Repairing burnt PCB traces- Tips?

[tommyinajar]

I've got a few old monitor chassis & game PCB's with burnt traces. Any sites or info on this? I know "Bob" has a section on Atari edge connectors missing. Mainly what's the best way?

Do you scrape off the burnt section, jump it with wires, or bridge it with solder-I am guessing this first step is to figure out YTF it burnt...

[CheffoJeffo]

There is a section in Atari's The Book on trace repair. You can probably find a copy on ArcArc.xmission.com.

[BKahuna]

Definitely remove the burned area. If it has carbonized the pcb, make sure to remove that as well; it's conductive. Sometimes you have to dig down a ways into the pcb to remove all of it. In some cases I've had to drill a hole all the way through a pcb to get rid of all of it.

After that, there are essentially two ways to go about repairing it:
1) Follow the traces back to other junctions and run a wire between those two points.
2) Scrape the masking off the traces near the break and solder a wire across the break.

The size of the wire will be dependent on how heavy the traces are.

In any case: First, fix the problem that burned the trace in the first place!

[tommyinajar]

Thanks for the link for "The Book" (Wow Atari had write a book on repairs, huh- No wonder my Pole Positions don't work.)

The one I'm working on now is a 27" Medium res Neotec that was working perfect till the guy plugged it in asap after bringing it in from the back a truck all night in 15 degree snowy Wisconsin weather

Thanks!

P.S. I also just found www.brasington.org/arcade/. They have a nice how to, too.

[WhereEaglesDare]

There is a section in Atari's The Book on trace repair. You can probably find a copy on ArcArc.xmission.com.

Havnt seen that book before, but if I had something like that 10 years ago, who knows where id be in my career now... its a real dumbed down electronic theory and repair book.  love it, Im going to recommend this to all my friends that keep saying how they want to learn to fix their own TV and stereo and stuff...

And the fact that Atari put it out just makes it so much better, i may go get it printed out and binded just to have on hand in my shop.

[tommyinajar]

The size of the wire will be dependent on how heavy the traces are.

I assume you use solid core wire, what sizes would be good to start with?  Is Wrapping Wire 30AWG good for most things as mentioned elsewhere?

[BKahuna]

Yeah, that's fine for small traces. If you have larger power or ground traces, you might want some bigger wire than that.

[jennifer]

      Well... what I do on burnt edge traces is, use A copper tape, You know the tape used for leading stained glass?
 Anyhow, cut it to size, fold it over the edge,[it"s tape it will stick there] then solder it to the orig. trace.
 works great!!!!  have done it for years.

[CheffoJeffo]

If we are talking about repairing edge connectors, there is also a video in the Restoration page in the wiki by bitslicer that is well worth watching.

[danny_galaga]

There is a section in Atari's The Book on trace repair. You can probably find a copy on ArcArc.xmission.com.

Ok, I give in. I've gone through a few links there. Is it called just 'The Book'? Cleverly simple. Since the most published book in the world has the same name, only in Greek 

[CheffoJeffo]

 

http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arcade_Atari_Kee/Atari_TM-129_The_Book.pdf

[tommyinajar]

Isn't  the Greek one called "The Good Book"?

[danny_galaga]

Isn't  the Greek one called "The Good Book"?

To Biblio- The Book.

It is automatically assumed it is good, although some of us beg to differ