Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

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).

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. Question: From an electrical point of view what exactly…
uhoh
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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 fine instructions for display repair and thought…
emrys57
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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 sure the inductor, capacitor, current sense…
Reid
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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 another subject. What really caught my attention…
gstorto
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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 drive my NMOS placed at the high side of the circuit.…
Kevin
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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). Short question: what might have caused it? Do…
Sandro
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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 dried both emit, but not as expected. At a…
Chris H
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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 device. It works fine, does not draw more current…
jwsc
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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 knowing what it could be. Here is another component on the board, having the same label,…
Le Minaw
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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 performed a soft start of the PWM 30 Hz. Everything is…
Daniele
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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 they are heavily geared worm drive actuators and…
KyranF
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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 hours without incident, so I'm fairly sure there is…
Rocketmagnet
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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 iterations having eliminated possible other sources…
svenema
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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…
Neograph734
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MOSFET driver blows out in half-bridge DC motor PWM controller

EDIT: I've redone the MOSFET circuit diagram; it now represents what my actual layout is. I wanted to spare myself redrawing the circuit but ended up confusing everything, I hope it's clearer now! Also, I'm using IR2907 MOSFETs, in case this is…
Solmyr999
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