Well I have a n800 with a broken usb jack. (and no way to get it repaired commercially) So I figured I would solder it back on. I have done SMD soldering before but I have never soldered on a multilayer PCB so I'm just wondering will it damage the PCB (more than just visually) to hand solder on it? And there is a battery nearby that worries me...

There shouldn't be any problems soldering connector back. Only danger I would see is that you overheat pads on PWB which could cause them to detach. Everything else is correctable with solder wick

Thanks! For archive sake I will post the results tomorrow

If you are nervous about doing it, I can do it for you. I do this sort of thing all the time.

It is good that you took excellent photos of the PCB, I can see there is no visible signs the board has any physical damage yet. Looks like your solder is just torn free.

The key to doing this is having the correct tools and the experience. You definitely do NOT want to use too much heat.

I'm not looking to make any money, just offering to help out a fellow member of this community. Let me know.

Regards,

M5

Note: The best tool to do this is a reflow, hot air tool on the data pins. It can be done with a 25-30 watt pencil soldering iron also, but that would be my second choice for doing the pins should you not have access to a hot air soldering tool. The four pads on the corners will need a soldering iron because the USB metal housing will suck heat away too quickly to use hot air. You'll want to remove the old solder on all the pads first, then tin the pads with fresh solder (preferably silver solder), then align the connector and reflow the solder that was put down during the tinning process. Do not overheat the substrate. Afterwards, wash the solder's flux away with a solvent and blow it dry with compressed air or nitrogen. If you used rosin fluxed solder (instead ofwater soluble flux), the common solvent choices are Toluene, Methanol or Chlorinated Brake Parts Cleaner. Use a disposable toothbrush on the area after wetting it with solvent. Immediately blow it dry before the solvent dries on it's own. Repeat the washing and compressed blow drying until the board area looks spotless.

From the looks of your pictures, the factory soldering on the four corners could have been better, which is why the connector broke free when pulled on. It is a common defect with SMT electronics when small parts and large metallic connectors are mixed on a substrate and passed through a tunnel furnace. The engineers fear a profile that is too hot, and error on the side of too cool, and you see this result. The real solution is to hand solder the four anchor corners AFTER the board exits the tunnel furnace but the extra step adds labor costs, and so it gets bypassed frequently.

This is a huge problem in the laptop computer industry where the power connector is attached to the motherboards. All the factories need to do is hand solder that section, but most of them don't and you get end-users with loose power connectors later on. It is a manufacturing defect that doesn't reveal itself until long after the product has left the factory. I have fixed close to a hundred of them.

If you do it yourself. I hope it works out. Regards.

Nice. Sounds like planned obsolescence.

CooCooCachoo.... actually the laptop manufacturers lose more than they gain because many laptop power connectors fail within the warranty period costing companies like HP/Compaq, Dell, Gateway big time.

I am not an Apple fan but I have to hand it to them in the manner they solved the problem. Apple notebooks have a connector that uses a magnet to hold a flat (rectangular) connector against a planar contact surface. If someone trips over the power wire, or the user forgets it is plugged in and carries the notebook away from a desk, the magnet just lets go of the power adapter's wire and there is no harm done. It is a smart solution. I'm sure if you ask Steve Jobs he will say it was his idea :-).

We all live in a yellow submarine.

Thank you all very much i'm going at it as soon as I eat dinner. I do have a reflow so I think I will be fine. Once again thanks! will post photos later

jchord,

Well ???

You know, I've been having all kinds of problems with my (warranty-expired) N800 having boot loops, so I finally took it apart using ThoughtFix's very helpful video/pix. It seemed to go pretty smoothly, but now I've lost any screen responsivity (although, oddly enough, the booting has actually improved!). I just examined it under magnification, inspecting the screen's plug and socket, and look what I found! You can see the one resistor (presumably) that is dangling at one location, and I think there are two other devices missing as well.
You know, I think that I actually MIGHT have the capability of soldering that loose item (I did once successfully UN-solder a resistor like that on a Mac Mini that I over-clocked), but I have no idea what to do about the missing ones. Maybe I could salvage some similar ones from some other circuitboard / broken cell phone. Any pundits know what's supposed to be there? ( I realize this might be a stretch...)
I'm in central Mexico, BTW (and might consider finding a jeweler to help me with this)!

Thanks!

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Even though your unit is out of warranty, you might consider forwarding your findings (and the pictures) to Nokia Technical Services... that is obviously a lapse in "materials and/or workmanship" in the original manufacturing process, and they should offer to fix that for you free of charge, regardless of warranty status.