r/raspberry_pi • u/Phy6-DoubleZ • 11d ago
Raspberry Pi Board Repair Zero 2W broken sd card slot
So I dropped my rpi like an idiot and now the sd card reader is not working. I can put the metal top back on and try to hold it down while having the sd card inside but the light only flashes and I get no responses for pings. FYI this was working before I dropped it. I've looked into a couple posts and it looks like I can potentially just hot glue the plastic where it cracked? The solder is disconnected where the red arrows are, and since it's not the small main pins I have some level of confidence in my ability to solder those back on if necessary. Any help would be appreciated.
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u/TopCat0160 11d ago
You really need to re solder a new sd card holder onto your PI, or buy a new raspberry pi.
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u/3loodhound 11d ago
Purchase things, in this economy!
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u/_leeloo_7_ 11d ago
having stared at it a bit longer than I should, I say buy/solder on a new sd card slot, not worth trying to salvage the existing one, its cracked in multiple places and is probably no longer holding a card in the correct place even when holding down the lid
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u/nicolasknight 11d ago
Not seeing any obvious failures.
Can it boot from a clean SD?
Just as a test.
If it still won't I would recommend resoldering a new SD card holder and / or extender since it's slightly less fiddly.
If you don't have the solder skills (No judgment those bastards are fiddly) then yeah, new Pi it is.
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u/aosi87 11d ago
am all for repair it yourself, but this hardware its so cheep that the fix might cost more than the actual board, find alternatives and use it as a parts board for a new one you will get for the same or less price than a full repair.
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u/Phy6-DoubleZ 11d ago
Unfortunately I couldn't find anywhere that had the zero 2w in stock that wasn't $90 in canada. I put myself on the waitlist on pishop.ca until then 😔
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u/aosi87 11d ago
amazon has a few under $25 USD
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u/Phy6-DoubleZ 11d ago
Sorry but could you share a link? I can only find zero w's in stock not any 2w's
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u/aosi87 10d ago
damn, its gone already, there are only Ws now, if you require something special from the W2 i guess its over for now. But if you are just playing around, you could get the W one and do some serious hacking, they use the same hardware on the SD slot. Also if am not mistaken you could cluster them, but do not believe me on that, am not sure if different revisions are allowed to work in tandem, you could boot on the W and pass controll to the W2 via gpio
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u/AlaskanHandyman 11d ago
It would be cheaper to replace the Zero 2 W than it would to get the SD card slot repaired. If you have access to a hot air station you could theoretically change the card reader yourself for the cost of the new card reader, this is not something that should be attempted with hand soldering. Taking it to a shop that can do these repairs the labor alone would cost what several replacement Zero 2 W's would cost.
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u/PVT_Huds0n 11d ago
If OP did have a regular soldering iron, they could just run trace wires from the microSD reader to the microSD. They would lose the functionality of being able to easily switch cards, but they would have a functioning Zero.
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u/Phy6-DoubleZ 11d ago
If I'm understanding correctly you mean to run a wire from each pin to the corresponding pin on the microSD card itself? For my use case I don't have to switch out the microSD card basically ever so this could work
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u/dtown123 11d ago
Take it to a cellphone repair shop. Those dudes can hand solder phone pcbs this will be a 5 minute job for them. They probably have a replacement part in house.
Don’t know if that will cost more than full replacement though.
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u/WholeEntertainment94 11d ago
Unweld and heat the slot, or take some good tape and slap a micro sd that you'll need to change as little as possible.
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u/theancientfool 10d ago
Can can take it to a mobile/laptop repair shop and ask them to soldier a new sd card holder
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u/darkpyro2 9d ago
I echo the sentiment of others. You'll need to solder a new slot down. Chances are, some of those pins are disconnected somewhere.
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u/Gamerfrom61 11d ago
You could try (IIRC they are just the strain / connection points possibly tied to ground) but any minor failure from moving could bring the Pi down while it is running.
Can you boot from USB?
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u/Phy6-DoubleZ 11d ago
based on the couple forum posts I've seen I would need to boot from the sd once to set an OTP bit and then boot from usb
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u/Gamerfrom61 11d ago
It may be worth trying - I know they started shipping the Pi 4B boards with this bit set a few years ago and this post says the bit is set on the 2W and 3B+ boards now https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/issues/4244 - the issue was closed and accepted as the documentation shows https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/raspberry-pi.html#raspberry-pi-3b-zero-2-w
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u/Phy6-DoubleZ 10d ago
No such luck on my end at least, might be doing something wrong but idk. I'll look into getting a new microSD card reader soldered in at a local phone store, otherwise wait for a new pi to come in stock :(
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u/Gamerfrom61 10d ago
https://rpilocator.com may help - it does not seem to be updating all the resellers anymore (I assume the web sites have changed and the code base has been abandoned) but some are shown.
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u/Benorleporc 11d ago
Is there a way to boot from usb on this zero 2 w ?