Wiikey issues

midgetman104

midgetman104

Active Member
Alright yesterday I stupidly tried wiring to the Actel chip on the wiikey, which did not turn out so well. Three pins got bridged so I tried heating it up to suck up the solder, then this happened.
A) is my wiikey dead
B) if it is not dead is anyone up for a commission to unbridge the pins, and wire to the traces
DSCN1346_zps36c6a5c5.jpg

DSCN1345_zpsa01e17fd.jpg
 
If you have to ask if that's dead, it's dead.

That said, some desoldering braid and some flux could work to clean that up for ya.
 
wow, you present a nice challenge...

to fix that, you want to stay away from desoldering braid because it will also push solder behind the pins...
so many people recommend desoldering braid and i cannot understand why..you have to apply a lot of heat to all that extra copper and lower wattage irons just are not able to have very successful results along with the fact of applying a lot of heat for a long length of time....
just not good practice...


what you need for this is a wide tip iron, not a needle point...
pour some flux on it and with your wide tip at high heat you can drag the iron across the pins....dragging while touching as many pins at the same time as possible with the width of the iron will "magically" remove the solder to unbridge the pins....

your WKF is not dead and should be fine as long as you did not try to apply power in that condition...just get that soldering in order and everything should be OK...

PM me for a commission...i charge a fee of one 12 pack of shiner bock, you pay shipping
 
a heatgun??

using a heatgun on that small PCB is not a great idea...
there is not enough copper there to dissipate the (typical) 1200* heat and all the board components will just fall off even if you try a "foil shield"....

now lets say by chance a heatgun was successful in removing only the chip, now the original poster would still have to continue the attempt at unbridging the pins on a loose IC + trying to solder the IC back on...
if the O.P. cannot successfully solder wires onto the IC without causing this huge solder glob, then what would make you think he could get the IC back on properly after removing it with a heatgun???
 
If you're careful and not stupid you can accomplish it with a heat gun, there's only components on the top side, so heating it and lifting off the chip with tweezers is possible, then heating the chip again and knocking off the excess solder, positioning it back and heating it a final time. I've done this flax with a blowtorch successfully before, so a heatgun isn't farfetched.

That said, even if all that were to transpire perfectly, you'd still have to solder tiny wires onto the already finicky wiikey, and that flax is maddening. We're talking about some serious football.

All that's optimistic though, my professional opinion is that that wiikey is toast. Fried. Baked whale.

SS
 
a blowtorch at safe distance or even a lighter under the board sure...
but a heatgun has a blower motor so the hot air is forced onto the board also....
not to mention the huge wide nozzle blowing all that forced hot air...and nozzle reducer for a heatgun will just concentrate higher pressure hot air....
cant really controll a heatgun like you can do with a rework station...unless you mod the heatgun also


hopefully i will have some nice pics to post soon if the repair job works out...
 
talk about the wiikey walking dead



after the initial cleanup i performed a pinout test on the bottom 25 pins:
from left to right
from right to left


pin 1-5 traces are intact with all traces running to their intended locations... status: good
pin 6-11 will be wired for GC...status: no problem
pin 12 trace is intact...status: good
pin 13 is physically broken but internally still connected to GND... status: good
pin 14 trace is intact.. status: good
pin 15 - 25 go to GC... status: no problem


FFC pin 17 and 19 will need to be jumped to appropriate location... status: no problem
pin 19 capacitor is missing so i will relocate the capacitor from the DVD side to the host side... status: no problem
all GND and 3v3 traces are intact... status: good



a little bit more cleaning up...
a little bit more beer drinking....
make a few modifications....
solder a few wires...
then give it a test run...

initialcleanup.jpg
 
capacitor relocated...
IC prepped and ready to solder leads...
borrowing a move from Ashen's playbook of how to make your own FFC cable adapter, i did the same here...
using the tools at my disposal (a roach clip), i lifted some pins to make easier time soldering wires...
thanks Ashen....



chipprep.jpg
 
quick update:
all wires soldered, just need 3v and GND...then plug it into a GC and give it a test run...
after a successful test, then a glob of epoxy to keep everything together...
the two wires on the right are the pin 17 & 19 relocation...
ill need one more wire from the center capacitor to complete the circuit for pin 19...
i "should" be able to test this tomorrow...


wkfwired.jpg
 
Wow. I didnt even think there was a chance that it was going to work. Sorry for doubting you! Great job.
 
Aha, just recognized your name as that baller dude from GCForever. I have some of your WKF connector boards actually that I got from the meetup.

Nice work!

SS
 
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