Questions tagged [component-failure]
For questions about what causes components to fail, how to prevent component failure, and component failure modes (e.g. fail open or fail short).
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Why is my fluorescent tube orange on one side, white on the other and dark in the middle?
I have a ~60 cm fluorescent tube light that is failing. ~10 cm on one end glows orange, ~10 cm on the other end glows blue-white (normal fluorescent light color) and the middle 40 cm is dark.
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Can a relay failure mode be like that?
I was fixing my dishwasher control board, and diagnosed a bad relay. Its coil is still within specifications, but the relay will not close its contacts. It is an easy fix ok, but my question concerns ...
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Why might a 40 year old single chip processor have failed?
I've had a Fluke 8050A bench multimeter sitting on a shelf in my cold, damp garage for about 30 years. It was new in 1981, last powered up in the 1980s, and the display was dead. I came across these ...
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Why did my LED drivers blow up?
I recently designed my first PCB, which houses LED driver circuitry for some custom lighting. I fastidiously followed the driver's datasheet (Diodes Inc AL8862QSP-13) in designing the circuit: making ...
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MOSFET failure in a high power AC-DC SMPS buck converter
I've made a AC-DC step down buck converter that converts 220 VAC to a variable 45 to 70 VDC at 5 to 10 A to charge a Li-Ion battery. I'm currently using ESP32 to drive a MOSFET driver (IR2110) to ...
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Burned motor controllers: possible root causes analysis
On a submarine robot we built, during an operation, we recently had 3 defect thruster motors (the internal power PCBs have many burnt components, 2 of the motors cracked open due to internal pressure)....
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Failure of LEDs in the wet -- what's going on at the semiconductor level?
Recently I've come across two very different LEDs that have failed due to a soaking, but with interesting and almost identical failure behaviour. I'd like to understand what's going on inside.
Once ...
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Schottky diode failure
TLDR:
What are possible failure sources for a schottky diode? Overheating, overvoltage, overcurrent (leading to overheating) anything else?
Long version
I am currently measuring our new prototype ...
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Which components can be labelled as "BD" on a printed circuit board?
In the process of repairing some consumer electronics, I encountered some SMDs labelled BD on the silkscreen:
As this one has clearly blown, I'm interested in ...
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DC-DC converter failure after adding a capacitor to the circuit
simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab
The above schematic is used to heat a 2.4-ohm load. I am using a power supply from Meanwell GST280A24 280W at 24V. In the MCU it is ...
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PWM Dimming of a Low-Voltage DC Incandescent Filament (Thermal Shock?)
I plan on driving some Numitron tube filaments from an IV-16 tube (datasheet here). For ease of access I'll give the key specs here:
Nominal filament voltage: 3.15V
Max filament voltage (steady-state)...
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Why is only one channel of my dual H-bridge motor driver design failing?
I have a dual motor driver board I designed for driving 2 linear actuators with 48V and each one has as rated full load current of 3.5 amps. I can expect up to 10 amp short duration on startup, but ...
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Electrolytic capacitor failure mode
In a project we're working on, we had an electrolytic capacitor explode on us. It was a surface mount device, UCM1H470MCL1GS from Nichicon:
So far, we've seen our project run for many hundreds of ...
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Electronic wearing of a printed circuit board?
I was told that electronic components and printed circuit boards have a limited lifetime. This is backed by several questions and answers:
https://www.quora.com/Do-circuit-boards-have-a-useful-life
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2N7000 Mosfet destroyed during soldering?
I have been having problems with 2N7000 mosfets that perform perfectly on the breadboard, but when moved to a perfboard start failing. I'm on my third iteration now, replacing all mosfets, between ...
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