Today there will be a quiz. Ready? Look at this picture and see if you can spot the problem:
If you said “Hey, that green wire seems a little odd; it disappears behind the heat sink next to that screw then reappears again at the top,” you are correct. What really sucks is the green wire is the transmitter off connection to the remote control. So, when the PA board was secured to the heat sink, the wire was trapped between the board and the heat sink. Since the components were cold, they did not pinch through the insulation right away, no. Rather, after the transmitter ran for several hours at full power, it got hot enough to displace the wire insulation and cause a short. Doh! The transmitter is off and it won’t come back on!
This is a picture of the wire after it was removed:
Haste makes waste. Unfortunately, it was someone else’s haste that ruined my Saturday afternoon when I was supposed to be taking my son to little league practice. I am sure that some not-so-kind words will be exchanged very soon.
Always double-check your work.
Another odd thing I noticed is to the left of the green wire there appears to be another green wire burned into the ribbon cable or are my eyes playing a trick on me?
Chris, that is the same wire, it wrapped around the ribbon cable. The original installation was not done too neatly. I spent some time dressing the wires so this type of thing won’t happen again.