Brute force and electronics don't get along so well - episode 2

Another case for repair!

Somebody saw my original repair post for poor GPU and asked me if I could fix his motherboard.

Seems like owner has tried to install new CPU cooler and screwdriver pierced motherboard coating and one of the memory lines is cut. 

Here are the pictures that he shared with me

http://imgur.com/a/IzY0n

Things are a bit harder now because you see those are timing lines, which means instead of trusting chip to control when timing signals are released you trust good old physics. Electric flow speed is about 50-99% of speed of light depending on medium it is traveling. So with some length difference between lines you get wanted delay for signal to arrive at the destination (this design is utilized with some oscilloscopes to measure very high frequency signals (over 500MHz))

So for this repair I need to trace the line very carefully and use same width repair copper foil.

Below are pictures of the fix.

Now I just have to wait a bit until the board owner tests does the board work now.

Edit: Owner reported me that motherboard works perfectly. One less device for WEEE.

Logitech G500 mouse repair guide for cable, ghost clicks, switches etc

Logitech G500 fixes:

• Ghost click guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWJk4EWfyOA
• Cable repair guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmgcGRcuYtc
• Left / Right mouse button (general guide): http://superuser.com/questions/339587/logitech-m705-left-mouse-button-doesnt-stay-down-when-pressed
• Scroll wheel (middle) mouse button: This blog post

Tools needed

- Small screwdriver set

- Soldering station with iron (flat head works best)

- Solder (you need very small amount)

- Desoldering braid

- Tweezers

- Shear cutter

New parts needed:

- 4x4x0.8mm SMD tactile switch push button 4 pins (costs 2 cents each if you buy 100 of these)
You can buy these from ebay

Warnings:

• You should not try this fix during warranty (Logitech sends you a new mouse if button stops working during warranty cover time)
• It is recommended to have a cup or something for screws, springs, so you don't lose them
• You should not try this fix by yourself if do not have steady hand to solder SMD components. Main switch covers will melt if you touch them with your soldering iron.
• Fix takes about 5-10 minutes for experienced hobbyist / professional but if you have not soldered before take your time.
• I used 370C temperature for soldering and desoldering

Step by step: Or watch disassembly video (until to the metal clip removal)

1. With a small flat screwdriver or with tweezers take off the pads
2. With a small cross screwdriver loosen screws under pads, notice there is one screw driver under "Logitech G500"-sticker. You do not have to take off sticker, there is ready cut for access already (just push screw driver into the hole)
3. Lift cover off 
4. With finger nail, tweezers or screwdriver open ribbon cable connector from cover's side (smaller PCB), do not use force! 
5. If you have a small red cable attached between cover and base, unsolder the red cable from main PCB (Older revisions have this cable)
6. Unscrew red weight slot system (3 screws)
7. To take off wheel, next to the free-wheel button is a black plastic pin which slides sideways, take it off. Now you can lift scroll wheel out (no screws holding it) (note: next to SW3 switch are two very small springs, which are not secured to anything)
8. Unscrew metal clip at front of the mouse
9. Desolder SW3 pads
10. Remove broken SW3 (you probably can see the dome on switch has collapsed inside). To remove SW3 warm one corner with iron and lift that corner up a bit with tweezers and move to next corner. Again do not use force, you don't want PCB's pad to come off. Repeat this process until the switch comes off (takes a bit practice).
11. Desolder SW3 pads again and add solder to one pad
12. Cut extra length off from new switch's legs (short cut will happen when you screw the metal clip back during assembly)
13. Solder new switch in place
14. After soldering, connect mouse to PC without assembly and test does the new switch work
15. If no problems, assemble mouse in reverse order.
16. If you had to remove the red cable, solder it back.
17. Screw the metal clip
18. Attach two small springs next to the switch
19. Put scroll wheel back in (note the plastic part must go under the metal clip)
20. Put the plastic pin back in
21. Put the weight slot back in
22. Slide ribbon cable back into the connector and close the lid.
23. Screw the cover back and attach the pads

Assembly video:

Damaged switch (the button cover dome has collapsed)

Damaged switch has been soldered off

New switch in place, had to remove the switch to shorten legs (the metal clip will short cut button)

Couple devices to be fixed

Logitech G500

Alright, I have owned Logitech G500 4 years now and had it warranty changed once. Those who own probably have had problems with it like double clicking (brand new), middle-mouse button doesn't work, wheel doesn't spin, free wheel function doesn't work, cable problems and so on... Recently they admitted firmware problem with ~45ms delay with clicks. 

