OK, I just had to tell someone, and since most you
folks can sympathize and understand, I figured I could
tell you!
About a week ago, I had decided to get Dr. Newton's
2000 upgrade. Loaded up NCU, plugged in the dongle and
got erratic connections. After fiddleing with the
dongle, the entire port came out with the dongle when
I removed it...Yup, the whole dongle port came
out...Now, I wanted that upgrade, but I'm sorry, $170
for the upgrade and $180 to fix the Newt at Apple?
nope...I would buy a new one first (used?)
So, after my 6mb Flash card arrived (Thanks Paul)
created a backup of my Newt and proceeded to
dissassemble my life...uh, I mean my Newton!
After I took the back off, I discovered that the
dongle solder pads were on the other side of the
MotherBoard(!)After carefully unplugging every cable,
and removing all the screws (that battery spring
thingy is a pain!) I was able to flip the MB out and
lie is next to the case. I also noticed a ribbon cable
on the underside of the Newt that is held taught
against some pads using a silicon rubber pad and some
screws! I removed the pad and flipped it around so
that a new surface would be making contact.
I fired up my Weller solder station. selected my
smallest tip, put on my magnifying glasses (still
needed my photographer's Loupe to check my work),
wetted the soldering iron with solder, wiped it off
and proceeded. Using a cloths pin, I held the dongle
port against the MB, I first soldered the anchoring
points on the outside of the metal casing. Then, using
just the heat of the iron, with no solder, I remelted
the solder that was already there and let it reflow.
Each pin individuly...By now, I was sweating profusly
and could barely hold the iron. But 10 minutes after I
started soldering, I was done. I grabbed my Micronta
30X illuminated microscope (you know, that handheld
job that has a lightbulb in it) and inspected my work.
It looked good! All the pins showed fresh solder flow!
Now the tough part (btw, I took a polaroid before I
took all the connections apart...kinda force of
habit)uh-oh...one of the alignment pins for that
ribbon cable was broken off. A little dab of super
glue and some drying time...replaced the mother board,
used a standard counter-clockwise torqueing sequence
and snugged down all the screws (a little tip on
screws that have to go into plastic. Insert the screw,
then turn it backwards until you feel the screw click.
This indicates that the screw thread found the
original threads int he plastic so you don't dig new
ones and strip the plastic. This works all the time!)
Before I replaced the back, I powered the Newt and it
came up! The screen didn't have that "jaggie" problem
(yet) and everything looked good. Replaced the back,
put in the batteries, fired it up, inserted the
dongle, fired up NCU, and proceeded to perform a
backup! NCU recognized the Newt instantly, I hit
backup and viola! a backup ensued! I was astounded!
Happy, but astounded!
So, with this renewed sense of self confidence, I will
now go and weld a cracked seam on the exhaust manifold
on my Jeep! Wish me luck!
Ed
web/SMT guru
=====
this is a temporary sig file until I can figure out a more clever one to use
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 03 2000 - 09:41:11 EDT