If you happen to know anyone that does home inspections-- see if they'll
drop by with their thermal imager. (Basically the high-tech version of the
color-change sheet Chris mentioned.) When the board is cool a short ramps
up temperature *really* fast, so watch the screen and power up the board and
you'll basically see it 'go nova' on the imager. It's kinda neat-- you can
see the entire power trace connected to the part in question 'light up' too.
They're also very handy on smaller electronics now when parts are tiny and
close together and it's tough to tell what's getting hot with a finger or IR
thermometer... Alas, they're still quite expensive for 'good' cameras, but
it's a really interesting tool to have if you can justify the price (or
better-- know of one you can borrow once in a while ;-).
-Clay
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Received on Tue Oct 18 14:24:49 2011
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