Solder bridges on ethernet shield purchased online.....suggestions?

Using Arduino IDE 1.x
1

I purchased this ethernet shield from a Chinese distributor off of ebay. Upon inspection it appears to have quite a few solder bridges on the WIZnet chip. I know that most of the pins on that chip are grounded so it may not matter if there are bridges but I am not confident that I would be able to figure out which ones are okay and which aren't. Is running a hot soldering iron across all of the pins the best way to resolve this?


IMAG0475 by jg1996business, on Flickr


IMAG0475-1 by jg1996business, on Flickr


IMAG0476 by jg1996business, on Flickr


IMAG0476-1 by jg1996business, on Flickr

2

I think I'd first get the datasheet for the chip and check that; I don't know enough about smt rework on what to suggest to fix it if necessary though - but I bet there are others here that would know.

3

I think I'd first get the datasheet for the chip and check that

Good advise

If you confident at soldering some liquid flux and desolder braid will sort that, maybe the flux and a hot soldering iron alone will do it.

If your not confident enough the forget what i said just contact the seller

4

Thanks! I checked the datasheet and cross checked it against the schematic and all of those pins are grounded so it should be fine as is. I am hopefully going to try out my first application with it tonight so we will see how it does.

5

I wondered the same thing with mine, but it seems intentional, also mine are bridged in exactly the same place. Puts my mind at ease as I haven't yet tested my board.

6

I also have the same board and the solder bridges appear in the same places as the photos. I have no problem writing to the SD card but haven't been able to get the ethernet working yet.

7

I know this is an old topic, but did anyone figure out if those solder bridges impacted the usage of ethernet?

8

No, mine works fine.

It was probably cheaper/easier than running a trace.

9

Ok.

I received a replacement board due to the bridging and it also had the pins bridge. The new one worked immediately though. I must have had a separate issue.

I agree, these pins must be OK to bridge.