Last evening as the sky grew dark and ominous, I was reminded that it is THAT time of year.  Only this year it seems like it is getting started ahead of schedule.  It is thunderstorm time of year bringing with it storm and lightning damaged electronics.

In fact, we’ve already started getting a lot of circuit boards damaged by lightning strikes.  Many, like this GDI circuit board are repairable.  Others are just plain toast – literally.

The fields of battle and the faces may change through the years, but the courage, honor and heroism remain the same.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.  Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

Did you ever think something as simple as a fan could hold up the completion of a huge order? No one at this major U.S. aviation manufacturer saw this coming as work on the order had been humming along smoothly. Until it wasn’t.

Our customer carefully tested the boards in the failing Okuma SDU-600W spindle drive by moving them to other machines fearing they were fried, but they worked. The problem “NM still not matching tach speed” persists and the project is stopped. What now?

“Shocking” Info Bites:

• Almost 500 people die each year from electrical accidents, mostly in the workplace, putting it among the top 10 causes of accidental death in the U.S.
• Approximately 80% of all injuries and fatalities caused by electrical accidents are not caused by the electric shock itself, but by the intensive heat, light and pressure blast caused by electrical faults.
• The blast made by vaporizing metallic components can break bones and damage internal organs.

Yes, I shamefully admit it, I HAVE put at least two cell phones into a bag of dry white rice to save them from having taken a swim in a toilet bowl and a swimming pool respectively.

While this may work for the occasional cell phone, it’s not the magic needed for water damaged industrial circuit boards.  Take a look at the photos of this water-damaged Bosch circuit board that arrived at our repair center recently.  Ugh!  Looked like a goner at first sight.

Got a stack of damaged circuit boards gathering dust in your plant?  If so, you are in some good company.

Instead of waiting for someone else to figure out what to do with these, go ahead and grab the bull by the proverbial horns…or rather the circuit board by its electronic components.

There’s likely something useful in that dusty pile of circuit boards, at the very least, scrap value.  Not to mention you will reduce clutter which, in some plants, that alone could make you a hero.