Anyway so my G500 problem has always been middle mouse button just dies, and it seems to be very cheap switch indeed. With patch of 100 it costs 2 cents each. With Logitech production size most likely cost is below 1 cent. Oh they use these switches even with their highest end G9 mouses aswell. I originally posted quick tutorial how to fix these mouses on Logitech forums but it got deleted right away and my account was set to banned status for a moment.

So logitech doesn't want information how their mouses can be repaired to be shared on their forums, so have to make a good tutorial for it. I am currently still waiting for switches to arrive from China and when I get them I will make full tutorial.

ZTE 931WII Modem

I received this free trough forum. Owner said it fried when plugged into outlet. So far only thing which I have checked is power supply which is dead. I will later get to laboratory and start inspecting PCB what is broken / fried if anything is wrong. Might just be that power supply died and the modem itself is good to go.

Stay tuned.

New year, old shit

I love winter but some guys don't like and keep pouring salt on roads to melt winter. Sadly car's don't like salty water at all

Last winter's damages: hand brake ceased (again), a dent on exhaust (pot hole), a crack under bumber (pot hole) and ARB bushes have splitted (MOT issue if they spot it).

How to fix hand brake? 100% Rubber hammer time, give a good beating to hand brake hook at brake caliper to get it moving then use a ton of CRC, hammer a lot more then clean hook from salty mud if any of that shit is left. Works? Yes

A dent on exhaust: no rust yet so cleaned it and put some rust cover mass on it, so most likely no problem.

The crack under bumber? No big deal, nobody sees it and it doesn't affect anything. I will hang MOT dude if he says anything about it, it is just a decoration under car.. For fucks sake

The next issue is ARB bushes. I was working whole 2014 year and I didn't have time to fix everything so I let guys at garage to look at those bushing and call me if there any cracks. Well shit 3 months later a crack on both ARB bushes, I bet they did nothing so probably not going there anymore. Okay for some miracle those bushes could have splitted after the garage visit but I had symptoms (shaking, no wheel alignment issue) and car would't stabilize during turns (shock issue or ARB issue or both).

Shocks are fine, no leaks and shaking on standstill stops just fine so probably bushes then. I should have known but there is next project for summer to change those ARB bushes. Need to put whole car front on jacks, go under it, unbolt ARB, take out old bushes and put in new ones with white grease. 

Do not buy wheels that do not have enough big center bore hole. Seriously, it costs damn a lot for simple job.

So I bought new summer wheels that were on Nissan before. Nissan uses 66.1mm center bore and my Forfour 67.1mm. Not big difference but enough big for wheel not to go on hub. Dealer said to me it has aluminium rings to make bore smaller but surprise surpise. Behind wheels under all that dirt you find "Nissan" word and then you know you're screwed.

So what this happy nice operation costs? Now first thing you need to get the rubbers off first. Yes they cannot make center bore bigger without removal of tires. It won't fit into machine.  (Unless you got clown car wheels). Well anyway tire removal costs 10-30€ depending on shop but if you go at busiest time of the year then you have to use more expensive ones if you want to get your wheels before autumn. 1mm removal costs me a total of 30€, not too bad thank god but then comes the fun part... Fitting new tires... Now because it is the busiest time for tire shops, cheap ones cannot do it within month so off to blood suckers. Blood sucker took 19€ for one wheel. 19€!!! Grand total: 20+30+76 = 126€ to install wheels. Great deal! Now you see they only charged 30€ from me, how much other shops would have? 50? 100? Lesson: Always check center bore diameter on wheel, you can make it smaller very cheaply, making it bigger... Well that costs about 15 times more

Everything will be repaired soon

Just a small update

Tiny update what will be done and what has been done. Basically 170.000km driven and took the car to garage to change engine and transmission oils. Transmission was feeling already a bit stiff so decided that it was time to change the oil. Also asked them to change front brake disks and pads because didn't have time to do that myself.

