Cutting Vin from Vusb and bricking Teensy 3.2 in the process

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miciwan

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Admin Edit:

If your Teensy 3.2 is bricked after cutting too deep, info & a solution can be found here:

https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/65611?p=264557&viewfull=1#post264557

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Hi,

I was about to switch from using my breadboard prototype to a full blown manufactured PCB, and I needed to route the USB power out from Teensy and then back into Vin. So as instructed, I cut the trace on the back of the board, and I soldered an extra pin to the Vusb hole.
And my Teensy is bricked :( It looks like I somehow lost the connection from Vin to the voltage regulator.
Is anyone able tell me how this trace actually goes and when during the process I might have damaged it during the process? I dont seem to have connection between Vin and the input of the regulator nor the decoupling capacitor there, but i'm not quite sure what I might have done wrong (and I want to do it on another Teensy ;-)
 
If the right spot only between the two pads by Vin as shown on the rear of the Teensy card was cut that should not be a problem. The trace is Only between those two equal sized pads wiring VUSB to VIN.

Once that is cut the Teensy can run on external power Only applied to Vin pin (ignoring 3v3 pin). If a USB cable is attached when the Teensy is thus powered - it should still program and communicate normally over USB.

The only time I had an issue was external USB power for a 32x32 LED matrix that wasn't grounded well back to the supply, when connected to computer USB to program it was feeding over 1 AMP through the USB Shield GND and would be intermittent to program until sufficient GND path to the supply was made.
 
Here's the picture of the cut, I did it along the whole pads.

cut.jpg

Is the trace connecting Vin to the voltage regulator anywhere there? I clearly must have damaged that somehow, and I'm not really sure how. Ideally i wouldnt want to do the same thing again ;-)
 
Is that picture in a mirror or with selfie cam? ... orientation isn't like IRL

What is the power source back to the Vin pin when that USB trace cut? It is noted that : "route the USB power out from Teensy and then back into Vin"

Sound like it is still USB powered but taken through other 'unseen' things before it can get back to the Teensy.
 
The image is mirrored for some reason, I just hooked up the microscope to my PC, I didn't bother with any setup.

Right now, none if this external circuitry is connected (but basically the USB power goes through a battery charger/power path controller, and then through some regulators, back to Vin pin). All the tests that I'm doing right now are just with Teensy hooked up straight to usb and a cable running from Vusb to Vin.
It seems to me, that I might have just cut too deep and damaged the trace from Vin to the regulator, but it would be great if someone confirmed that it actually is somewhere there.
 
The next thing/stuff under that trace is the PCB board layer. That would have to be penetrated well to hit anything that may be under that.

So at this point perhaps the VIN could be powered from VUSB power removing the external battery and circuitry? Does it work then?

A DVM on those two pads should show they are not connected and one connects to 5V and the other to VUSB internal pin.
 
Like I mentioned, my Vin just doesn't get to the on-board voltage regulator.

Teensy 3.2 is 4 layer board, right? I don't really know how it's routed, I don't know how deep my cut was compared to the layer thickness, but it looks like the input voltage goes to the regulator through that path, originating on the top layer from the marked via, the Vin of the regulator is pin 6

top.png

it looks a bit like this is the corresponding via on the bottom

bottom.png

but I dont see any paths from Vin pin leading to that spot, which suggests that this trace is on one of the internal layers. Looking at the board, it wouldn't be crazy to image that it's below the pads from Vusb to Vin, and I might have damaged it.
 
I have had the same problem. We made a fairly deep cut (about 0.3mm) using a utility knife and bricked 2 Teensies. I probed the input of the regulator and found that it was not connected to the Vin pin.
Looking under bright light it appears there is a trace in the layer below that comes from the Vin pin, goes under the bridge between Vusb and Vin then heads off towards the regulator. Would like to have this verified and maybe add a warning to only cut lightly to separate Vin and Vusb.
 
After cutting hundreds of Teensy 3.2 for my stuff successfully, with the latest batch of Teensy I got there suddenly was several non responding ones. I started checking them before and during build process, and found it was when cutting the trace they stopped working. Looking further I found the connection between Vin and the voltage regulator input was lost on all of them. Have I suddenly started to cut too deep, or has the routing of the trace to the voltage regulator been changed lately? Hopefully I can un-brick them with the procedure above, but I find this a bit worrying.
 
First, the easy question:

trasselfrisyr said:
or has the routing of the trace to the voltage regulator been changed lately?
Click to expand...

Teensy 3.2 PCB layout has been exactly the same for many years.


trasselfrisyr said:
Have I suddenly started to cut too deep
Click to expand...

However, we have used several different PCB vendors. The distance between the layers may have changed. They are all supposed to be using FR4 Tg170 material, but we don't have any way to check which material they actually used.

A couple years ago we started having all the boards made with a little 6-bit code on the silkscreen, between the USB connector and pin 1. Those 6 bits represent which PCB vendor made the bare boards. If you see any correlation between those 6 bit codes and the failures, I'd really like to know!
 
PaulStoffregen said:
Teensy 3.2 PCB layout has been exactly the same for many years.

However, we have used several different PCB vendors. The distance between the layers may have changed. They are all supposed to be using FR4 Tg170 material, but we don't have any way to check which material they actually used.

A couple years ago we started having all the boards made with a little 6-bit code on the silkscreen, between the USB connector and pin 1. Those 6 bits represent which PCB vendor made the bare boards. If you see any correlation between those 6 bit codes and the failures, I'd really like to know!
Click to expand...

Thank you, Paul! This makes sense.

I checked the failed boards for the code, and they all had this one:

IMG_0452.jpg
 
I had one 3.2 with the same feature- unfortunately already gutted. Obviously bad PCB. Anyway, it is not good practice to route a signal 1 or 2 layers under a cutting jumper, as nowadays insulation layers can become extremely thin, if a manufacturer / PCB pool uses the 16L process even for a 4L booard to simplify flow.

Then there was this T4.0 a year ago that had those unexplainable issues until it got re-fluxed and re-reflowed. Bitcode unknown.
Others on the forum with T4.0 and intermittent mysteries, looked like the same bad soldering of the BGA.

Looks like there is a strait of quality problems. QC?
 
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