Life on FR4

I got another pack of failed Xbox One controllers. Most of them had classic problems like broken LT frames,(which by the way I could not find anywhere) broken analog sticks and broken internal board-to-board connectors. I noticed that one of these controllers was the strangest of all. Everything working fine with this controller except the LT and the Y axis of the left analog stick. I walked through my regular troubleshooting process and I didn't find anything unusual wrong. It discovered later that was a cracked solder ball under the main controller chip. The crack was probably caused by a strong external force like a drop or a bend. As I continued repairing this poor gizmo, I realized if I pushed the IC to the board with my finger I get the right values on my tester and everything seems to work as it should. This ment that the cracked balls maybe fixable by a reflow so I reflowed the chip but it did not worked. I wanted to try to fix it by doing a reball, but I don't have p

My sister has broke her iPhone screen, and she hired me to repair as cheap as I can. I have bought a failed iPhone in second hand marker for about half the prize as new LCD module. Later, I tear it down and I had to realized, than it has a lot so called "liquid damage". This means somehow water get inside the phone and not properly cleaned it, or not even noticed. When water get inside some kind of electronic device and not immediately turned off and cleaned, corrosion developing and start eating the solder joints just like the rust in cars body. After I checked the screen connector, I noticed some damage on it too. I decided to replace these connectors so I desoldered from the broken one. Next I desoldered the connectors from the good one and luckily it is turned out that the problem is not as big as I first think. Only one pad needed a repair and I quicky ran a jumper wire on the display flex cable. It can be a good example for everyone, what the liquid does if get insid

Recently, I got a used Razer BLACKWIDOW Ultimate 2014 mechanical keyboard with the fancy Razer greenswitches inside. The keyboard looks awesome and I really like the illuminated keys too. I'm not a person who likes the lound, clicking sounds that this switches are make when you press them down but I decided to give it a try. Sadly, the smile in my face went away as soon as I plugged the keyboard in and started typing on it. Every second or third character was doubled or missed on the screen of my computer. Something was wrong for sure with the keys, this issue is called scattering by the way. Actually I know that before I bought the keyboard and this is why I was bought it. There was nothing left, time to investigate the source of this issue. After a few phillips head screws I got inside the keyboard, and I desoldered some of the failed switches. The switch itself was easily disassemblable, 2 securing on each side. The problem was obvious after I looked inside the switch, corrod

I really like my JBC soldering station, perfect and robous tool. I usually just put the handpiece back to its holder, and after a few minute the station will activate the hibernation mode (no heating). This is a great feature because you don't have to turn on and off the station, but sometimes, for example when your 2 years old daughter start exploring your lab this can be dangerous. If you let the iron in hibernation mode, it is start heating very quickly (5 sec. from room temp.) as soon as you pull the handpiece out of its holder. Fortunately, my daughter dropped down the handpiece in time, and she don't get burned, but this was a terrible mistake as a dad because things could be happen much worse than in my case. The problem is when the soldering station is turned on, you don't get enough visual notification about it. The display are saying "hibernation" of course, but if you tired or you are in hurry, you probably miss it, and you will forget to turn it off.