Anyway noticed how the old gang repairmen know a lot more than youngsters. This garage was next to my workplace and they had never serviced Smarts before but how hard it can be? Not really hard because they managed to do full A-service, change brake disks, check every little detail on the service menu in meager two hours. Other garage that I liked wasn't able to do just hand brake repair in that time. Oh they were cheaper with labor costs also so guess. 

Anyway they also mentioned that driver's side rear wheel bearing is noisy (hadn't noticed) and rear brake disks also are very worn. Well decided to do those repairs myself, so probably next week time to jack up the car if parts arrive on time.

Other than that? Nope it is completely repaired with all hidden problems fixed also. Damn buying used car is not easy. Just need to order expensive spare key and then time to start modding.

Mods? But you fixed your car and now you're going to modify it?

Yup but you spend a lot time inside your car when you commute to work and do nice weekend trips so you probably want to enjoy the ride.

Mods that will be done:

- Mud flaps to front (actually bought already these, just need to think about how to mount these)

- USB charging ports

- Converting to ethanol fuel

- Upgrading radio to multimedia / car computer one

- Changing interior and parking lights to LED's

- Trying to find original center arm rest (TwinFace)

More posts probably coming when I start modding the car.

Smart ForFour - MOT passed, a couple things needed to be repaired.

MOT, most people are afraid this, what is broken / what I need to fix to pass this and drive legally?

Well I knew my car wasn't going to pass at first try (noise from wheel) but I bought this car a half year ago and I haven't yet even looked underneath of it so there could be surprises that need to be repaired. I thought lets go fail once and do after check to pass the car with all problems fixed.

So what did I fail for? 

There was no bite on left handbrake, so over 70% difference fail. Then I got also two warnings. Wheel bearing is worn (my original thought what was going to fail but just warning) and right side lights foggy. The funny thing is I took my car to local garage to fix handbrake (left side!) and now there is no bite. So under warranty they fixed it and cause was jamming brake cylinder (rusty). Next morning took car back to MOT check and passed with previous warnings.

So the warnings

I made a video how the failing wheel bearing sounds inside your car but camera's microphone is so bad that you maybe cannot notice the difference. Basically it sounds like someone is flying a propel airplane next to you. I added text boxes to tell you can hear the sound and what is regular engine noise.

Turns out the failing wheel bearing in Smart ForFour is expensive fault if you repair it at Smart-Center because they want to change whole wheel carrier which takes long and carrier costs over half grand. Cheaper option is to use indies who have SKF 2.1 wheel bearing (hub) removal and installation tool or something similar to take out the hub and put a new one back in. The spare hub costs 60-250€ depending on what you want but the original is manufactured by SKF and its part code is VBKA 6680 which costs 100-300€ depending on seller. I ordered mine from topautoosat.fi and paid 100€ for one. I ordered two because I noticed other one was starting to get bad also. Labor cost was 120€ which I thought was pretty ok.

Other warning was foggy lights because dirt and condensation have made inside the light assembly so I have to take them off and clean them which is pretty simple job thanks to easily removeable plastic panels. (18-26) screws/bolts depending do you have sideskirts installed. After that just unbolt light assemblies and clean them and let them dry well. 

What else?

Well turns out CV-joint is in suberp condtion still and bad wheel bearing was making those clanking noises. And garage told me the other side wheel bearing is still in good condition so they didn't bother changing it thus reducing labor costs 120€ and I have a spare wheel bearing (hub) ready if it fails.

Hopefully no more costly repairs awhile.

 

Brute force and electronics don't get along so well

Okay here is a friendly reminder what happens when you rush when things are not going as planned.

Picture owned by V1N3 @ Murobbs

Ouch... That is a dead graphics card now. Busted screw and tried to use pliers and shit happened. 6 lines broken and very deep scratch on PCB. Dead card for most.

But hey because I read MuroBBS often and saw the cry for help decided to help V1N3 with this problem. He sent that card to me trough postage when I promised to fix it at work during my lunch break.

I took my camera with me but forgot my storage card on my desk so it was not really use. Managed only take one some what good picture when I finished fixing the lines

Picture owned by ME! (yeah wanted to say that, feel free to use when you mention the owner)

And after some make up

Yeah fixed them good and pretty. Nobody will notice

Sadly I wasn't able to test the card because I don't have any spare GPU cooler that fits to HD6970 so going to send it back to its original owner and hear his thanks trough email or grief how I have failed. Did it succeed or not? To be continued