NanoBiscotte v4 - what is this thing that I broke?

[adamd9]

So, first time doing this saber thing (and pretty new to this soldering thing), and anyway I had mostly wired things up successfully and the NBv4 was turning on & lighting up etc, so I tried putting it in my hilt - when I did some of the wires caught, ripped and smoked (wires DEFINITELY crossed...ouch!). I really thought I had killed the board - nothing worked BUT I was still getting volt readings off the board (i.e like on the act. switch).

So anyway after a week or so of re-soldering and testing and trying things, I noticed that this thing (the small copper strip where I've drawn a red circle) was busted. After re-bridging, everything worked again....yay!

So my question is, did I just randomly bust that strip when I ripped the other things, or is it actually some sort of protection circuit/fuse. And if it is, am I at greater risk of NOT having that protection because I've bridged it??

Here's a photo:

[erv]

you probably ripped off (and shorted to ground) a 3.3V trace

[adamd9]

Thanks! Well, all seems OK now, so I’ll just try to never do that again