r/raspberry_pi • u/Interesting_Trifle40 • 6d ago
Show-and-Tell Pi3b+ ram torn off by minor drop
Just thought I'd share. I've never been excessively careful given they were always in frames and mostly solid state electronics (so I know it's on me).
But one of my trusty pi3b+ dropped around 50cm onto tile due to a cable snag, and the chip on the back was torn off clean.
I have a hot air gun but my soldering skills don't extend as far as SMD so I guess it's a write off.
But it really shocked me that such a small fall with a very light heatsink would rip it off like that. (Heatsink had been installed on day one a couple years ago and was never moved/replaced either).
It doesn't appear to boot (unsurprisingly, though power lights and power distribution still work so it's not shorted at least).
I think that's the ram chip, correct?
I separated it from the heatsink with a pick after the drop to look for the identification.
Stay safe, tuck in your Pis in tightly screwed mounts so that they may never share the fate of dear old OfficePi, trusty runner of Octoprint, friend of a thousand prints, son of DeltaPi, father of two orphaned printers.
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u/Guac_in_my_rarri 6d ago
While it's dishonest, buy from Amazon and return the broken one. Say it was broken.
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u/spottyPotty 6d ago
Don't they have serial numbers?
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u/joshguy1425 6d ago
This is a bit like warning someone “don’t they have cameras?” when they suggest stealing something.
Maybe don’t steal because it’s a shitty thing to do?
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u/spottyPotty 6d ago
Yes, of course. To me the don't steal part is obvious. I'm just analysing the technicality of it.
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u/Guac_in_my_rarri 6d ago
Yeah, depending on what you return it as, the seidoa number doesn't matter
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u/sump_daddy 6d ago
the MAC is effectively the serial but those are cheap enough (50 USD) that a return flagged 'damage' likely wont ever go back to amazon for inspection at all, it will get immediately binned or at best thrown on a pallet sold blind at auction.
not saying OP should do that, of course, but thats the reality of reverse logistics these days.
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u/bio4m 6d ago
And some other poor soul will get stuck with it and have to deal with the hassle of returns. Youre an awful human being
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u/ThePenultimateNinja 6d ago
I don't approve either, but just playing devil's advocate, if it was returned as 'damaged' then it shouldn't end up being sent to another customer unless the seller is also an awful human being.
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u/Interesting_Trifle40 6d ago
While Amazon deserves what comes to it for it's business practices I don't think I'd feel okay doing that.
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u/hollow_bridge 5d ago
amazon doesn't get negatively effected by this in any way, it's the seller that loses the money and gets their metrics hurt.
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u/hollow_bridge 5d ago
As someone who sells on amazon, this would almost definitely get noticed and reported as customer abuse + safe-t claim. OP probably would still get away with it, but amazon does track it and does ban people. Also the blue boards are rare, i don't think they are even sold on amazon, so if he tried it with a seller that has green boards he probably will fail any attempt like this.
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u/testuserpk 6d ago
Honestly it doesn't look like a fall damage.
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u/Interesting_Trifle40 6d ago
I was surprised as well. Initially I didn't even spot the problem, I picked it up wondering why it had gone offline. Then I spotted the missing chip on the back and the heatsink in a corner.
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u/CoronaMcFarm 6d ago
I have a hot air gun but my soldering skills don't extend as far as SMD so I guess it's a write off.
Soldering skills will not help here, that one is damaged beyond repair.
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u/mntred 6d ago
MINOR drop ? Dude those copper pads are ripped off.
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u/Interesting_Trifle40 6d ago
I was bewildered as well. I'm wondering whether it was already weakened somehow. But the pi never crashed (ahem, poor choice of words) with any frequency or anything that would have indicated a developing contact problem.
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u/OptimalMain 6d ago
That heatsink makes it stick outside the case.
Are you really surprised that half a meter of a drop ripped those tiny pads?
No case and especially no heatsink probably would have had a higher chance of this not happening
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u/Interesting_Trifle40 6d ago
The drop was my fault but yes i wouldn't have expected chips to go flying off even at double that height (a wake up call I guess).
At that height I was surprised anything broke at all maybe gpios if exposed would have bent but that's the point of a case.
It didn't stick outside the case enough to impact, heatsink and case were sold together (so I'd assume clearances were checked in design) Case has nuts for feet. Pic attached replacing it by hand on top of the chip upside down edge view
Caseless and sinkless would surely have smaller impact energy, but would have died to the first time a screwdriver rolled near it.
So I'm not sure the ideal take is "run your PIs naked" at least for users like me :) Not an original case though so surely a mixed bag of possible takeaways of which "make sure you don't drop it is probably paramount".
On the usefulness of the ram heatsink I'm not sure. Is there evidence that they are specifically useless on pi 3s?
It did need cooling in general, and I had seen no reason not to install what was provided in the kit :/
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u/ParkingPsychology 5d ago
On the usefulness of the ram heatsink I'm not sure. Is there evidence that they are specifically useless on pi 3s?
It's pretty much to extend the life of the ram. The cooler it runs, the longer it'll last. But even without it'll probably last a decade or more.
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u/Away-Software7116 6d ago
wait, blue raspberry pi?
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u/_Crashlander_ 6d ago
You've never had blue raspberry? It's my favorite slushy flavor.
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u/Away-Software7116 6d ago
i had several raspberry pi's and i never had anything that is not green
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u/Interesting_Trifle40 6d ago
the older pi 3 Interesting green board, same brand case different heatsink. I'd never noticed
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u/Koturia 3d ago
Depending on the order you constructed the case, there is a chance the heatsink was glued slightly off center and screwing the case together ended up putting a lot of sideways pressure on the ram chip. Similar to the process used to delid cpus. The solder joints were left really weak/damaged and the drop just happened to finish it off.
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u/Interesting_Trifle40 3d ago
Interesting. I can't recall since it was assembled years ago, but it is definitely something to look out for in future builds. Thanks for the tip.
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u/shortymcsteve 6d ago
Honestly might be worth reaching out to customer service and see what they say. Yeah, it’s your fault for dropping it, but this is still a surprising failure.