Repair HD PVR2 USB connector

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Rikkitic

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Topic # 248103 10-Mar-2019 16:10

A long time ago I bought a rather expensive Hauppauge HD PVR2 for recording HDMI video. From the beginning I had problems with it. Assistance from the Help desk was grudging at best but eventually it was decided that a bad USB cable must be at fault. I changed the cable and things seemed to improve for awhile, but it never really worked right.

Over time I have played with it on occasion but never actually used it for much, partly because it was such a pain to use. Today I decided to give it another try. After some fiddling it looked like it was about to actually let me record something when suddenly everything stopped. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the USB connector had come loose from the circuit board and fallen inside!

So I opened everything up and sure enough, there it was. I now realise that my problems have been due to this connector from the beginning, and not any particular cable. I don’t understand why Hauppauge chose this crappy little micro-connector when there is plenty of room in the unit for the regular size one. Maybe it is intended to fail after a time.

I took a very close look but it is like this connector was specifically designed not to be fixable. The contacts are extremely miniscule and close together and there is nothing on the other side of the board that might be tapped into. Repairing this is almost a physical impossibility.

I am wondering if there is an outside chance that anyone has experience playing around with these. There are only four contacts for USB 2 and there ought to be some other place on the circuit board where I might have a better chance of being able to make connections, but there is nothing that can be traced. The circuits are all sandwiched between the two sides of the board. Does anyone have any bright ideas?

I reject your reality and substitute my own. - Adam Savage

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Reply # 2195170 10-Mar-2019 17:34

Picture? Im doubtful they have chosen anything nonstandard as far as the connector goes.

Richard rich.ms

Rikkitic

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Reply # 2195181 10-Mar-2019 17:55

Oh it's standard, all right. It is the tiniest, dinkiest, flimsiest standard micro-usb connector there is. I also have them on tablets and air mice where space is tight. But space is not tight on the HD PVR. All the other components, like the HDMI connectors, are the larger ones. Only this USB one is micro-sized. There is no real need for that but it sure does make it harder to fix. My question remains.

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richms

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Reply # 2195185 10-Mar-2019 18:01

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If you post a picture of it and how its detached you might get some helpful answers, otherwise its all just guessing.

Most micro USBs I have had detach have not taken the traces with them and have just needed some flux and a reflow. Watch Louis Rossmann to see how you can go about that sort of thing as he does good videos on macbook repair.

And the reason for not using the large connectors is they are usually only available in a thru hole design, so additional manufacturing costs to get them in and attached. If its a double side loaded board it really narrows down where it can be done with the addition of thru hole connectors.

Richard rich.ms

dc2daylight

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Reply # 2195202 10-Mar-2019 18:52

If you aren't worried too much about the slight risk of damaging the board (being that it's almost certainly going to be multi-layered) you could desolder it, and attach a multicore cable of a short length to a larger connector on the outside of the case. Bond the larger cable to something stronger on the case with a cable tie or glue, to take flexing of the solder joints creating mechanical strain away. Might be worth it if you value the unit for sentimental or practical reasons.

Or you could reflow the connector, and improvise a mechanical clamp of some type around it somehow.

Rikkitic

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Reply # 2195216 10-Mar-2019 19:26

I will upload a picture later. I don't see any way this can be reflowed. It is beyond me in any case. I would be fine with a cable but don't see how even that could be done.

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Rikkitic

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Reply # 2195354 10-Mar-2019 22:02

Okay, here are some photos. I don't have a phone so have to take them with a camera.

The row of five tabs that would have to be resoldered is marked with a red arrow. The connector is below the circuit board with the corresponding tabs marked. The photo to the right gives a sense of the dimensions with a tape measure. In the photos it actually looks roomier than it really is, but the tabs are tiny and very close together. I'm sure an expert with specialist equipment could do it, but there is no way I could. I speak from bitter experience and this is far worse than anything I have ever attempted.

I would be happy to have a small USB cable attached to the tabs on the circuit board if I could figure out how to do it. I don't care what it looks like if I can just get it to work again and I could connect the cable to a normal USB 2 connector.

Anyway, that's what it looks like.

I reject your reality and substitute my own. - Adam Savage

dc2daylight

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Reply # 2195418 11-Mar-2019 01:08

What I would do personally, would be to sacrifice the connector itself by taking it apart carefully (with pliers and side cutters) to the point of where the plastic tab holds the strip of connection pads; resolder the connection pads and plastic strip as one item, anchor it more securely with the existing groundplane/mechanical tabs (the larger holes on the side of the PCB) maybe with two tiny nuts and bolts and a metal plate across the top or just resoldered. Then I would solder the pads to multicore leads of an external prewired molded usb 2.0 connector, just one chopped off a junk peripheral. The reason to do it this way is because by having the connection pads soldered in place as one unit, it will give you another 2-3 millimetres of pin to solder the leads onto instead of the hassle of doing it straight to the pcb pads.

Cheap,simple,does the trick. Maybe 30 mins max of tedium and fiddlyness with a circuit board clamp or second pair of hands helping out.

