@gsuberland Heeeey Graham, have a question for you that I think maybe you're qualified to answer (I love seeing all your EE stuff)...
I broke off a pair of MHF 4 receptacles for wifi antennas. In the datasheet, it mentioned 50 ohm impedance.
Can I just... solder the coax shield & wire to the pads that this connector came from? Do I need to add in a resistor as well?
I understand this isn't *correct*, but I'm wondering if I can get away with it on the cheap(er than buying replacements).
@techtask that 50Ω is characteristic impedance, which is better to think of like a refractive index in glass than an electrical resistance - it's a fundamental physics property describing how signals propagate through the part. you definitely don't want a resistor there.
you can certainly try soldering the coax directly to the pads, but it may mess up the signal integrity a bit. is it 2.4GHz, 5GHz, or 6GHz?
@gsuberland 802.11ac, so 5 GHz, but compatible with 802.11a/b/g/n... It's on a Microsoft Surface 1769 laptop.
My biggest question is which pad the center conductor vs. outside conductors went to >.>
@techtask you can probably get away with it. if you do a clean enough job it probably won't hurt insertion loss too much. just be very aware of how easy it'll be to rip the pads off by bumping the cable. ideally you should solder fresh connectors on it if you can, just for that reason.
usually the footprint is three strips, inner coax goes to the middle and shield goes to the outer two.
@gsuberland Ooooh I'll have to keep this in mind - never really used them. I'm US based, so the digikey shipping matches the cheapest options on LCSC. Though the parts have significantly cheaper alternatives!
Problem is, the connectors on the antennas are borked too. So $12 for a pair of those, plus another $15 for the smd connectors.
Already bought a BGA stencil set, solder balls, and NVME drive to transfer into the laptop for $50 USD. The Spousal Approval Factor begins dropping significantly as I go over $50 lol. Especially since I have no idea if I'm going to be successful on my first BGA soldering attempt!
techtask
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial