koobs996

Despite the LED's coming on, neither of my keyless entry remotes worked on the 996 I recently bought. I read about flipping the battery and it worked. Great! Then I snapped the key back together and it didn't work. Not great.
I figured there must be a component on the little circuit board with a bad solder joint after years of button pressing that made it work with the key open but not snapped closed.

I had to desolder the battery holder to gain access to the components underneath. It is held on with the two solder points circled in red. I used a solder sucker but desoldering braid would work also.





Once I removed the battery holder, I resoldered every solder point for every component. The components are small so a tiny soldering iron tip helps. There aren't too many of them and it only took a couple of minutes to hit every one.
No clue which component had a bad joint but I soldered the holder back on, snapped the keys back together, and they both work! Figured this may save someone else a few hundred $

Edit-I meant to post this in the NA forum, not the turbo forum.

Carlo_Carrera

Nice job.

r6vr6

I have an old one that does the same thing yours did. I'll be trying this out over the next week.

Oak

thanks for the insight's. what exactly is a solder sucker? never heard the term.. can you post a pic?

koobs996

This is a solder sucker. Basically, it is a vacuum pump with a heated nozzle with a hole through the center and a trigger. Push the nozzle over the pin you want to desolder, let it heat up, and press the trigger. The vacuum pump sucks the solder from around the pin and into a filter. The part then falls out. Desoldering braid is much more economical though, especially to use a few times. Costs a couple of bucks and works with a soldering iron.

fpb111

They also come in economy models. Use your iron to melt the solder and the tool to suck the solder off.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Aven-Des...FddBNwodGuEHjg

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Aven-Met...FcUENwodLU0Gjw

Oak

Thank you! It’s been awhile since I have perused rennlist and getting back into checking in again Forgot what made this place such a great place for insights and direct info from actual doers. Albeit most all the characters are new to me.

manimal

No affiliation, but this guy sells a nice little kit with replacement microswitches: http://batee.com/corvette/dcrg/servi...ss_repair.html

And also has a YouTube vid:
I successfully repaired one of mine, and broke the other. I didn't apply enough heat when I was trying to pop off the old switches, and I ended up ripping one of the solder points off the PCB altogether.

It sounds like OP got away with simply reflowing the solder, and not replacing the switches. I wish I had tried that first.

koobs996

Manimal,
If you ever have to do it again the cheap hot air stations work pretty well for the money. I think I paid $35 ish for mine and it is a much safer way of popping off surface mount components.

My switches had to be fine because the LED's were coming on when pressed, just not unlocking the car.

Ricardosinger

I have the same proble, the difference is that the prongs on my battery holder are in pretty bad shape and cannot be re-soldered.
Does anyone know where I can find a battery holder ?

Thank you

Carlo_Carrera

These folks make a repair kit. Maybe they have something for you.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/261147199659

Ricardosinger

Thank you very much, I will contact them

2fcknfst

Thanks Carlo; ordered, and will try and save my original key.