Hi!

Just thought it might be useful for someone with an example of how broken traces on a circuit board looks. Especially those who are new to these kind of things.

Below is an example of broken traces at the U13 chip from a WPC CPU Board. I held it against a lamp to make it easier to see. Found them when I was trouble shooting the board. One can also see how someone soldered at the pins of the U13 chip as compared to the untouched pins of U12 on the top. The reason for the broken traces I don't know but I think that maybe they replaced the U13 chip and used a bit too hot soldering iron that wekened the traces.

Andy

broken_traces.jpg

Thanks!

Yeah its not pretty! Hopefully I can manage to fix it. 7, 9 and 12 yes indeed, thanks for pointing it out!

Andy

browne92,
The method you descirbe is the one and only i have tried too. Seem to work well since the continuity is still there. However i dont know what will happen with the socket in the future. To defend myself i should point out that I was NOT the one doing work on the chip in the picture =)
And yes, what they have done and why remains a mystery. The wire harness in the machine was also completely cut off! Like they tried to remove the back box and did not realize ther were connectors...

I thought holding the board against a backlighting lamp was a nice idea and it looks really good.
I might try to make a photoshop image of it, same style as the above picture but with the complete board. The thing would be to add 2 layers, one for the front and one for the back side aligned with each other. Then in photoshop one can adjust the opacity of one layer to watch one side at a time and compare the traces. Could be handy. Might do it when I have a better board to take the photos of though.

One thing i wonder though is if it would be a bad idea to hold it against sun light? I avoided it just in case. The reason is because my board has a piece of tape over one of those ereaseable chips. It is the game rom. Dont know if its "original style" or if someone burned their own. So, if held in the sunlight exposed to UV rays it might get messed up or completely ereased. If someone was planning to hold the board with the sun as backlight.

Andy

barakandl, that sounds like a nice way of doing it! Especially if you are selling the repaired boards or doing repair jobs! I might try it sometime =) (the method)

Andy