The VIN location on my Electron was damaged

General
1

Hello!

I have the Electron but the VIN location was damaged, so I"m unable to make a connection at that spot. Where else on the board can I connect 11volts for power?

2

How about a picture?

3

I’m not sure what you need a pic of? The only issue is the trace around the location of the VIN pin is damaged. Because I want to use 11-12 volts to power my electron i’m not sure where else I can connect my power source to.

4

Most importantly – how did that trace get damaged? The VIN pin’s trace is a beefy trace on an internal board layer, so I’m pretty skeptical that would be the issue. A picture would be helpful because no such trace exists to my knowledge that you could damage without taking a saw to the PCB. I think you have a different problem that we could better diagnose with more information.

Regardless, to your actual question, you should be able to use the unpopulated “VUSB” pin to provide any voltage in the Electron’s operating range

BUT PLEASE DO NOT CONNECT ANYTHING TO THE ELECTRON VIA USB BECAUSE THE REVERSE VOLTAGE PROTECTION DIODE DOES NOT PROTECT OVER-VOLTAGE ON THIS INPUT.

IF YOU CONNECT TO YOUR COMPUTER YOU MAY PERMANENTLY DAMAGE IT. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. This is not a supported use case but technically should work.

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5

Interesting! I just assumed it was damanged at that point because hooking any power source to that pin does nothing. However all the other places work just fine like USB and the LIPO. Maybe something else is broke, I guess… Thanks for the help!!

6

So the LIPO and USB are obviously powered with 3.7V and 5V respectively - are you using the same variable voltage power supply to power all these? Are you hooking it up in the same way? I’m skeptical that there is a problem with your Electron, as this pin is super beefy, so unless it’s very very obviously damaged it shouldn’t be a problem.

Part of the reason I know this is that the USB voltage source actually eventually flows through the same NET as the VIN pin (electrically identical after a schottky diode), so any electrical issues with that NET or the power supply chip would also affect USB power.

Could you please describe how you are hooking your power supply up to the VIN pin, and what differences exist compared to powering via the other methods?

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