Broke a switch plate trying to desolder and learned the hard way

I was rebuilding my board last night around 11pm and got too impatient with a cheap desoldering pump. The iron was set to 350C but I kept holding it on the joint too long and ended up lifting a pad and cracking the polycarb plate. Took me like 20 minutes of panic googling before I just built it without the plate and used o-rings to keep the switches snug. It actually types quieter now but feels totally different. Has anyone else had to go plateless after a screw up like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

cameron7631mo ago

Yeah, "learned the hard way" hits home. A buddy of mine tried to pull a switch out of a solder-free hotswap build and yanked the whole socket off the PCB instead. He ended up having to solder in a new socket and basically rebuilt the board from scratch, but now he checks every single joint before he even touches it.

andrew_kelly1mo ago

Worst thing I ever did was try to "fix" a bent pin on a vintage MX Black by jamming it back in and shorting out the whole left side of the board. Took me three days to trace the burned trace with a multimeter. Guess we all learn the hard way around here, huh?