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Electronics Mortuary

davenn

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Hi gang,
I would like to kick off a new thread that maybe can be stickied so its easy to access as the years go by, as members post pics of electronics that have died in spectactular fashion

Hopefully this meets with the approval of Ian P and Co :)

A few things to ask when posting....
dont steal from other sites. Let the pics be of gear you personally or fellow employees have worked on. Lets keep it original :)
to quote from another forum that I belong to that does something similar, some basic rules / disclaimers....

Note to mortuary contributors: please consider that your boss may not find your submission in the best interests of your Big Company. Try not to send us anything that you might regret.

Note to Big Companies: Don't blame us for posting your spectacular failures, we only post what your employees send us. On the other hand, please don't rip off Electronics Point
pictures for presentations without permission, that's bad manners. Maybe it's time for some training! ;)

Note to mortuary fans: In many cases, if you click on pictures on this page you can see higher resolution images.

Cheers
Dave
 
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davenn

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OK I will start it off with the first contribution....

Some pix of a CCTV DVR board from a computer. I noticed that several power rail caps on the PC motherboard had also bulged but not blown. I'm not sure if it was the PC power supply that killed the DVR boards or the other way around. Unfortunately I couldn't keep the boards for a memento as the client wanted them for a insurance claim. Both DVR boards had blown in the same place around the V-regulator area.

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cheers
Dave
 

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Resqueline

Jul 31, 2009
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Crydom PF240D25 SSR failure (volcanic eruption). Not due to overload, board, or solder failure afaik. This is the second such SSR I've seen blow up like that. Anyone else?
This manuf's solution was to apply a copper foil over a vent in the bottom, to prevent molten metal from dripping on the floor when the SSR blows, not to use a different SSR..
 

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davenn

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Brilliant Res,

thanks for the additions :) hopefully as time goes by we can build up quite a list of bar-b-qued gear :)

Dave
 

davenn

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Here's another addition from my workshop
This 240W mono channel amplifier came in with a blown DC fuse. Of course the first thing ya do is throw another fuse in the beast and see what happens.

You may well ask " why not do some tests first?" well after working with some of the so called field techs I have worked with over the years, who bring back amps etc and the ONLY thing wrong with them was a blown fuse. I tend just to try the easiest route first. Fuses are cheap ;)

I has the top cover already off the amp to get at the DC fuse. I swapped the fuse and switched the amp on and was greeting with a crackling sound and a cloud of smoke.
so switched off immediately.

Ohhh cool I thought, this amp is a rightoff, not worth repairing! so I grabbed the camera and got a workmate to switch it back on whilst I stood ready with the camera :)

here are the results ... the second pic you can see one of the 2 sets of power transistors, you can see all 5 are blown with 2 of them well cooked.

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They are a good amp, the company used 2 main models of this slave amp a 120W and 240W versions. They are a reliable amp they run 24/7 for years, but once they fail thats it!

cheers
Dave
 

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davenn

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The myth that electronics runs on the movement of electrons is one of the greatest hoaxes that is perpetuated by the misguided physicist amongst us ;)

Anyone with more than a year or 2 of real world electronics experience knows full well that electronics runs on smoke being channeled to the right places within a device.
And that once that smoke escapes the device no longer works ;)

Your Honour, I submit the items A, B and C listed above into evidence hahaha

Dave
 

davelectronic

Dec 13, 2010
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Hi Dave.
I think there is a problem with the black component third up on the right of the picture, in my expert opinion, haha, no it looked like a good amp before that happened.

The scary thing is how often is fire responsible for fatality's due to all consumer electrical's ? scary thought for sure.
Dave. :)
 

davenn

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yeah thats true, although these amps are somewhere better than el cheapo consumer stuff, they can still cause some havoc.

yup you can see all the power transistors have cooked to some extent, even if only just cracked open. Interestingly the transistors on the other side were all ok to look at

I have another couple of examples of destroyed gear that arrived into the workshop today. But I wont post them just yet. ;)

cheers
Dave
 

davenn

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Hi Gang :)

Time for another post

As some of you know, I changed jobs back in August. I'm no longer in the audio/video industry. Am now in the hi tech surveying and machine control industry. And when I say machine control, I'm not talking about small workshop based equip. I'm referring to dozers, excavators, graders, dump trucks etc for road construction and the mining industry.

All this stuff is GPS based for doing accurate location of the equip to make sure they are digging in the right spot or putting the correct camber onto a new road corner etc.
The gear is manufacturered but a very large, well known US based GPS company. I wont say their name ...to protect the the innocent haha.

This gear gets hellish treatment in the field and your's truely has to make it work again.

The pic shows a GPS receiver unit that is mounted on a mast on any of the above machines .... sometimes a single one sometimes as a pair.

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took $10k to get this one working again OUCH haha

cheers
Dave
 

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MattyMatt

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Wow that's a lot of cash! But industrial equipment does also have to cost a lot, because its gotta be able to take the beating.... at least that's what I would imagine anyway.
 

DrPinky

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IPhone 10ft drop to concrete floor. All of the glass got vaporized.

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davenn

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poor ol' iPhones they can handle much mistreatment huh
just look at them the wrong way than the screen will fail ;)

Dave
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
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Just replace the screen. It's not that hard, certainly on that model.

The glass hasn't vaporised, it's broken and fallen out.

Does the display still work? You can replace that pretty easily too.
 

DrPinky

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Its actually my fathers Phone, He just got the new IPhone 4 to replace it.
 

nbw

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Nothing quite as spectacular as you guys. That said, I've blown pin4 right off a LM3886T amplifier (accidental) and also (accidentally) applied 35V to a 16V electrolytic... now I know what's inside them!! :D
 

MattyMatt

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KaZAAAP

Its been a while since I have been on... but my buddy wanted to see what would happen if I replaced the fuse in a 1000W EATX power supply... well, the fuse didn't blow, but we found another issue :p

Poor little regulator, cratered in less than 3 seconds, and boy was that one hell of a noise :)
 

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davenn

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Hey mattymatt

Yes it's been a long time sice we last heard from you... Good to know you are still around :)

Hmmmm things got more than a little hot in that PSU huh. Hopefully it's not terminal and the system can be recovered :)

Well the old saying is that the fastest fuse on 3 legs is a transistor, but you can extend that to virtually any semiconductor device
The other old saying is....
That a transistor protected by a fast blowing fuse will blow first thus protecting the fuse protecting it!!

Haha

Thanks for your input
Take care

Dave
 
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MattyMatt

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Yeah, amazingly enough, the PSU went in my friend's computer, and thankfully didn't take anything else out.... which is really nice, and doesn't happen often enough.

I figured there was a little more wrong with it than just a blown fuse, just as he did... but i do like the occasional destruction, even if it cuts my troubleshooting a bit short :).
 

davenn

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Ahhhh indeed

There is fun to be had in letting the smoke escape just for the fun of it
Specially if you know the unit isn't repairable anyway....
Look at that audio amp that I photo'ed going up in smoke earlier in this thread

Dave
 
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