Trap For Young Players

[German_EE]

We often hear the phrase "trap for young players" from Dave and this afternoon I came across an idea which is so simple that I really should have thought about it forty years ago when I first started building stuff.

I was in the shack of another radio ham and we had spent the afternoon repairing a frequency counter that had a display fault. The problem had been fixed and I was just about to put the top cover back on when my friend stopped me. Grabbing hold of the counter he turned it upside down and gave the base of the unit a few hard slaps, out tumbled two solder balls and a short length of insulation. OK, the insulation probably would not have caused a problem but the solder balls may have shorted out something critical and it turns out that Felix does this as a last item on everything he constructs and repairs, turns it upside down and beats it up a little.

Perhaps the fact that Felix works on satellites where service calls are awkward if something breaks may have something to do with this but it's something I had never thought of doing.Try this out on your project and see what falls out on to the workbench.

[Kjelt]

I always visually inspect the pcb after service if there are any solder remains etc.
Shaking softly and listening if something is loose inside is also one of the things I do before I start working on it.
Maybe satellite technology is made to be slapt and shaken around to a couple of G's but hard slapping leadfree smt might also cause a new problem