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by victorstanciu 824 days ago
> There is no way of effectively repairing the connector other than throwing the motherboard away

You're exaggerating. NorthridgeFix on YouTube has probably dozens of videos of him replacing USB-C connectors. Yes, he sometimes has to replace the traces with pad strips, but that's a long way to throwing the whole board away.
1 comments
cjk2 824 days ago
Not even slightly exaggerating. The repairs are overstated.

If you think these fixes last more than a few weeks you are probably mistaken. And due to the way footprints are designed for the shells there are occluded pins which can’t be resoldered or repaired. The end game is you have a USB-C connector that only works one way up on Thursdays when the moon is aligned with Jupiter.

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justsomehnguy 824 days ago
People grind the multi-layer sandwich of iPhone connectors and BCP, restore traces on multiple layers and then get everything back so the phone is working.

It's surely less trouble to restore just a USB port.

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bzzzt 824 days ago
Which people? How many are willing to guarantee such a repair will still work a year from now?
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justsomehnguy 823 days ago
Quite surprisingly - the ones who make a living repairing the phones.

> How many are willing to guarantee such a repair will still work a year from now?

Ah, yes, everyone should prefer to throw the device away because the repairman didn't bid his head what the repair would outlive the repairman, device and device owner, amirite?

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cjk2 824 days ago
Charlatans preying on the poor and cheap I suspect.

As an actual qualified EE who used to design high speed digital and RF boards I can tell you that they might not even be working properly straight away, let alone a year from now. You'll just find out in a year what the damage to your data was.

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blkhawk 824 days ago
uh you resolder the occulded pins the same way you solder occluded pins on say a BGA. With a heat and the right paste type. Its a bit tricky but should be doable. That said I like the framework solution better - hust protect the usb-c ports by adding a short extension.
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cjk2 824 days ago
Well you don't because there is a row of pads stuck to the bottom of the connector which is torn off the board. You can only resolder and patch up the other row on the end of the connector body. The row that is torn off the board will never work again.

Also you may be lucky if it can do power delivery after that. You would be really lucky if it still works as USB hole and you'd be blessed if TB works over it after. They are pretty much transmission lines not DC.

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