USB charging issue
Your headset does not charge anymore? Your mouse? Is the usb connector dead? Most likely not.
If it is broken you are up for a tedious process:
- It is not always easy to dissasemble the device.
- Once you have an isolated PCB you need to desolder the connector. This is the tricky part for me because as the connector is connected to the power lines, so you need to push a lot of heat very quickly to desolder the component before the heat dissipates across the PCB. There is no chance with a heat gun, it is not quick enough and you risk frying other components in the area.
- find the exact same one connector. You may think micro USB is a standard, but there are tons of different versions of it. Check out my collection. You may spend some time at digikey or mouser trying to find the model your PCB uses.
- Solder the new connector back. This is maybe the easiest part of the whole process.
But normally there is an easy way. The connectors are typically ok, the problem is that the pins sole contact with the PCB broke because of bad quality / cold solder. Cold solder plus strong mechanical forces (plus a shitty connector) are not a good combination.
If your device uses the USB port just for charging it is an easy fix. Open your device and you’ll find the pins are grouped and connected to together. Forget about the PCB. You can solder a jumper wire directly from the USB connector pins to the pcb re-creating the electrical connection.
This is what I did to rescue my CSL450 headphones.