Way to repair a broken trace on a F-3 circuit board

Solder a jumper wire from the LED to the lead on the component on the other end of the trace. A few drops of epoxy will keep the jumper firmly in place. This is the way we repair boards with burned or broken traces.

I see what looks like two breaks, but the one indicated with the red arrow confuses me!  It appears that connecting that would short out the LED on the other side!  The one with the yellow arrow is easily repaired, just use an X-acto knife to scrape off the green solder mask and tack a small wire to the trace and to the solder connection next to the yellow arrow.

First - do not use a 100 watt or larger soldering iron. Need a soldering iron in the 40 to 60 watt range. Too much heat can cause traces to literally lift from the circuit board.

Second, follow the trace that is broken on both sides of the break to see if you can find two component lead soldered locations.

Third - use a piece of wire that you will solder from a component lead solder location on one side of the break to the component lead solder location on the other side of the break.

Fourth - strip a minimal amount of insulation from each end of the wire. 1/16" to 1/8".

Fifth - you can optionally use cotton swab/alcohol to clean where you are going to solder.

Sixth - I like to "tin" each of the end of the wire that I stripped. "Tinning" means heating the stripped wire with the soldering iron and putting a little bit of solder on the wire. I believe this helps make the solder connection of wire to component lead solder location without using excessive heat.

Seventh - carefully solder the wire. Once both ends of the wire are soldered, you will have bridged the break in the trace.

Eighth - clean any excess flux from your solder connections with cotton swab/alcohol.

Ninth - inspect carefully that bare wire from the solder connections you just made to not protrude and touch any nearby trace or component lead solder location.

Have marked the wire in red on one of you pictures. If you attempt this, please be careful.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I see what looks like two breaks, but the one indicated with the red arrow confuses me!  It appears that connecting that would short out the LED on the other side!  The one with the yellow arrow is easily repaired, just use an X-acto knife to scrape off the green solder mask and tack a small wire to the trace and to the solder connection next to the yellow arrow.

John, you may be looking at a different picture. I didn't insert any red or yellow arrows in my pictures.

I inserted the arrows, the red arrow appears to be a break that would short out the LED.  Is that just a shadow on the picture?

Here's a couple more pictures. One shows my index finger next to the board to give an idea of the size. Given the small size of the traces, I don't have the tools or expertise to attempt to solder anything on these. Much too risky that I'd permanently damage something. I used a pointer to more clearly (hopefully) show the two breaks in the trace on either side of the solder glob. The trace goes on and dead ends with another solder glob. That is attached to the U shaped component of some kind on the other side of the board (see picture) which has a tiny black cylinder attached to one of its wires. In any case, it will be necessary to connect the breaks on both sides of the solder glob to allow power to go to the headlight led as well as to whatever that component is with the black cylinder.

Once again, there are two breaks in the trace, one on each side to the solder blob located right below the "5."

John, I'm sorry, but I don't see your picture with the red and yellow arrows.

I thought the red arrow break was oddly positioned.  You sure don't want to connect those two solder joints together.

Solder 2 wires from the one solder point to reestablish the trace in both directions to the appropriate lighting outputs. This is an easy fix. Soldering directly to an LED terminal takes a steadier hand.