Broken connectors on the wifi card

Hardware Librem 5
1

Hello everybody,

I somehow killed both the antenna connectors on my wifi card (redpine), as you can see from these pictures. Any hope to be able to resolder them on the board?

Thanks in advance

IMG_20261014_145048
IMG_20261014_1450481920×2557 467 KB

IMG_20261014_144953
IMG_20261014_1449531920×2557 606 KB

2

You can ask @ChriChri how that goes…

3

I did the same thing to my modem connectors a few years ago. But purism has modems in the store so I simply ordered another.

While I waited for the replacement modem to ship, I was able to shove a bunch of electrical tape under the screwed-in cover plate to hold the broken connector in place. Surprisingly this actually made the modem work again.

Maybe the same can work for wifi?

4

I would say, give soldering a shot. It looks easy enough and if you screw it up, it only costs $29+shipping to replace the board.

If it is the Redpine Signals board (I can’t tell from the photo), you will probably want to replace it anyway to fix the problems with that chip.

5

Yes it’s a Redpine, I’ll first try the electrical tape to see what happens, I can always try to solder it later on, and if the board gets destroyed than it’s time for an upgrade :smiley:

Thanks