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Letting the smoke out

When something goes horribly wrong with electronics, there is usually a small (or spectacular) puff of smoke associated with the event. It has been determined that there is a bit of smoke in each electronic component and letting the smoke out will result in that component's failure. Mostly Cajun had a big example for today:

Hot!, Da*ned hot!
Yesterday was 102 freakin’ degrees in southwest Louisiana, with a heat index of 118. I don’t care where you’re from, that’s pretty darned hot.

That old quote about “only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun”? I am neither mad dog nor English, and I know better than to try anything outside between 10 AM and 5 PM. People die from this stuff, especially overweight, under climatized Cajuns. I have often speculated that I was kidnapped from Wisconsin as a happy infant by a roving band of itinerant Cajuns. It’s one way to explain my misery in this heat.

Today I am at our station northwest of Houston. Our little 7000-horsepower electric motor’s controller suffered an intermediate level of electron leakage, resulting in “motor no run”. Here’s a picture:

The good news is that the equipment is under warranty and yes:

Fortunately, this equipment resides in an air-conditioned building.

That is some serious smoke! Posted by DaveH at August 13, 2007 9:46 PM