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Hi,
I am new to soldering and after refurbishing the box to my game gear, I wanted to repair the system itself. Unfortunately when I power the game gear it now has a black screen with a game in the cartridge slot. I have attached an image. Please let me know where I could have gone wrong. Please excuse the soldering, I’m not very good. On C6 the - pad came off, I read that it can be fixed by soldering it to a ground point which are the gold points. Is it possible to fix broken pads? Thanks for any feedback, hopefully I can save this game gear.

DCD785E0-C57B-49DB-B962-7689646E6876.jpeg (3.13 MB)

0D5B9A36-C00F-48B6-8060-6DCA809FD7F3.jpeg (2.98 MB)

Looks like a mix of different issues, overheating (the lifted pads), too much solder (the big blobs), insufficient cleaning of the pads and leads (poor adhesion/wetting).

My advice when doing this could be first make sure the surfaces you are soldering are clean, you can use something like isopropyl alcohol or mentholated spirits to do this.

Apply heat evenly to both the pad and the capacitor lead at the same time, give it a few seconds to heat up (5 seconds probably enough) then apply the solder to the pad until just enough has wicked across the join.

Alternatively you can try tacking the joint by first applying solder to the pad, then apply solder to the capacitor leg, then while holding the leg to the pad heat it up with the iron and the two should flow together and join.

I'm assuming you are using a cheap soldering iron, make sure you choose one that isn't too high wattage 30-40w and that the tip is not too big for what you are soldering.

Try to avoid holding the iron to the PCB for more than a few seconds at a time otherwise you risk lifting the adhesive that holds the pad down, if you are unsuccessful wait a few seconds then try again, you may need to desolder and clean again if there's to much flux or solder.

With the lifted pad you can try to scratch away some of the PCB resist and expose more of the trace, or alternatively find another source on the board and run a wire from there to your capacitor.

Hear is a visual guide on solder joins and common problems:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-guide-excellent-soldering/common-problems

Author	Message
Simpuns Joined: 29 May 2020 Posts: 1	Game gear has black screen after replacing capacitor Posted: Fri May 29, 2020 8:55 am
Simpuns Joined: 29 May 2020 Posts: 1	Hi, I am new to soldering and after refurbishing the box to my game gear, I wanted to repair the system itself. Unfortunately when I power the game gear it now has a black screen with a game in the cartridge slot. I have attached an image. Please let me know where I could have gone wrong. Please excuse the soldering, I’m not very good. On C6 the - pad came off, I read that it can be fixed by soldering it to a ground point which are the gold points. Is it possible to fix broken pads? Thanks for any feedback, hopefully I can save this game gear. DCD785E0-C57B-49DB-B962-7689646E6876.jpeg (3.13 MB) 0D5B9A36-C00F-48B6-8060-6DCA809FD7F3.jpeg (2.98 MB)

thatawesomeguy Joined: 25 Jul 2007 Posts: 731 Location: Melbourne, Australia	Posted: Fri May 29, 2020 10:18 am
	Looks like a mix of different issues, overheating (the lifted pads), too much solder (the big blobs), insufficient cleaning of the pads and leads (poor adhesion/wetting). My advice when doing this could be first make sure the surfaces you are soldering are clean, you can use something like isopropyl alcohol or mentholated spirits to do this. Apply heat evenly to both the pad and the capacitor lead at the same time, give it a few seconds to heat up (5 seconds probably enough) then apply the solder to the pad until just enough has wicked across the join. Alternatively you can try tacking the joint by first applying solder to the pad, then apply solder to the capacitor leg, then while holding the leg to the pad heat it up with the iron and the two should flow together and join. I'm assuming you are using a cheap soldering iron, make sure you choose one that isn't too high wattage 30-40w and that the tip is not too big for what you are soldering. Try to avoid holding the iron to the PCB for more than a few seconds at a time otherwise you risk lifting the adhesive that holds the pad down, if you are unsuccessful wait a few seconds then try again, you may need to desolder and clean again if there's to much flux or solder. With the lifted pad you can try to scratch away some of the PCB resist and expose more of the trace, or alternatively find another source on the board and run a wire from there to your capacitor. Hear is a visual guide on solder joins and common problems: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-guide-excellent-soldering/common-problems

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