USB or not USB... that is the question...

I had a friend from my son's school stop me last week and ask about an external hard drive that had broken.  I told him to bring it in and I'd take a look at it.  When he brought it in, the problem was obvious, the super speed microUSB jack had broken off the PCB in the docking base and was still attached to the USB cord.  Not good.  He said the best he could find to replace the dock was about $100 on eBay.  I told him I'd take a look, but I thought it might have ripped the traces off the PCB.

The unit was a Seagate external backup with a base unit that gets power and USB connection, and presents an SATA connection to a cased hard drive that plugs on top.  The base unit conveniently just popped apart with a little prying around the edges and revealed the PCB inside with three #0 Philips screws to free it from the case.

Detached SS microUSB (long thin 10 contact connector)

A quick look under the 5X stereo microscope showed all the traces were still good, and that the socket that had come off the board did not appear to have been soldered properly on the shield to board connection, likely a cold solder joint from inadequate reflow profile.

I was able to remove the microUSB SS connector from another board I had, using the Master heat gun and a Weller Pyropen, and was able to insert it into the PCB with a 15W pencil tip to heat up the case ground tabs to get it through.  I need to solder each individual connection as well, again with a 15W pencil tip under the microscope and keeping the tip just wetted with 0.022" rosin core and letting the solder on the socket and PCB wet together.

Final test with a spare SATA 2.5" hard drive here, and presto, looks like all the connections are good and the little bugger works again.  MAYBE, a $0.30 part if I hadn't been able to poach one, and 20 minutes.