Was using the audio expansion card to use some wired headphones on my phone, forgot about it and put my phone in my pocket, and the usb-c connector was loose when I took it out. Opened the card, and the connector had completely come off (held in place by the housing I think?).
Is it possible to fix this or am I better off stomaching the cost of a new one?
Only you can really answer if fixing is worth it to you. Some people could find it easy to fix. That would be those with a hot air station at hand.
But if you have to ask, I’m guessing you haven’t done repairs or perhaps even soldering on this level before. If not, buy a new one.
You can see that the connector had a translucent adhesive to provide additional support.
I mean, yes, but how hard it would be depends.
We can’t really tell the condition of the pads from your picture and from only one side of the board. You’d need to examine them to see if any pads have been pulled off. Or get good, clear pictures in bright lighting.
If some pads are pulled off, it might be no problem if they are pads that wouldn’t be used. I think audio card would only need USB 2.0 speed, probably doesn’t even connect to the higher data rate pins. That’s a lot of pins which aren’t needed.
Then it depends on your equipment, experience. Plus having a steady hand for fine work. At minimum, you need a temperature controlled soldering iron. Hot air would be easier. Also, need a multimeter to check if any pins get bridged. If doing it with a soldering iron, if it was me, I’d maybe just remove the unneeded pins to make things easier.
As long as you have some equipment, you can certainly give it a shot.
can’t quite tell from the picture, but it looks like there might be quite a bit of damage to the pads. Even if you have the right equipment, it might be a pretty difficult fix. I’d personally say it’d be better to get a new one, but you might as well save the case and maybe even the board for a DIY project in the future if you’re into that.
One simple and inexpensive alternative would be to buy a USB C to 3.5mm Audio Jack DAC Adapter. That can be plugged into any USB C expansion card or any USB A expansion card with an inexpensive USB C female to USB A male adapter.
The USB C to 3.5mm audio jack DAC adapters range in price from less than $10 to multiples of that if you want a higher quality DAC.
Another advantage of that solution is that if you pulled out the 3.5mm audio cable it might either pull out of the 3.5mm audio jack or pull the USB C to 3.5mm audio jack DAC adapter out of the USB expansion card without damaging the expansion card.
Both Linux and Windows can easily be configured to put the analogue audio output through the USB ports which is essentially what the audio expansion card is doing.
