Broken microUSB port

[tpwong]

Have anyone experienced the microUSB port of the DAQ hardware being broken by repeated cable insertion (see the attached picture)? Is there a way to fix that?

Best

tp

[Daniel Aharoni]

Hi tp,
This has happened to a couple of our DAQ PCBs over the past few years. If the PCB traces running up to where the USB connector is support to be mounted aren't too damaged you can probably repair this. Can you upload a close up picture of the USB connector part of the PCB?

[tpwong]

Hi Daniel,

Attached you can find a close up picture of the board. Thanks for your input.

tp

[Daniel Aharoni]

Hi,
This definitely looks repairable but will require a bit of finesse. Under a steroscope you will want to straighten out all the bent traces on the PCB. It looks like 6 of the 10 traces are fully intact and just need to be gently bent back into place. For the other 4, you want to clean these up as much as possible and scrape off a millimeter or two of solder mask on the trace. Finally, you want to epoxy a new USB connector in place. You can solder the 6 intact traces directly to the USB connector. The other 4 will likely need you to use a very thin, single core wire to connect the USB connector pins to the traces. I would use wire wrapping wire, something from here https://www.digikey.com/products/en/cables-wires/wire-wrap/470.