Rikkitic

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Reply # 2195573 11-Mar-2019 09:33

Thanks for the suggestion. I very much doubt this is something I could do. I have no experience with micro-soldering and every time I have attempted to do anything like this it has gone horribly wrong. The tabs are really close together and I don't know how I could solder any of them without the solder flowing into the others. This is beyond my limited abilities. I was hoping someone might be able to point me to other locations on the circuit board where I would have a better chance of attaching to the USB lines.

I reject your reality and substitute my own. - Adam Savage

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Reply # 2195716 11-Mar-2019 11:22

Its not what you want to hear , but just by a used one off trademe.

This one sold for $40
https://www.trademe.co.nz/gaming/other/listing-1975990106.htm

Otherwise , pay a repairer to do it for you, $100 for their time I'd imagine.

Rikkitic

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Reply # 2195720 11-Mar-2019 11:28

Yeah, good point. I may just forget about it.

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dc2daylight

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Reply # 2195722 11-Mar-2019 11:31

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Your welcome, anytime... But don't give up, this is an easy fix really! $40 for a used one, or the thrill of DIY and ideally no money down - priceless.

Firstly with your idea of soldering on a different part of the board, you are going to need more pics I'm afraid. I doubt anyone of us here can psychically remote view the circuit board layout or schematic. Being that it's haupage I'd expect it to be near impossible to find a service manual for, and these types of things aren't usually intended to be serviced at all a lot like television remote controls or disposable $35 cameras.

There is a saying you must have heard which goes along the lines of - If you think you can't do something, then you won't achieve it.

Why not practise on another dead or junked USB peripheral with the same connector type? Just fire up your soldering iron, and gratuitously allow yourself to bridge the contact pads with solder, then attempt to clean it up and remove it ? It's actually kind of fun to get a feel for the dynamics of how the solder flows with different types of solder, and with different irons and temperature settings. If your iron is a cheapie at around 30-40 watts, you will want to stick to lead solder only. Unleaded is the bane of professional service techs, and requires a much higher temperature and very clean surfaces to flow properly. Don't worry about the fumes with leaded, just keep the room well ventilated with some windows open.

Important Suggestion - Make sure you clean up all the surfaces beforehand with ISO, and check your soldering iron tip is tinned properly and clean, as this makes a huge difference.

If you don't have a solder sucker already then buy one as they are cheap and incredibly handy. For closeup work at this scale with SMT stuff, solder wick tends to work better. Jaycar sell the Goot variety, which although it's a name brand I found doesn't it work very well, but kind of works. It just uses capillary action combined with the interwoven metal fibres being coated in a tiny amount of flux to absorb the solder. I suspect this Jaycar stuff has no added flux at all actually. Have a look at the videos on youtube about solder flux, and solder paste or gel, and you will see how maleable solder really is under the right conditions.

As you already observed - the board has many layers, eg at each layer of the pcb there is a separate track layout that you cannot access physically, which will hugely complicate matters of finding somewhere else to solder on to.And as RichMS observed - there is a good chance that if you heat the tracks up too much you risk them detaching from the board.

However it's all about timing, not heating the pcb for too long at any one time, and making the fix easier on yourself by planning or visualising beforehand how you will do it. You'll feel really good once you ace it, and find out how the biggest barrier was actually only your own mind. :-)

Rikkitic

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Reply # 2195800 11-Mar-2019 13:20

I admire your optimism. I may give it a go when I'm in the right headspace. Nothing to lose, I suppose.

I reject your reality and substitute my own. - Adam Savage

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Reply # 2196480 12-Mar-2019 12:03

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You should be able to solder the socket back on, but will need a good iron & some soldering skills . Some sort of magnifier really helps with that small stuff, especially to check it afterwards

If you have a multimeter

plug a USB cable (EXTENDER CABLE) into the USB socket as is.

Cut the USB cable in half , strip back the wires . Use meter to see what color wires would go to each point on the MB where the socket was (no need to find somewhere else on the board)
Use the other 1/2 of the cable, strip back & solder wires direct to mb where USB port was.

If copper traces on the board were ripped off, then write it off .
I wouldnt spend any more than an hour trying to fix it. If it takes longer, chances are its a no win situation :-)

Rikkitic

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Reply # 2196487 12-Mar-2019 12:30

I have to wonder what I am missing here but I can't see any way that I could even come close to soldering that damned connection. The traces are fine but they are really tiny and close together. If I touch that with any of my soldering tools I will fuse half the board together. I don't doubt it can be done with the right equipment and skills, but I don't see any way I can do it with what I have and I'm not prepared to buy a lot of specialist stuff for a one-off job. I would probably screw it up anyway.

I reject your reality and substitute my own. - Adam Savage

dc2daylight

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Reply # 2196650 12-Mar-2019 17:25

Rikkitic:

I would probably screw it up anyway.

Logically, if you do then:

1) You could unscrew-it-up, by desoldering the whole connector and starting over and trying a different plan of attack, providing no tracks lifted.

2) Put it down to experience , then buy the $40 used one, noting you learned how not to solder a tiny connector.

3) Stoke more collaboration here and out of the box thinking by writing about what you tried, asking questions, and hopefully inspiring someone else to give a similar repair a go some time in the future when they read this thread.

Apart from 30 - 60 mins,a few centimeters of solder and an old molded plastic USB connector from something else, what have you got to lose?

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