Unconventional methods of diagnostics and repair of electronic circuits

Štefan Voljč (2011) Unconventional methods of diagnostics and repair of electronic circuits. EngD thesis.

Preview

PDF Download (2164Kb)

Abstract

Diploma thesis is dealing with problems and procedures of repairing electronic boards and other electric devices that are usually not repaired due to rather high repair costs. Service centers normally have expensive service equipment which consequently led to expensive service hour. To locate the fault on very complicated printed circuit boards many expensive service hours are used. The result is that it is cheaper to throw the broken device away and replace it with new one than repair it. The only exception is the repair of very expensive devices and of devices that could not be replaced with new ones because they are not available on the market any more. In the future profitability won’t be the only criteria to repair the electric devices. Care for environment is becoming more and more important issue and will be one of the leading criteria that will change our decisions in the future. Limited supplies of raw materials, expensive energy and pollution will force us to produce products of higher quality and when they get broken they shall be repaired instead of replaced with new ones. In that way the repairing of all kind of products (also the electronic boards and other electrical devices) will become important again. The main idea of diploma thesis was to present the alternative approach in repair of printed circuit boards (electrical devices). The results of such repair are lower costs and less time used. The chance of success is lower than at conventional repair techniques but is still a good alternative for repair of all the electrical devices that would be normally thrown away. In first part of diploma thesis different approaches of fault location on the printed circuit board are presented. Main part of diploma thesis presents procedures of fault diagnostics and alternative methods for their repair. Service person with sufficient knowledge (and if possible with a list of typical faults) can find the error relatively fast. Current experiences show that the probability of successful repair of different electronic devices is higher than 50% (and could be up to 100%). All presented alternative procedures were also tested in practice which is described in last section of diploma thesis. The conclusion of diploma thesis presents comparison of different repairing techniques (from expensive conventional techniques to cheaper alternatives), their performance and suitability of use in different cases.

Actions (login required)