Cuttle Cart 2 repair

[landsmarra]

Hello to all! I know it's been ages since I've been here and I'm not sure if any of my old friends are still around!!

 

I could REALLY use someone's help!!

 

I've owned a Cuttle Cart 2 for 7 years and it's worked flawlessly until yesterday. I pushed the MMC in too hard and unseated the plastic MMC card holder which knocked a chip off the board. It's the smallest thing with even smaller solder traces!! I got in touch with Chad Schell who immediately diagnosed it from a picture I sent. The chip I accidentally knocked off the board is still available BUT will require someone with microsoldering skills to replace it. I believe the chip has 8 tiny pins.

 

Does anyone in the community within earshot of this plea have any experience soldering tiny legs to tiny traces?

 

I can send pictures to any available party with steady hands and patience! Preferably you'd have a 7800 to test the cart (am I limiting the field too much, lol)?

 

Thanks so much in advance!

 

Steve

Edited November 19, 2010 by landsmarra

[Richard H.]

Are the traces still attached to the PCB ?

 

Chad sent me all the MMC card holders he had, a part which has been discontinued. Give me a shout if you need one. I think I also have some of the small chips too.

[+batari]

Hello to all! I know it's been ages since I've been here and I'm not sure if any of my old friends are still around!!

 

I could REALLY use someone's help!!

 

I've owned a Cuttle Cart 2 for 7 years and it's worked flawlessly until yesterday. I pushed the MMC in too hard and unseated the plastic MMC card holder which knocked a chip off the board. It's the smallest thing with even smaller solder traces!! I got in touch with Chad Schell who immediately diagnosed it from a picture I sent. The chip I accidentally knocked off the board is still available BUT will require someone with microsoldering skills to replace it. I believe the chip has 8 tiny pins.

 

Does anyone in the community within earshot of this plea have any experience soldering tiny legs to tiny traces?

 

I can send pictures to any available party with steady hands and patience! Preferably you'd have a 7800 to test the cart (am I limiting the field too much, lol)?

 

Thanks so much in advance!

 

Steve

You should post pictures here so we can get a feel for the extent of the damage. If any traces are broken, that is likely to present a much bigger problem than soldering small pins to the pads (which is actually not terribly difficult with the right equipment.) As for the chip, wouldn't it still be rattling around inside the cart shell, or was it lost or damaged? Also, a small 8-pin chip sounds like an EEPROM chip, and presumably there would be some kind of firmware on it that needs to be loaded? Edited November 19, 2010 by batari

[CPUWIZ]

Hello to all! I know it's been ages since I've been here and I'm not sure if any of my old friends are still around!!

 

I could REALLY use someone's help!!

 

I've owned a Cuttle Cart 2 for 7 years and it's worked flawlessly until yesterday. I pushed the MMC in too hard and unseated the plastic MMC card holder which knocked a chip off the board. It's the smallest thing with even smaller solder traces!! I got in touch with Chad Schell who immediately diagnosed it from a picture I sent. The chip I accidentally knocked off the board is still available BUT will require someone with microsoldering skills to replace it. I believe the chip has 8 tiny pins.

 

Does anyone in the community within earshot of this plea have any experience soldering tiny legs to tiny traces?

 

I can send pictures to any available party with steady hands and patience! Preferably you'd have a 7800 to test the cart (am I limiting the field too much, lol)?

 

Thanks so much in advance!

 

Steve

 

I am still here. Good to see you around.

 

Like Fred said, post some pics.

[Richard H.]

Also, a small 8-pin chip sounds like an EEPROM chip

I bet money on it being the NC7NZ17, it's positioned just behind the socket.

[landsmarra]

Also, a small 8-pin chip sounds like an EEPROM chip

I bet money on it being the NC7NZ17, it's positioned just behind the socket.

 

Yes, it's the 512-NC7NZ17K8X by Chad's description. See pic below. One of the chip legs is still attached to the board (U7 upper right). I may have damaged the pad but I'm no expert. I *hope* it can be salvaged:

 

 

By the way, it's great to see the old names here! Thanks so much for chiming in!!

 

Steve

[+batari]

Yes, it's the 512-NC7NZ17K8X by Chad's description. See pic below. One of the chip legs is still attached to the board (U7 upper right). I may have damaged the pad but I'm no expert. I *hope* it can be salvaged:

It looks like 7 of the 8 pads were stripped from the board. The traces leading to the pads appear fine.

 

Typically, repair of something line this requires gluing new pads to the board and tying into the existing traces. The pads have 20 mil spacing, which is really small. This is repairable, but it is a more of a professional-level repair, and is is not something most of us hobbyists can do. I don't know how much it would cost, but I'd guess a significant fraction of the value of the CC2.

 

That said, I will not offer to repair it. But if it was my personal CC2, I would improvise, and this is what I'd do: I'd scratch off the soldermask on the lower pads (lower according to the orientation of the pic) and move the chip down from its original location and solder pins directly to the traces. The upper center two pins could hit those inside traces, and the one on the upper left bent up and jumpered to the existing pad. The upper right could be bent and soldered to the trace on the right.

[Richard H.]

If you can't find anyone local, I'll do it (I'm in the UK)