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Using Infra Red Cameras to Fault Find SMPS Fault

david ellwood

david ellwood

Kirabosi Kognoscente
A friend had a fault with his Linn Kairn which was fitted with a Brilliant PSU.
The problem was that it worked fine for about an hour before giving up the ghost.
Having replaced all the usual suspects of electrolytic capacitors I decided it was likely
an overheating issue and so tried looking at the board with an infra red camera.
Interestingly this clearly identified one of the MosFets as 25°c hotter than its twin.
Having replaced this component the PSU is now working fine.


 
Having a professional IR camera no doubt helps!
We used one of these at work many years ago, it was amazing what you could find, and how much wool you could pull over people's eyes!
 
Looks good!

When we used one it was a big and very expensive bit of kit, like a large camcorder (it was about 20 years ago mind).
 
peterm said:
Having a professional IR camera no doubt helps!
We used one of these at work many years ago, it was amazing what you could find, and how much wool you could pull over people's eyes!
Click to expand...
We hired one in 1983-ish, for a day.

BugBear
 
I've used a thermal imaging camera system (we run a co-op that does climate change remediation at a local level, and one aspect is identifying insulation problems in houses) - they work well, with a bit of practice, but are rather expensive even by hifi accessory standards. There are thermal imaging apps for phones, I wonder how well they work? We find that household thermal imaging only really works well in the winter, as you need a large difference in temperature, to spot temperature 'leaks'. So, for circuit troubleshooting it may be worth 'freezing' the circuit board in advance.
 
bugbear said:
Odd - I bought a trail cam for £130, and (amongst things) it's a 12Mp Infra Red camera. Or is that a different kind of IR?

BugBear
Click to expand...

I think you have bought a camera that is sensitive to IR from the IR LEDs it has, so yours works on reflected light at about 850nm and the FLIR /grid eye works on the IR transmitted from an object at about 12,000nm and can measure it's temperature, apart from that they are the same. If you had a 12 mega pixel camera sensitive to 12,000nm, the security services would be having a word or two with you.
 
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