Battery connector damaged

Hi

My battery connector broke. I was trying to solder an additional connector (different kind) on top of the existing one and in doing so damaged the existing one and the connection to the board. Is there any way I can solder on the batteries to the board and keeping the voltage regulating function intact?

Thanks...

How bad is it?

Mind posting a picture, to give us an idea of how bad the situation is?

Will so, However I had to remove the connector because when soldering the wire to the existing connector I got a loose connection that kept switching the battery on off. Could some of the pins be used for battery with the functionality of the regulator?

The battery connector has a fet between it and... everything else, which allows you to connect USB while using a low voltage battery. You can see the circuit here: http://www.espruino.com/EspruinoBoard

You can supply power using the Bat pins, as long as the voltage on the batteries is >4.7V (at least while USB is connected), so USB won't try to charge the battery (you don't want to charge the battery this way, to be clear). Also, if you do this, you won't have the 1A self-resetting fuse protecting the Bat pins.

If that's not acceptable, and the pads for the battery connector are hopelessly munged, there are unpopulated pads for a resistor R9 (on v1.3) - the pad closest to the connectors is connected directly to the positive side of battery connector. On v1.4, there are pads for a charging IC - one of those pads is also connected to the positive side of battery.

The pads for the battery connector are hopelessly munged so it seems I should go for R9. Does it equal #4 on page http://www.espruino.com/EspruinoBoard ? So I solder the + of a new connector to the pad closest to USB and the - to ?

If I do so I will get what the old battery connector had (fet, 1A self-resetting fuse etc.)?

Thanks for your help

Yeah, it's the one listed as #4 there. It will behave just like it was connected to power connectors (it's directly connected to + side of battery). Be careful soldering - make sure you don't munge this pad too.

• would go to ground. There's nothing fancy on the ground side (as it should be).
  

Yes, I do fear the soldering - I have my doubts as to the quality of my recently bought soldering iron? I am having a hard time to make it melt the solder it is 30 W.

Thansk again DrAzzy

Bought this last summer, very happy with it -- Hakko

Thanks for all the help @DrAzzy.

@Espruino_user_dk as well as R9, you might find that you could solder to the FET (Q2) next to it - being able to solder to an actual component might be easier for you.

Also, as far as soldering tools - I bought what's basically a cheap Hakko clone, and it's completely useless in much the same way you describe (to the point where it's not really usable at all). I unscrewed the end and oozed some thermal paste (the stuff that comes with PC CPU heatsinks) between the heater and the tip and that has helped a bit, but it's still far from perfect.