Alright. I purchased a spare VDF off paul and was attempting an install this evening
in an extra MKII and things went very bad.

First, I damaged the harness for the display board as shown in the first diagram.
It accidently caught as I was pulling the board out. That was bad, but fix-able.

Next, things turned very bad. I had removed the broken VFD by cutting the leads
near the VFD as reccomended, then removing the excess wires one by one using
two people and being very careful.

Afterwards, I started removing the excess solder. In the process thereof an entire
lead came right off the board before I could wink an eye. The damage is shown below.

I feel very sad at the moment. Where do I go from here?

Oops, all is not lost however, the easiest thing to do would be to trace the circuit you've pulled off back to where it came from, either a component or a via. You could then solder a thin piece of wire from there back to the display board. Try to make the new wire the same length as the original track to avoid any timing funnies.

... and be more careful, I use desolder braid very carefully and I've found I can remove most things off boards without any damage.

I've had such bad luck so far this evening, I don't know that I have the patience to complete the task at hand, at least for the rest of tonight. I am just too pis#$ed off right now.

I'll wait until I get all the feedback on this thread, assess the situation logically, before continuing with any labor.

Ow...

I know that it is possible to put a piece of wire to patch the lead, but that is way beyond my skill level. I know others here have done it though.

Worst case, are there any spare part display boards left in empeg towers?

I think all the spares got moved from empeg towers to schofield manson when support moved

Where are you located?

Ach. Too much heat, not enough flux.

Where are you? That is fixable.

If you are in the US I could solder it for you, I have been soldering since I was 10 years old and have fixed many problems much worse than that. If you are interested just pm or better yet email me, all I would ask would be the shipping costs. I once repaired a TV at the repair shop that had fallen off a stand and hit the floor, when I was done repairing the traces I counted the cracks that I had fixed... they added up to 108.

I am located in Seattle, WA area. I am very appreciative btw, as it seems clear at this point that using a 45W iron when what I really needed was a dedicated soldering station is just a bad idea.

I am in South Carolina, If you would like for me to repair it for you just send me a email.

Also if you had left the old display in place while desoldering, it would have served as a heat sink and might have prevented the trace from lifting. I did neglect to mention however that we use a 20-watt soldering station for the job, but 45 watts is usually out of the league of electronics work anyway. But yes, as the others have said your board can be repaired. We can do it too but I'm sure others here are equally capable.

Stu

Hey guys- Ben (aka MrFixIt) was nice enough to come forward and offer his own time to fix my unit for me being an experienced empeg enthusiast! I am sending it off to him today, and really appreciate everyone's replies!

I'm not sure that the glass would have helped much in dissipating the heat. Anyway, I got the impression that the damage was done during pad clean up, and not during VFD removal.

I got "ravetek's" empeg working but, it also had a blown smd fuse, any of you empeg people have any....Paul ? I have the part number for digikey but I figured it may be faster if somone had a one they would send to me.

We have some. PM me if interested.

Stu

Greetings!

Sorry, no spare fuses here... Stu has them, though.

Thanks for the quick responses.... Stu, you have a PM.

well paul, i think i finally realize how you have so many posts.

edit : i dint notice the bit where he directs the question to you. sorry

Greetings!

No problem. I was just following up - usually I do have various spare bits, but nothing that small / requiring that level of skill to repair.

Edit: Also, I have been around on the board for a few years. That tends to help...

By the way, any update on your player?

I have his player repaired , I am just waiting on the smd fuse (Stu is sending me one). As soon as I receive the fuse it will be going right out.

I used a very tiny strand of wire in place of the fuse for testing.

Here are some more pics of the temp fuse and the ide header repair and the trace repair.

Nice work!

Agreed!

VERY slick!

Thanks guys, I got the new fuse today and instaled it so now it is ready to go.


If anyone else needs anything done just let me know.

Looking at the header for his display ribbon connector in that last photo, makes me wonder if you shouldn't touch that up, too, before sending it to him.

It does look funny in the photo I think because of the light, but the solder goes well up the sides of the leds of those header pins. Actually if you look at the pic where I had the wire in place of the fuse it looked totaly different.
Ok you win

Everything looks fantastic, a very professional job! Perhaps with some more
experience and better tools I can one day fix a trace that good. MrFixIt is
dropping the unit back to me, and I should have it shortly. Thanks again
everyone on this thread for your assistance. I really appreciate it!