I am currently working on a hobby project with the Radxa ROCK 5C that will be sitting in my pocket. I know the 5C is already plenty small enough to fit in a pocket, but I was wondering if I could remove the Ethernet Port to reduce the size even more, since I won’t ever be using it.
I know it will 100% involve desoldering, and if it’s too risky to remove it without ruining the board, I just won’t bother. I figure I’d ask, though.
I have already desoldered ethernet ports from boards (mostly to reuse them somewhere else), and it’s not easy, you need to heat a lot and some of the plastic will melt, making a mess of the connector itself. But since you’re not expecting to reuse it, it shouldn’t be a problem for you. What you need to be careful about is the fixations for the connector’s metal case. Usually they’re slightly bent and pass through a large whole, accumulating a lot of solder which is hard to melt because the whole metal mass cools it down. With a hot air gun (and using pliers to pull the connector) it’s usually OK. If you don’t have that, my alternate method is to cut these fixations using a knife so that you can pull the whole connector after only desoldering the signal pins. Then you’ll remove them one at a time more easily since there’s no large metal mass to cool them down.
Normally you shouldn’t damage the board by doing this (provided you don’t heat it too much, of course). Be careful not to pull too strong on the connector so as not to pull the copper lanes. Often the LED pins on ethernet connectors are larger than the signal pins and tend to resist a little bit more so you’ll need to be careful here.
Good luck!
Well, this should be fun, thank you