Trackpad connector is missing

Hi Armin,

Well that certainly solves the mystery of the non-functional trackpad, doesn't it!?!

It's definitely not a good situation; you've lost more than half of the solder pads that attach to the connector. The good news is that it should be repairable, but will take a certain amount of patience and some detailed work with a soldering iron.

The big problem is you have to reconnect those missing pads. You see those gold dots next to the pads? Those are vias, or holes connecting the traces on the bottom of the board to traces in other layers, either on the top or an inside layer. Each one of those vias can be soldered to in order to connect back up to the trackpad connector.

What you'll want to do is to take a piece of thin wire, say 22 AWG, and cut and bend the wire to the length and shape of the trace from the end of where the pad used to be to the via going to that pad. Solder the end to the via and glue the rest of the wire down to the circuit board with some strong adhesive. Don't use adhesive on the part of the wire overlapping the pad; you don't want to accidentally insulate it from being able to solder it to the connector.

In this example, you'll want to avoid glue on the part of the wire marked in green, but secure the rest of the wire that's in red.

Once you have all 12 wires routed in place, soldered and glued down, you'll want to tin the end of the wires with a hefty amount of solder to stick to the connectors on the jack. The original connector was simply held down by the solder connections which are no longer secure, so you'll want to cover the bottom of the connector with something like an epoxy that's going to hold it in place permanently. Line it up carefully and stick it down, then work on soldering the pins to the remaining solder pads and your replacement wires.

After the glue dries, you should have a functional connector again.