Well I hope there is another etherdongle coop soon

[keitha43]

I just ruined mine. I built it awhile back and it programmed successfully so I assumed it was working. I didn't test it until I was ready to leave for our OKC mini yesterday and no ethernet lights would flash. I just had the green led and both ethernet lights glowing faintly. After examination there were no shorts caused by blobs of solder so I reheated all connections to make sure I had no cold solder spots. No change in the symptoms. I measured the voltages at the triacs and crystals and they were normal. That left the surface mount chips. Since they were done by RJ himself I wanted to eliminate everything else first. Using a poweful led flashlight shining up from the bottom side of the board the big chip looked fine but it looked like the ethernet chip had a couple of shorts on the bottom row at the end closest to the crystals. I used the tip of a safety pin to scrape between the leads. After that I had no green led or ethernet lights. The voltages were still okay and the chip would still program okay. In desparation I did what another member did and touched my soldering iron against each leg (after the tip had been wiped clean of solder). After doing a few legs suddenly a trace that apparently runs underneath the chip stuck to my tip and pulled up. So I guess it is ruined. I wish there was a non surface mount version of this board.

[rmp2917]

Using anything to scrape the board is a bad idea. Some of the pins have traces between them and are supposed to be shorted.

I wouldn't necessarily say that your board is ruined, but it may take significant work to repair it.

[keitha43]

Since I know the trace went under the chip I am pretty sure it is ruined. I was just to impatient to wait for the academy. I don't see these boards in the store so I guess I am out of luck until the next coop. I doubt anyone has extras. Next time I will order 2 and hopefully at least one will work. I also plan on attending the adv soldering class at the academy so I can learn about surface mount even though I am not sure if I can see well enough any more even with reading glasses. It didn't occur to me the dark areas might have been traces. I was really hoping to use a conductor this year. 3000 plus channels didn't run well with a usb dongle last year.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

[MrChristmas2000]

I would consider contacting RJ with a picture of what you did. He might suggest a way to wire around the damaged trace. In my old prototyping days we called it 'blue wires' cause most of the time we used blue wirewrap wire to replace cut and missing traces on proto boards.

Why throw away a $100 product.

[Steve Gase]

I would consider contacting RJ with a picture of what you did. He might suggest a way to wire around the damaged trace. In my old prototyping days we called it 'blue wires' cause most of the time we used blue wirewrap wire to replace cut and missing traces on proto boards.

Why throw away a $100 product.

I think I have something similar happening.  The ethernet activity light does not flash, i though I saw bridging on the SMD and used the solder sucker on it before reading the caution not to use the solder sucker.

[keitha43]

I will try to post a picture tomorrow but the surface mount leads are far too small to use wire to bypass. Like fine thread.

Sent from my THUNDERBOLT using Tapatalk 2

[Night Owl]

I would consider contacting RJ with a picture of what you did. He might suggest a way to wire around the damaged trace. In my old prototyping days we called it 'blue wires' cause most of the time we used blue wirewrap wire to replace cut and missing traces on proto boards.

Why throw away a $100 product.

The funny thing is I still have a roll of wirewrap and it happens to be blue.

I just pulled out of out my wire bin and stripped a piece.  It is about the same width as one of the pins on the surface mount chips.  So doing a point to point repair isn't totally out of the question.

[keitha43]

Well I will bring it to the academy. The trace that came up looks like it connects to the resistor next to the crystal. Maybe someone there will have better eyes and a schematic. 30 years ago I had perfect eyesight.

Sent from my thunderbolt using Tapatalk 2