loose connection at dongle

[kernal]

Well, show ran just fine for 3 weeks and then nothing.  The connection is loose between cat5 and dongle.  Tried using pigtail, even the pigtail is loose at the dongle.  Good timing i suppose, but still frustrating!  Lol...  any advice?  Is it the same with the Edongle?  Upgrading this coming year to smart pixels so i need toanyways. 

[rrowan]

Not really sure what you are talking about.

Guess #1: The plastic clip on the end of the cat5 cable. Just pull it up some and then push cat5 back into dongle
Guess #2: Bad solder connection between the board and the connector on the dongle. Reflow the solder joints.

Rick R.

[kernal]

Checked solder connections.  Solid.  When i plug in the cat5 it wiggles. Seems like a loose fit, but it worked for 3 weeks! Lol...  and i bought it used so it has been used a few times before. 

[tbone321]

You need to tell us what is happening.  A loose fit doesn't mean anything.  What exactly is loose, the plug to the socket or the socket to the board.  The plug to socket are not known to be or need to be rock solid to begin with but if it is really loose, that could be due to a cracked connector housing.  You also need to be more specific as to what is no longer working.

[kernal]

Ok sorry.  Yes the plug to the socket is loose.  And i have no blinky flashy!  Lol.  I never thought about checkin to see if the housing was cracked.  I plug in the cat5 and if i hold it a certain way, iget data signal.  If i let go, i lose data signal. I took it out of the case to chk solder joints, and it is solid.  Tried plugging in with it out of case, same results.  I will chk the housing when i get home.  Thx guys.

[jstevens]

I suspect a bad RJ45 jack - not the plug but the jack itself.  They do fatigue after a while, and if there's any stress on it, the metal in the pins fatigue and break.  Then it's time to replace the jack.  Not so bad on a dongle; I've had it happen on controllers......and smart Ethernet switches unrelated to this hobby.  Fortunately, my 24-port Ethernet switch has a few spare ports, so I just moved my email server to another port.  The switch is long out of warranty.

[dmaccole]

Yes, this sounds like a bad RJ45 female on the Dongle's PCB.

Unfortunately, it isn't an easy task to remove those connectors from the PCB. I had to change a couple a couple of weeks back (needed them to be right angle and they were top entry).

Fortunately, RJ's board manufacturer makes pretty resilient boards.

I found the easiest way to remove the connector was to crack the plastic and separate the pins from the plastic. Then heat up each of the eight pins individually and using a needle-nose pliers from the populated side of the board, I pulled each hot pin off the board.

I then needed to do some fine work with solder braid to get all eight holes clean enough to get the new connector attached to the board.

HTH.

\dmc

[tbone321]

The desoldering tool from Radio Shack works very well for removing excess solder which is the key to removing and installing new components.  The trick to this tool is to give it enough time to heat up properly and it takes about 5 minutes to get there.