Have you ever come across perfect running electronic equipment that suddenly stops working and you don’t know what is wrong with it? Here you will find some great tips that will help bring your electronic equipment back from the dead.

Before getting any further you will need the following things under your belt.

Equipment Required:

1. Screw driver
2. Soldering iron
3. Solder wire
4. Capacitors
5. Resistors

 

Procedure:

1)  Open the electronic device. Be sure to unscrew all the screws on body before applying the force to open it because if some screws are left inside you may end up breaking the device body beyond repair.

2)  Observe carefully for blown up capacitors and resistors. Blown capacitors can have brownish fluid leaking from them; they can be corroded or the top can be slightly bent outward as well. A blown resistor on the other hand turns black and has nasty smell.

3)  Identifying blown or burnt capacitors and resistors can be tricky. Unless you’re absolutely sure; DO NOT remove the component.

4)  To remove the blown capacitor, identify its two soldered ends on the PCB. The same goes for the resistor. Heat the soldering iron and touch the tip of it on soldered end while pulling the capacitor/resistor outward with the other hand.

 

5)  When the blown capacitor is removed check the ratings written on it i.e. its capacitance and voltage/temperature rating. Also observe the polarity in case of polarized capacitor (the longer end is the positive). The blown capacitor should be replaced with a new capacitor of identical capacitance and rating.

 

6)  Checking the resistance of a blown resistor becomes slightly more difficult as a reading from a multi meter can be skewed because the resistor has burnt out. Most of the time the color coding, burns out too when the resistor blows. In such a case the device specifications are needed to find the value of resistor to replace it with.  

7)  Now time to solder the new capacitor. Cut both terminals of capacitor to make them equal in length and then taking care of polarities solder the new capacitor in place of the blown one.

8)  After that fix the PCB in the casing just as it was before taking it out.

9)  Now turn the power on and see if the device is working. Fingers crossed it works again!  Replacing the blown component usually works but you never know, there can be faults worse than fixing blown components. If you’re not sure of the problem get an expert opinion.

Precautions

 

1. Be sure device is turned off and unplugged before opening.
2. Make sure not to touch any naked wires or joints because capacitors may be charged thus resulting in a shock. This can be avoided using rubber gloves.
3. Also if there are naked wires take care not to short circuit them (will result in a bigger fault!). The same goes for the PCB. Don’t add too much solder that it connects different copper tracks and short circuits them.
4. PCB has very delicate parts soldered on it so don’t touch anything randomly because this may result in breaking some crucial joints.
5. Don’t touch the metal part of soldering iron or recently soldered joints as they are extremely hot and can cause severe burns.
6. Wear goggles to protect eyes from fumes of solder.
7. Don’t breathe close to the soldering fumes.

Sources & Inspiration for my piece

uk.farnell.com/capacitors - Wide range sold here via Farnell of capacitors 

newark.com/connectors - Connectors via Newark a selection available from leading suppliers 

newark.com/fluke - Range of electronic test tools from Fluke, worth checking out and having a look