Problem:
I have this small amp I had recently installed and I was adjusting a 12 volt battery near the base and a spark jumped from the positive terminal of the battery to the screw I have marked on the image. Is there an electrical engineer here that could help me figure out if this is salvageable or not? I have already replaced the actual unit, just wondering if I could replace a capacitor or something simple and save the amp.
thanks in advance!
Dumb Question, does the amp no longer work? often time the screws on cases are linked to ground and so you may have only shorted the battery to ground. It is hard to tell if you have puffy caps from the pictures.
Not an EE, but can you tell if there’s actually any internal damage to the board? (does it still work, etc?) That screw should be for a ground connection, so if its working properly, it very well may have isolated the spark from the board and shunted the extra voltage elsewhere.
Edit: Yeah, what Nick said.
As far as I know, the amp no longer works. It was playing music at the time and as soon as the spark hit it when silent. The speakers are good; however, I’m not sure what component on the board may have been ruined. It does not look like the screws are grounded at all, they are drilled right into the aluminum housing.
Internally, everything looks good. I do not see any damage.
edit:
The housing appears to be grounded from the inner side.
You may have zapped a fuse powering the amp. Bring it by the eLab Thursday evening as we can trace it out on a bench supply.
Hopefully the spark didn’t take out the IC.
Awesome, I’ll swing by on Thursday. Thanks!
Those cheap amps aren’t usually well protected.
That black chip that is screwed to the case has probably been fried.
These cheap amps are not usually economically viable to repair.
Something came up and I won’t be able to make it out there tonight, are you going to be around any time this weekend?
