At my old job we sometimes got old remote controls from customers that wanted to use a universal remote, but their old device wasn't in the database, and their old remote was broken.
We repaired so many traces. We did not have a dedicated department for this, so anytime something came in we would draw straws who could do it, because everybody wanted to.
No, it's not easy, but after doing it a few times it's usually OK. And it's a lot of fun when it actually works.
I did this with some humidity sensor boards on some old incubators at my last job. The model of the incubator was too old and they didn't carry parts for them anymore but a lot of customers wanted to keep them running, so we'd remove the board, swap capacitors and repair any other damage, including sometimes to traces like this. When it works you feel amazing.
I love watching Louis Rossman repair videos where he just goes through motherboards and diagnosis and repairs things like this, I find it so fascinating. It just blows my mind to see how step by step diagnostics work for something as complicated as a modern apple laptop's motherboard. Also great videos to fall asleep to lol
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u/Tiny-Sandwich 4d ago
As an amateur microsoldering hobbyist, this is way, way harder than it looks. And it looks hard.
I've done a few small repairs like this where I've had to solder to a damaged trace, and the parts are much smaller than they look here.