I was assembling the first project for my USB kit, and the end of a wire broke off and got jammed right into pin #3 of the LCD. It's just a short piece of copper, so I couldn't get it out—and now nothing can be placed in that slot.

What should I do? Is there any way to get it out?

If you disconnect the rest of the wires, you could tap it against the edge of a desk/counter (lightly, don't go Hulk on it), and it may pop out. If you can at least nudge it forward, if you have fine-tipped twizzers you might be able to pull it out.

Tried that and some tweezers. No dice. Thanks for the suggestion.

Also, now another piece broke off into the 4th pinhole!

sampengel, just as a word of warning when you are stripping the ends of the wire your are scoring it i.e. putting a little scratch on it.

This scratch is the break point when the wire breaks. The score weakens the wire in that spot. You have to be careful to not score the wire when striping. I have had wires break similar to as you are describing.

Keep at it you'll get them out maybe a needle might be able to pry them out enough to grab with the tweezers.

Ralph

Thanks, Ralph. I think my problem was not leaving enough length of stripped wire—so when they broke off, there was nothing exposed that would help me pull it out.

When I get home from work, I will try your needle method. Hopefully I can salvage the LCD. Haven't gotten the power source to go through either, though :(

Hi Sampengel,

Usually with enough light tapping, you can get stuck wires to wiggle their way out. I've had some luck getting really small eyebrow tweezers in there to get wires out. Ralph is definitely right about scoring the wires just a little bit when you are stripping them, if you nick the wire even just a little bit, it break off at that point.

If you have a soldering iron, you can attempt a delicate procedure where you put a little bit of hot solder at the end of a wire and then try to the touch that to the stuck wire inside the LCD. In a few seconds once the solder dries you can hopefully pull out both wires. You have to be careful not to drip solder inside the connector though.

Let me us know if you can't get it out.

Humberto

Humberto:

Thanks for responding so quickly on this issue. I apologize for not getting back to you until now. I had been busy on other things this weekend until tonight. I have gotten one of the broken off pieces of wire removed (from slot #4), and have managed to make the whole LCD work.

However, there is still a broken piece of copper in slot #3 that makes the LCD unreliable some of the time. I will let you know more as I proceed.

Best, Sam