I hate it when a tool fails

[ChadTower]

Dammit.  I'm playing around with an NES motherboard when all of a sudden my DMM starts buzzing like crazy.  It is registering shorts in continuity mode even with the leads a foot apart.   

Stuff like this happens to everyone, I assume.

[danny_galaga]

nope...

[horseboy]

Oh boy that was nice. I bet nobody else thought of that gem first. 

[Glaine]

While I don't know what a DMM is, I tried repairing an arcade power supply fan once and had the new wires twisted up, plugged it in to test it and an exposed wire touched the metal case and fried it. Lucky I wasn't touching the metal at the time.

And another time I was given a flat screen monitor that the back light had gone out on, I took the screen element out and tried to power it on with power only going to the screen so if that worked I could make one of those cool sun-lit flat screens. Apparently power going only to the monitor was too much for it (with no power going trying to go to the light) so it went up in smoke on my desk. Good times.

[ChadTower]

DMM = digital multimeter

[shardian]

While I don't know what a DMM is, I tried repairing an arcade power supply fan once and had the new wires twisted up, plugged it in to test it and an exposed wire touched the metal case and fried it. Lucky I wasn't touching the metal at the time.

And another time I was given a flat screen monitor that the back light had gone out on, I took the screen element out and tried to power it on with power only going to the screen so if that worked I could make one of those cool sun-lit flat screens. Apparently power going only to the monitor was too much for it (with no power going trying to go to the light) so it went up in smoke on my desk. Good times.

Yeah, you brokeded it alright. The backlight inverter is on a separate card that just disconnects to the controller board with a ribbon cable. Disconnecting it should not fry the screen. You must have shorted something, or applied an improper voltage. Kinda makes you wish you had had a DMM huh?

[shmokes]

I built a light table for my wife, which turned out ---smurfing--- awesome, I might add.  The first time I wired power to the lights, though, I wired the switch wrong and basically looped the power right back to the outlet.  I turned it on and immediately heard a pop from the surge protector it was plugged into and smoke started streaming out of it.  Just a fuse, I'm sure.  I immediately looked at the wiring and though, "I'm retarded."

And so on . . .

[Glaine]

While I don't know what a DMM is, I tried repairing an arcade power supply fan once and had the new wires twisted up, plugged it in to test it and an exposed wire touched the metal case and fried it. Lucky I wasn't touching the metal at the time.

And another time I was given a flat screen monitor that the back light had gone out on, I took the screen element out and tried to power it on with power only going to the screen so if that worked I could make one of those cool sun-lit flat screens. Apparently power going only to the monitor was too much for it (with no power going trying to go to the light) so it went up in smoke on my desk. Good times.

Yeah, you brokeded it alright. The backlight inverter is on a separate card that just disconnects to the controller board with a ribbon cable. Disconnecting it should not fry the screen. You must have shorted something, or applied an improper voltage. Kinda makes you wish you had had a DMM huh?

Yeah, the smoke was a good indicator of brokeded-ness. Don't know how a multimeter would have helped in this case, I would have needed to power it on first to check for voltages right? At which point it was already fried. Unless you meant to check for proper flows before applying power, to which I would agree I should do - though I honestly don't know how to...

[ChadTower]

You would have used the DMM to check for shorts in the areas where they commonly appear. 

[Glaine]

You would have used the DMM to check for shorts in the areas where they commonly appear. 

Yeah, you're right. I couldn't find the shorts anywhere, so I pull out the DMM and:

[Extreme8]

The only time I ever blowed up a meter was when I was much younger.
I was curious about how much voltage was being used in our back yard bug zapper.

Lots, evidently.

That poor old Fluke meter was never the same.