From: Ed Kummel (tech_ed_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Nov 16 2004 - 15:01:21 PST
Well, let me tell you...I Do have the skills
(certified soldering for Tempest Technology for the US
government) and I had access to the correct tools and
I tried to repair the dongle port...it didn't work.
Here is the problem. There are no "wires" per-se. The
solder connectors come out of the main body and are
soldered directly onto the MoBo. There is a metal band
that straps around the plastic body of the dongle and
solders to the right and left of the dongle. The
housing from the case makes it a tight fit and almost
rubs against the dongle on the inside.
The way the dongle is secured to the Mobo is not very
well thought out. The Mobo has two indentations. The
dongle has two plastic bumps (?nipples?) that sit
inside the indentations on the Mobo. The metal strap
presses the plastic dongle against the Mobo so that
the indentions and bumps prevents the dongle from
pushing in. BUT! Because all the solder connections
are surface, not through the board, there is NO
structural strength to this besides the friction
between the plastic dongle and the Mobo. Once the
dongle is pushed in, it will no longer ever work
again. Two reasons for this.
1) it is almost impossible to solder the metal strap
tight enough against the mobo to create a binding
strong enough to hold the dongle
2) the reason the dongle got pushed in in the first
place is that one or both of the plastic bumps on the
dongle will have sheered off and will no longer hold
the plastic onto the mobo...
I managed to get my dongle soldered on long enough to
backup my data before I sent it to Apple for repair.
They said that they repaired the dongle port, but they
didn't... but they DID replace the exterior case and
the digitizer, it was suffering from a sever case of
the jaggies...But when I got it back (btw, apple is no
longer doing this) the dongle port was still bad. So,
I just ordered a SER-001 and that took care of
that...no more worries!
Ed
web/gadget guru
http://newton.tek-ed.com (download Newton packages)
--- Paul Dunford <pauldunfordnyc_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
The problem is the port itself is not
> built well and eventually
> > will fail, and once it does most people feel that
> it is not worth it to
> > fix (like I said unless you are a PRO at small
> scale soldering).
>
> I certainly understand my limitations, and small
> scale soldering is
> DEFINITELY outside of my abilities! I was just
> wondering if something might
> have been jogged loose and could be plugged in
> again. I am assuming that
> the myriad tiny wires in the interconnect slot must
> be very easy to snap.
> Probably wouldn't even be able to tell!
><snip>
=====
"I'm not an expert, but I *did* stay at a Holiday Inn Express once..."
--Holiday Inn Commercial
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