Accessory Port - Burned Solder Points

[tinker bot]

So I finally got around to opening my main solo up again to upgrade to the green cube and while doing so I looked around for any bad connection points on the accessory port which has not worked.







This particular picture is not of the ribbon cable solder connection points, but a picture of the other wires associated with the port and which I assume carry power to the port.

Since Original post these have mostly mostly answered:
I am not sure what these “burn” marks are from but perhaps they came from a power drain caused by the aftermarket LED light bar I connected to the port, which did not work, letting me know there was a problem with port in the first place? The same LED lights "do" work on my back up solo. I had not used the port until after the WiFi card upgrade, so were the burn marks caused by the WiFi card mod some how - it seems unlikely because as I understand it from some other forum posts the power of these high power cards is limited by some code that controls them? I also found myself wondering if this is just sloppy soldering & maybe the board soldering is done by a computer controlled robotic process and then these solder points for the accessory connector (and the Piezo Sounder) are done later during assembly?

This was a brand new solo from amazon and same as my back up solo there were no signs of being opened or used before I purchased them. I have not been able to check my other solo for these burn marks because it is temporarily in storage. These burns have not affected the performance as far as I am aware.


More pictures of all solder points with issues are below and all pics available in high resolution copies that can be zoomed in for greater detail

Dropbox - Post Pics

 

[Mcgyver66]

Rumor has it the Upgraded wifi cards can cause issues related to increased power demand, specifically what I do not recall.

 

[RichWest]

Flux residue from hand soldered components at the factory. This is how they all arrived...cleans up with a little alcohol.

Dead port, likely a broken connection on the ribbon cable leading to the accessory port...typically from pulling the main board, fragile wires/connection.

 

[tinker bot]

Flux residue from hand soldered components at the factory. This is how they all arrived...cleans up with a little alcohol.

Dead port, likely a broken connection on the ribbon cable leading to the accessory port...typically from pulling the main board, fragile wires/connection.

I will clean up the solder points with some alcahol and see if i can determine where the break is.

Anybody know if the power that is supplied to the accessory port is through the ribbon cable or the other set of wires between the accessory port and the main board?

 

[tinker bot]

The alcohol helped a little. The ribbon cable pulled off while cleaning contacts, bummer! I ordered a new board with the accessory bay attached to it via the ribbon cable. Not sure why the bay wouldn't have simply powered the polar pro lights, but I have new board coming and if it fixes it, it won't even matter.

 

[RichWest]

I'll be honest, other than the ribbon cable breaking for others and then having no power to AP, I'm not sure how the power is provided to the acc. port. I always assumed through the ribbon cable...based on other's reply when lights no workie. I see the jacketed cable off the port's circuit board now, seems it is source of power.

Sorry to have mislead, was bored when I replied and mainly answering the flux question...which could be related to what @Mcgyver66 suggested....search "wifi brown out" for related posts on that.

 

[tinker bot]

I'll be honest, other than the ribbon cable breaking for others and then having no power to AP, I'm not sure how the power is provided to the acc. port. I always assumed through the ribbon cable...based on other's reply when lights no workie. I see the jacketed cable off the port's circuit board now, seems it is source of power.

Sorry to have mislead, was bored when I replied and mainly answering the flux question...which could be related to what @Mcgyver66 suggested....search "wifi brown out" for related posts on that.

Thanks and no worries. It helped to have it confirmed that the solder "burn marks" were due to hand soldering and nothing more!

I will post back when I get a little further into some trouble shooting I have planned in an attempt to prevent damage to my coming replacement main board, if at all possible.

I want to keep my upgraded WiFi card and it seems reasonable to believe the post's I've read that mentioned the upgraded WiFi card power is not actually any more powerful than the stock card due to supposed restrictions written into the code and that they only work better because they are better cards.

 

[tinker bot]

I am not sure where I got the info that the non ribbon cable wires to the accessory bay were the power, but it now appears wires 1 & 2 of the ribbon cable "are" power? There may be other wires that carry power. I have no idea what the other wires are for, but I tried my polar pro LED lights with a new board that has only some of the ribbon cable wires broken on it too (1,2,4,5,6, to name a few) and the lights still do not work, so I do not think those other wires are "exclusively" for power if at all?

Here is link to more info on the accessory bay, though no mention of the other associated wires:

https://dev.3dr.com/hardware-accessorybay.html

 

[SteveReno]

Rumor has it the Upgraded wifi cards can cause issues related to increased power demand, specifically what I do not recall.

That Rumor is False!
I have had my cards installed for over 2 years & monitor temps. from controller.
Never went above ambient + 8.
Besides, as far as i know No one has ever wrote any new drivers for Solo to access the higher TX "output" in which, can cause extra heat in the controller.