Repair of damaged PCB

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Ken71Twister

Ken71Twister

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What’s the best way to repair this?

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If its a very small gap it can be bridged with just solder. You can also use a small piece of wire to bridge it. Another alternative is copper pcb trace repair tape. I have done this type of repair hundreds of times. Most often on much smaller traces, some needing magnification to see.
 
Best? Replace the board with a new one. 2nd best, replace the board with a good used one. 3rd best, solder across the gap as mentioned.
 
MoparMike1974 said:
If its a very small gap it can be bridged with just solder. You can also use a small piece of wire to bridge it. Another alternative is copper pcb trace repair tape. I have done this type of repair hundreds of times. Most often on much smaller traces, some needing magnification to see.
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^^^^This guy does nice work ^^^^
 
No need to buy a new board for that. Anyone that can solder a little bit can fix that in a couple minutes.
 
You don't need a new board if that's all that wrong with it. If you don't feel comfortable soldering it yourself see if MoparMike1974 will do it for you.

Tom
 
A friend of my has experience with this type of work and he added the piece of stranded wire across the break. I’ll check it in the morning but I’m optimistic that this will put me back in business. A new board would be nice but I’m impatient to get back to installing my new meter match device to correct my fuel gauge. I just need to avoid creating any more direct shorts as I complete this project.

IMG_1356.jpeg
 
Ken71Twister said:
A friend of my has experience with this type of work and he added the piece of stranded wire across the break. I’ll check it in the morning but I’m optimistic that this will put me back in business. A new board would be nice but I’m impatient to get back to installing my new meter match device to correct my fuel gauge. I just need to avoid creating any more direct shorts as I complete this project.

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Some of the older boards had issues with the large connector pins getting loose. My 70 Duster had that issue so I had to replace the board. Yes, I could have resoldered the loose pins but for me buying a new board was better because it nearly guaranteed things would work. Too much work to find out my soldering job did not get the job done. Also, having the right soldering iron is key for fixing those traces. All I had was a soldering gun and it got too hot (I've seen guys wrap a larger piece of copper wire to the end of the gun to alleviate that). Back in the 70's I tried repairing a bad PCB trace with my soldering gun and the heat made the trace curl up off of the board. Ugh.
 
That does not look like the best solder job.
Looks like the trace wasn't as hot as the wire.
Might snap off pretty easy.

That IS the hard part of that particular repair.
 
I’d just make things worse if I tried to “improve” the solder job. See any harm in putting a drop of glue on the top center of the red wire to keep it in place?
 
Definitely a cold solder joint. I would redo the joint using flux paste, which will help get through the rust. If you have a good solder joint, it won't need glue, and if you have a bad one, glue won't save it.
 
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