Are you good with a cold trace pen?

[CatHerder]

If you've repaired cut circuit trails before, or have fixed a pcb with a handy dandy cold trace pen in the past, I just shoved a GVP EGS REV 3 (Spectrum Graphics) video card on eBay for 99 cents. The description says it all...



Click to enlarge

[koaftder]

CatHerder wrote:
If you've repaired cut circuit trails before, or have fixed a pcb with a handy dandy cold trace pen in the past, I just shoved a GVP EGS REV 3 (Spectrum Graphics) video card on eBay for 99 cents. The description says it all...



Click to enlarge

A few years ago i was messing in a 133MHz pc and my screwdriver slipped, and i cut through like 20 lines next to the processor. I was able to fix it easily by rubbing off the lacquer in that area gently, and then i tinned my soldering iron, put a blob of solder on the end and just ran the iron back and forth quickly accross the cut traces. They patched up easily and none of the solder bridges fused with their neighbors.

[motorollin]

Sounds scary!  :-o

--
moto

[Argus]

[/quote]
A few years ago i was messing in a 133MHz pc and my screwdriver slipped, and i cut through like 20 lines next to the processor. I was able to fix it easily by rubbing off the lacquer in that area gently, and then i tinned my soldering iron, put a blob of solder on the end and just ran the iron back and forth quickly accross the cut traces. They patched up easily and none of the solder bridges fused with their neighbors. [/quote]

I did the same thing on an A2000 trying to remove the power supply plug in the middle of the m/b (probably for the first time since it was manufactured).  The screwdriver slipped and I nicked one address line.  This was a dead motherboard due to battery leakage and after I had repaired that area I had forgot about the nicked line.  Eventually, I remembered it and was able to just run a small wire between a via and the chip the trace ran to and presto, it has worked fine since.  :-D

[Debaser]

By looking at that it appears to be more severe than what some wire jumpers or tinned soldering iron can do <-- that would likely cause a mess or a cold solder joint anyhow.

You might want to give it to a professional - Or go to QRZ.com (ham radio operator forum) and ask for their advice.

Good luck

[amigaoneproductions]

Looks like about 10 mins work to fix that,  (and five of those mins are me waiting for the soldering iron to warm up :-) )

[Plaz]

@amigaoneproductions

I concure doctor. It's hard to tell just from that picture, but it doesn't look bad at all. Sharp blade to scrape away a bit of the insulation, a touch of solder and you're done. Again it's hard to tell from the picture, but I don't see where the scratch is bad enough to break a trace. What was more common on the old spectrums was the death of the video chip due it mistakes made while pluging in adaptes and monitors. If there is a larger break, the insulation scrape and bridge made with a small peice of tinned wire work great. You'll need a steady hand and a bit of patients though. Cold trace pens were always too big and clunky for my repairs. I hope you get it working, good luck.

Plaz

[Zac67]

I'd prefer the soldering option with a pointed iron. Cold trace pen fixes may break again after some time, and you'd probably want extended life for the card, wouldn't you?

Hard to tell from the fuzzy picture, but it really doesn't look very severe.

[AmiGR]

Nah, it's very easy to repair such a thing with a soldering iron some tin and some solder flux.I actually guess that even solder paste would do the job quite nicely, after removing the lacquer from the area..

[Floid]

koaftder wrote:

A few years ago i was messing in a 133MHz pc and my screwdriver slipped, and i cut through like 20 lines next to the processor. I was able to fix it easily by rubbing off the lacquer in that area gently, and then i tinned my soldering iron, put a blob of solder on the end and just ran the iron back and forth quickly accross the cut traces. They patched up easily and none of the solder bridges fused with their neighbors.

A long, long time ago (in Nuts and Volts or Computer Shopper, I believe), I read about a paint-on gel product designed to bridge sliced traces whilst being resistive enough not to short out neighboring ones.  Their demo was said to be a sliced-up 386 or similar running submerged in a tank of the stuff.

Sadly, I have no idea of the name, let alone if it's still made, but it might be worth looking into if you're prone to such things.

[adonay]

Floid wrote:

A long, long time ago (in Nuts and Volts or Computer Shopper, I believe), I read about a paint-on gel product designed to bridge sliced traces whilst being resistive enough not to short out neighboring ones.  Their demo was said to be a sliced-up 386 or similar running submerged in a tank of the stuff.

Sadly, I have no idea of the name, let alone if it's still made, but it might be worth looking into if you're prone to such things.

I used to use the gel that are used to fix the lines in a carbackwindow i just used the thinest brush i could find from a hobby store easy as that i fixed the pcb in a few dab radioes that had fallen from their shelves, a voodoo bashee card pII mobo + amd xp 2000 multiplyer fix for overclocking the cpu and belive me those L" bridges are  smallor was it L1 bridge cant rememmber but annyways it works like a charm still

Adonay  :-D