How badly can I damage a PC board?

[eugewong]

Hi,

I've been modding an old ('95) MXR dist+ and after repeated experimenting with components, soldering in and out stuff, I've managed to burn some bits of the board, and actually lifted off an eye or 2.

probably lots of factors involved, but right now, I've got no sound out of the pedal at all. Have I effectively destroyed my pc board? Can this be fixed?

Eugene

p.s - I'm a newbie. 

[pyrop]

Hi eugewong,
Well maybe it is an easy fix, maybe not.
Might be an idea to post a pic of the damaged area as the fix is dependant on what type and how bad the damaged is!

Hot tip: When modding circuits it is wise to use sockets where possible so future mods & swaps are a snap.

pyrop

[gez]

You should be able to patch it up somehow - the insides of some of my boxes look pretty dodgy!

You can buy conductive stuff to connect traces, but I haven't used it.  I normally wrap solid wire round a component leg then jump it to where I need it.  Either that or spread solder in a 'creative' way.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Gez is right, I find it's usually pretty hard to solder to a trace that has been broken, just see what the trace used to connect, and run a wire directly from one point to another.

[Nasse]

I just bought a new Xytronic soldering station, and the Instruction Manual is very well written IMHO

Borrowed from Xytronic:

"A low temperature will slow the rate of flow of the solder. A high temperature will burn the flux in the solder, which in turn will emit a heavy white smoke resulting in a dry joint or damage to the p.c.b.

When the iron is set to the correct temperature for the particular soldering situation at hand, a good joint is assured. Key to succesful soldering is knowing the type of solder you are using, the size of the joint to be soldered and the characteristic of the p.c.b. & component used and adjusting the tip temperature to meet the needs of the application"

I had the luck to watch senior repairman repairing a circuit, and he used very thin desoldering braid and small tip and lo heat, but he told those thin tracks burn so easily anyway

[Chris Goodson]

Yeah it's trashed, but I might could use some parts, why not send it to me?

I always just solder in piece of a lead on messed up traces, it's ugly but it gets the job done.  Also, like Nasse said use low heat and might I add do the soldering as fast as possible to help keep this from happening.

[LyleCaldwell]

Push a component lead further through the hole when possible so you can snip off the bend.  It's the bend that usually separates a pad from the PCB when removing a component.

I hate that.

[waldo041]

probably lots of factors involved, but right now, I've got no sound out of the pedal at all. Have I effectively destroyed my pc board? Can this be fixed?

Eugene

p.s - I'm a newbie. 

being somewhat of a newb myself and the project being a rather easy dist+ circuit, i would attempt to clone the board(you are not mass producing them, merely making a replacement for something you already own), by maybe photo copying the trace side and getting some copper clad board, etchant and press 'n peel. you could also get the cheap circuit board making kit at the rat shack and try to draw out the circuit by hand, either way you have a nice new board and can install nice new sockets and can mod until you get it dialed in. great way to learn how to make circuit boards.

another piece of advice i can give as a newb myself is get yourself some solder braid and a junk loaded circuit board and practice removing the componets solder at the joint's. once you learn this skill it becomes a lot easier to remove components without lifting pads.

hope this helps.

peace,
waldo

[jxoco]

When unsoldering it also helps to add a bit of fresh solder to the joint first and then
hold the board up so that the soldering iron tip is lower than the board.
Gravity will bring some if not all of the solder onto the iron tip.
Wipe the iron tip off with the wet sponge in the stand and now go back and use the desolder braid on the joint.

[redeffect]

Thanks for the "gravity" tip, jxoco! I just tried it on an old "scrap parts" board, and it works like a charm! Using the laws of physics really rules   
red

[eugewong]

Wow, great advice guys. Thanks for the help so far.

I'll definitely try out the gravity trick when I break out the iron again!

I think at the moment, I'll take Waldo's suggestion and re-build the Dist+ instead of trying to salvage this current one. It'll definitely make for a good learning experiance. Before that I intend to tackle the beginner's NPN Boost first. that'll probably be a good place to start before the dist+.

btw, I read the faq's and didn't believe some of them...but you guys are right. Building and DIY pedals are more expensive than just buying a new pedal. Spent quite abit already so far, and I've only got 1 modded pedal to show for it!

Eugene

[Processaurus]

One of my first projects had a pc board that got run over by a truck and every component ripped off of it, I just sucked the little component ends out with the solder sucker, repopulated it, and used wire where the traces had been peeled off, and its alive and well, fully recovered, today on my pedalboard.  All the traces on a PCB are for is to connect the components, you could replace every single one with wire connecting the components and it would work the same, because electricity isn't picky about how it gets where its going.  If you have a circuit board that gets cracked in half, you can fix it by just running wires between each component on each side that's trace got cracked. 

Your board is salvageable.  You might need to take a peak at the schematic to figure out which things got connected by the traces that got peeled, though.

For modding stuff, individual sockets are great if you want to try different caps or resistors in a certain spot.