I decided I want to get into fixing Nintendo Switches, but I know approximately nothing about electrical engineering, soldering, etc. So in my infinite wisdom I bought a bunch of tools off Amazon and a broken Switch off eBay to try and repair it. Everything was going semi smoothly until I used too much heat/airflow when replacing a faulty P13USB and blew off a few of these tiny capacitors above the chip. Anyone know what they do/if it’ll work without them? Also, does anyone know of a cheaper way to practice this stuff before I buy another broken Switch…?
Try searching the information from this forum using keywords P13 and P13Usb. There are plenty of pictures where you can find more info about components (values, sizes etc.)
Practice using junk boards until you are confident to work on repairable boards. I would be amazed if you had succeeded replacing the P13USB on the first time.
Quality equipment (soldering iron, microscope, flux, tin) are very important. Good luck and remember to be patient with microsoldering.
UPDATE: I put everything back together and by some miracle it works?! Apparently I was successful in replacing the P13USB after all. It’s fully functional, except the touch screen was giving phantom taps and after trying to clean the LCD and digitizer for all the dust I saw underneath, the touch screen is completely unresponsive. There was evidence that someone had replaced the digitizer before I received the Switch so I’m wondering if it’s just a bad part. I’m going to replace the digitizer and see what that does. Still don’t know what those tiny caps did!
Did you test it works on the dock? If I remember correctly the Switch can work without P13 but with limited functions.
It actually didn’t work on the dock! When I put it in the dock the screen shuts off and it charges, and I get a solid green light on the dock, but no image is displayed on the TV. The Switch doesn’t seem to sit down properly on the dock though, it won’t go all the way down. So I wondered if it was a bad USB C port. But could it be the P13 not on properly?
Exactly which “caps” did you lose around the PI3? The only ones I can think of are those below it, and I am pretty sure without them you wont have a connection between the USB and PI3.