Freeze spray fixing marginal power-on issue?

[jayalt]

I was wondering what types of issues can actually be FIXED by a can of freeze spray?

My impression is that freeze spray is useful in diagnosing soldering issues since it can cause faulty joints to temporarily break.

I am seeing the opposite on a BGA component that has been giving me a bunch of issues upon power on. I seem to be experiencing some type of latch up condition after applying power to my IC. When I take a can of freeze spray directly to the IC, it can power on just fine.

The temperature of my component / board is nearly always at room temperature, since it is a low voltage, battery-operated product.

Any ideas what could be happening?

[xrunner]

Besides double-posting this topic, I looked at your post history. You never respond to anyone who asks for more information from you. Why is that?

[jayalt]

Besides double-posting this topic, I looked at your post history. You never respond to anyone who asks for more information from you. Why is that?

Oops- my bad.

Typically I'm not at liberty to share the schematics or layout online. Although I realize the type of open-ended debug questions I generally ask require them for a useful response.

[shakalnokturn]

In that case why bother (us) at all?

[BravoSierraBravo]

I'm new here, but I'll take a shot at this.

It is very unlikely that freeze spray will "fix" anything permanently. If the failing component or board trace in question is thermally impacted and breaks contact or shorts out when it gets hot, the freeze spray would only provide a temporary relief of that symptom and the failure mode will return as soon as the temperature rises back to the failure point of the device/board.

Freeze spray is quite good for identifying shorted capacitors and diodes, as they will heat up when power is applied. Shoot some freeze spray, power on, watch for what what defrosts first and start troubleshooting there.

I just use canned air and hold the can upside down. While I'd prefer to have a FLIR camera, canned air is cheap and I've repaired a lot of boards using it - but it never "fixed" anything.

My buck-O-five. Good luck.

[jayalt]

I'm new here, but I'll take a shot at this.

It is very unlikely that freeze spray will "fix" anything permanently. If the failing component or board trace in question is thermally impacted and breaks contact or shorts out when it gets hot, the freeze spray would only provide a temporary relief of that symptom and the failure mode will return as soon as the temperature rises back to the failure point of the device/board.

Freeze spray is quite good for identifying shorted capacitors and diodes, as they will heat up when power is applied. Shoot some freeze spray, power on, watch for what what defrosts first and start troubleshooting there.

I just use canned air and hold the can upside down. While I'd prefer to have a FLIR camera, canned air is cheap and I've repaired a lot of boards using it - but it never "fixed" anything.

My buck-O-five. Good luck.

Thank you for your input.

You are correct and I should clarify further - it doesn't permanently fix the issue. It provides temporary relief. It allows my IC to power up correctly a couple times before things stabilize to room temperature once again. I will check for shorted components.

What is interesting is the system itself never rises more than a few degrees past room temperature at any point of operation - I have confirmed on a thermal camera. The system itself is off 99% of the time, and when I do power on I'm running things very quickly.