Fried a Teensy controller during a soldering session in my garage

Was working on a new ergo split build around 11 PM and got overconfident with my iron. Accidentally bridged two pins on the controller with a glob of solder and saw a tiny puff of smoke. Board stopped responding immediately. Cost me $22 for a replacement and two days of waiting. Anyone else ever kill a component this way and have tips for avoiding it?

3 comments

3 Comments

tyler6141mo agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, that smoke puff feeling is the worst. I did the exact same thing on a Corne build a few months ago. I was trying to fix a cold joint on the microcontroller and my iron slipped and just dumped a whole blob of solder right across two pins. Poof. Instant death. The worst part is the waiting for the replacement, right? It feels like forever when you're so close to finishing a build. One thing I do now is use flux and a lot less solder on my tip. Also, I always keep a solder sucker nearby now, just in case I need to clean up a bridge fast before it cooks anything.

wade7676d ago

Funny how we all learn the hard way with these tiny boards, isn't it @tyler614? Makes you wonder why nobody ever talks about using a socketed controller to avoid this whole replacement wait.

finley_lopez981mo ago

@tyler614 bro that waiting period is brutal, total buzzkill for sure.