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Took 6 hours to find a cold solder joint on a power supply board, should I have just replaced the whole thing?
I was fixing a 2017 HP desktop power supply that kept tripping the circuit breaker. After checking caps, resistors, and swapping out a diode pack, it turned out to be a tiny cold solder on the main transformer pin that I spotted by accident under a magnifier. I spent almost a full day on it, but the fix cost me maybe 5 bucks worth of solder and flux. Part of me thinks I should have just tossed it and bought a $40 replacement, but then I wouldn't have learned to look closer at transformer joints. What do you guys think, is chasing down these weird faults worth the time or do you just swap and move on?
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xenagarcia4mo ago
Saw a repair channel say those transformer joints fail from heat cycling, good catch.
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hannahw305mo ago
Did a buddy of mine spend three days tracking down a weird capacitor that looked fine but was bad inside, only to find out the replacement part was cheaper than his lunch? Yeah, he definitely still thinks it was worth it for the lesson learned.
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xenagarcia5mo ago
Oh, careful there - a cold solder joint wouldn't actually cause a breaker to trip, it'd more likely cause the supply to just not power on or drop out under load. That said, I still think you made the right call tracking it down, those transformer joints are notorious for hiding.
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