USB based Olympus camera battery charger repair

Got a cheapo third part Olympus camera battery charger powered by USB that got damaged.

The microUSB connector on the charger was dislodge from the PCB due to rough handling. I think part of the reason why it got dislodged is because of the way the microUSB is secured on the PCB. The microUSB connector lacks sufficient retention. Even though the charger has this minor flaw, charging the battery using USB power is still an attractive option verse those that runs on AC mains. That’s why I went ahead to try to save this charger.

Opening up the casing was quite easy. There are 4 screws holding down the back cover. 2 of the screw are covered by the label.

Removing the 2 screws underneath the labels will also release the top cover to allow access to the PCB.

After a few blobs of solder and counter checking of the microUSB connector connections with a multimeter, the board is repaired.

After replacing the cover and testing it again by plugging in power to it, this battery charger is once again a useful piece of gear.

There’s also a version that uses an LCD display as a charging level indicator. If you are interested in getting one of these USB based charger, you can take a look at them on Aliexpress. If you look around, you might also be able to find these USB based charger meant for other camera brand batteries.

That’s it. Hopefully this is helpful to someone out there.