In order to reduce the size of the new Dust prototype, I am further hacking apart the Coby MP3 player. I bought an SMD mini USB connector from Digikey to attach to the printed circuit board. My plan is to replace the USB connector on the Coby unit with four male headers which will plug into the main Dust board. It was very confusing to make sense of the USB pinout. The mini connector has 5 pins, but the original large USB connector has four pins.
In the process of coaxing the original USB connector out, I damaged one of the vias and pads on the Coby board. I hope the damage isn’t permanent. You can see the lifted pad right below the “B1″ label (upside down)
I tried to repair the lifted trace and pulled out pad with a short section of wrapping wire.
Notice the wrapping wire soldered onto the end of a male header pin. The next trick is to solder the stripped end of the wrapping wire to the lifted circuit trace. I applied superglue to the bottom of the trace to hold it down and then scraped its surface to expose the copper.
I’ll won’t know if the repair was successful until I get the MP3 player attached to the main Dust circuit board. I’m still a little concerned that the USB wires going between the boards need to be shielded.
Dear Michael -
Thank you for the pics and explanation of repairing the USB port. I have a similar problem and was wondering if you could help. I have a .jpg of the broken connector I’d like you to see.
I have a Hakko soldering iron and know how to use it (plus ‘solder sucking wire.’).
Any help would be appreciated. It is one of the front USB ports on my computer.
Thank you,
Gilbert
Virginia Beach, VA
Comment by Gilbert Kirk — April 5, 2008 @ 1:30 pm