough solder to create a bridge between the two pads then heat them both simultaneously and pull gently from the other side. Unless the legs are clinched it should come out with ease.

[Fatlimey]

I think your best bet is too replace the broken tracks with wires

Lifted traces, bummer. Desoldering is an art best perfected on old, broken PCBs.

So, how to fix? You'll need to create a connection between the remaining trace and the new LED. One way is to use a scalpel to scratch off the paint from the trace somewhere downstream and solder a short piece of wire from that spot to the end destination, effectively bridging the gap.

Another technique is to avoid the trace altogether and follow it back to see if it hits a "via" (small round hole in the PCB where traces swap sizes of the board). If it does, you can make the wire connection from the via straight to the end destination. Less neat, longer wires but a lot easier to solder.

Good luck! It's not as bad as it looks, you're not out of options. Definitely rescue-able.

[r1chardell1s]

Thanks guys.

Does anyone have any high res VCI-100 PCB photos for me to compare against?

Will try and get some help with the repair on this one. I'll let you know how I fare.

Cheers.

Rich

[DJPhaidon]

After looking at it, it should be a pretty basic fix if you can find someone who knows how to take resistance checks with a multimeter and resolder some connections. Easiest way to do it would be to have them desolder all the f'd connectors, ohm out the tracks, and then fix the broken ones with insulated wires running on top of the board. Won't look pretty, but it should get the job done.

[Villinus]

You'll get a lesson in soldering and repairing to boot

Let us know how it goes!