Broken tablet microUSB socket

[Rihards Veips]

3 Months ago my tablets microusb socket broke and took all the pads with it except the 5volt and ground - i fixed it with 2 wires and a computer floppy drive plug because i didnt have the microusb socket available in my local electronics store.. yesterday the ground wire broke off with the pad and I was wondering, can I connect the ground directly to the battery ground?

[madworm]

You could use a DMM to measure resistance between the connector GND and battery GND. If it is essentially zero in both directions, it might be ok.

[wraper]

Connect to the ground closest to the broken connector. There should be plenty around the pads where connector was soldered. I even fixed mobile phones with all pads taken off. Scraped off PCB to expose next inner layer of copper where to solder connector body (there usually is a ground under the pads where connector body was soldered) and connected all pins with thin wires to the smd components which where connected to the broken pads. If some were connected directly to BGA and no exposed place available, just scrped off pcb material to expose track in the inner layer. Of course that is some kind of masochism and reacquired microscope and a lot of time but proved to be pretty rugged solution.

[wraper]

Here are some photos

[wraper]

one more

[orion242]

Connect to the ground closest to the broken connector. There should be plenty around the pads where connector was soldered. I even fixed mobile phones with all pads taken off. Scraped off PCB to expose next inner layer of copper where to solder connector body (there usually is a ground under the pads where connector body was soldered)

Just did the same on a kindle fire.  There is a ground plane under the socket nicely exposed if the mounting tabs rip off the top layer.  Scraped off the mask, cleaned, and got the replacement jack on pretty well without issue.

[orion242]

Wow, mine wasn't that bad.  That looks like it took a good chunk of two layers.

Nice kapton work!

[wraper]

That one was real PITA. 3 traces go directly to BGA and that vibra motor in the back which is pretty massive, so all wires unsoldered when soldering it back it with a hot air. So end up with high board preheat and heating that vibra on top with soldering iron.

[Rasz]

wow that is nasty

[Rihards Veips]

Thank you for the help everyone I fixed it