I began attempting to add a VGA port to my DC and had never soldered a single thing in my entire life. Needless to say, researching a bit on what you should or shouldn't do and the necessity of flux would have probably been a good thing to do before attempting the mod. Do you think this DC is ruined or have some advice on how to fix it if not?
Does it work? Also clean up the burned parts of the board using rubbing alcohol to have a better idea of the what is damaged. You may need to do a trace rebuild. BTw use a 15 watt pencil Iron next time.
Yeah, like that's gonna happen... Someone might be able to save that poor DC, but I don't think it's within OP's skills (yet?). I too think a trace rebuild will probably be necessary, but I won't be able to tell until we get a better (cleaned) pic. Didn't you at least practice a bit beforehand, e.g. on an old alarm clock, a toy or sth like that?
Ah you've gotta learn sometime! It's half the fun! Never give up until it's melted into the ground I say Agreed on the soldering iron, I tend to use a 25W for most work but am looking to get a lower wattage iron soon. Anyway, what model do you have there? VA0, VA1, VA2? NTSC, PAL? Here's some photos of the melty looking area on yours from some of mine. VA0 PAL VA1 PAL Edit: Definitely have some more practise on something a little less valued, like a PS2 mainboard I remember trying to desolder RAM chips off a stick of RAM - worked pretty well and was fun! Soldering is just the same, I only ever use flux on drag soldering (for chips with a very fine pin pitch).
I hope the via that was connected to the rightmost pin in the upper row survived. If so that'd be good news - the other connector pins should hopefully be able to be restored by soldering from the other side, I think, if worse comes to worse. If it didn't, maybe it's reachable from the other side of the board. Then again, the socket might seriously get in the way there...? OP: If you don't manage to revive this DC, remember to at least save the working parts (drive assembly, controller ports, fan, ...).
I think it can be salvage but the top right corner is very extremely burn. But with the right skill it can be save.
These pads are TEST PADs and connections don't go through them, they just expose signals from the other side. Chances are you will put it together and it will work correctly as if nothing ever happened to it. Did you try to put it back together ? (pay ATTENTION to which screws you use to hold the GD drive. If you put the long ones at the middle spots you will REALLY DAMAGE the dreamcast beyond repair)
RGB points seem really messed up, no point of return for those ones. If the console still works, i would solder the VGA points on the top side of the connector. I haven't done it myself but i know its possible.
Op is long gone I think. I hope his machine still works, but I hope people were choosing different projects than old discontinued consoles for their first time soldering experience...
Oh damn that looks bad. I don't know if those bottom points are salvageable or not, but if the console works you can find the point from the top of the board. But honestly you need a little more practice before attempting this mod again. I'd recommend you get a good iron and use a very fine tip iron to avoid burning anything around it. It looks like you had the iron sitting on the board for a minute by how badly burned it is. Don't get discouraged tho, everyone has a first soldering project. A lot of people are going to cringe when I say this, but the second time I did a bios mod (first time I did it right surprisingly) I bricked two dreamcast motherboards in a row. Although, I have brought many more dreamcasts back from the dead so maybe killing a few to start wasn't so bad.
