A Faulty Controller Checked But Was Not Repaired
A guy called and asked me to come over to his shop to take a look on this dead controller but I was busy to go so the next day he came to my shop and brought the controller to my shop for repair.
I do not know what kind of controller that is but I am guessing it has to do with wood carvings business he has set up in his place.
The customer explained that this device is only 3 months old and suddenly it stopped working after they heard a loud pop in this shop. They called the technician that installed this controller in the shop but could not do anything about it except installing a new controller and hope for the best.
He brought it to me for check up and hopping it is fixable. The way the customer explained the situation, I really doubted that it would be fixed but I was willing to give it a try.
It was easy to open the device and as seen on the right side of the photo, two resistors that are black next to the damaged relay on the same line.
The board is mounted on a huge heat sink and as seen there is a lot of thermal paste on it.
It is a very solid device but what caused it to be damaged in such a way.
The two resistors are open and the relay is damaged as well. In my mind I was thinking if these are the only damages we would be on the safe side but I was a little bit worried about it so I kept checking components for any kind of damage.
For some reason, the bridge rectifier was not shorted and that is strange since it was directly connected to one of these fuse resistors.
The top board was checked ok but when I checked the parts on the other side of the board I found this. It was totally blown and at this time my testing was over. I did not know what other damage was on the board and I was not willing go on and as a technician we need to be smart about things like that.
I called the customer and I explained the situation. He came and picked up the damaged part, paid for my time spent on the device. We spent time talking about the situation and I suggested to the customer getting a certified 3 phase electrician to do a full check up in his shop because he already installed a new controller in there and we do not want any further damage done. It was a learning experience for me since I never worked on such device before but it was worth the effort.
Mission not accomplished but experience was enriched.
This article was prepared for you by Waleed Rishmawi, one of our ‘Master Authors’ and currently working in the Bethlehem area of Palestine repairing electrical and electronic equipment.
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Note: You can check his previous article on A PS4 With No Display Repaired And Maintained
Anwar Yunas Shiekh
August 12, 2023 at 7:57 am
"The customer explained that this device is only 3 months old"
was it not still under warranty?
Waleed Rishmawi
August 12, 2023 at 1:56 pm
Anwar: yes it was under warranty but this is the second device that the company replaced and still went dead and according to the customer it was a wire connection issue by the electrician. have a blessed day
Albert van Bemmelen
August 12, 2023 at 1:12 pm
I guess that the customer got a new replacement controller since the blown controller was still in warranty time. What type of controller chip was blasted you probably couldn't determine because of the thermal paste on it?
Waleed Rishmawi
August 12, 2023 at 1:59 pm
Albert: yes the customer got a replacement and still blew up due to some wire connection issue at the shop. I could not read the whole number on the blown part so I did not bother with it since I did not contiue with the repair. have a blessed day
Parasuraman S
August 13, 2023 at 10:25 am
Yes, we learn more from our mistakes! A good lesson and thanks for sharing! Generally, technicians do not like to share the failures! But you have and that is what makes it attractive and unique!
Aqib Idrees
August 14, 2023 at 3:25 pm
How is this a failure? He just doesn’t have the destroyed IC
Waleed Rishmawi
August 14, 2023 at 4:14 pm
Parasuraman: you are most welcome my friend. I appreciate your nice comments. have a blessed day
Yogesh Panchal
August 13, 2023 at 11:45 pm
Nice to hear that you charged for time spent for the troubleshooting & it should be. now a days more & more equipment comes which involved both Hardware as well software troubleshooting,sometime it take days to get result.
Good Job! Waleed
Waleed Rishmawi
August 14, 2023 at 4:51 pm
Yogesh: yes, I had an agreement with the customer before we started the testing but sad to say not many customers pay for testing and checking. so before proceeding with any customers I start first with fees even if the machine was not fixed and so far it is going fine. have a blessed day
Maurizio
August 18, 2023 at 3:36 am
Waleed,
since "Mission Accomplished" has become the trademark of all your articles, it is sad to read that bad news. Hopefully it will be an isolated case. Greetings to you and to the Yong Community from Sicily!
Waleed Rishmawi
August 18, 2023 at 4:52 pm
Maurizio: it is still mission accomplished in learning from my mistakes. yes the board was not fixed due to a lot of damage on it but the fact remains we are humans, we will not be able to repair everything that comes our way but we can learn from that and move on. have a blessed day