LEDs powered by prober.

[AES Wind]

  I discovered another way that the Huntron equipment can save time.  At least for me.  I've a board that is little more than a series of resistors, caps, and LEDs for a fiber optic RX/TX circuit. 

Well.....  In the process of checking the diodes that are upsteam (circuitwise) of the LEDs, with my tracker set at Med1, utilizing my handheld meter leads, I found that my LEDs were flashing alternately.  Ok, so this isn't solving world hunger, but for me it cut a good 30 minutes out of troubleshooting time for this particular board, as most of it has to be done by hand due to component locations (physical proximities) and surrounding structures. 

At any rate, It made ME happy.   

[AES Wind]

CAPACITORS, not diodes.  My mistake.   

[admin]

So you were testing CAPS and the LEDs would illuminate. That makes more sense. 
Thanks for the tip.

Curtis

[gman]

I noticed this "power on" characteristic of the prober also and have been using this technique on a board with several LEDs that light up as the prober scans through the series. If I notice an LED that is dimmer than the rest I can check for a leaky cap or going-bad LED. It does save some time with the observed illumination and the resultant signature(s) analysis. Ooh, that sounded technical!

[AES Wind]

   Shame  on you!  This is a social networking forum!  Not something silly like a technical support and idea exchange forum for people who do something as ridiculous as work on technical thingies!   Tsk, tsk, tsk!

It occurs to me that I have no idea how to approach spelling something that is not even a real word.  Hmm. 

[admin]

Welcome to the forum Gman! Thanks for the input on LED testing and I would interested in hearing what you find.

And AES_Wind, green LEDs have the same signature as red LEDs. How's THAT for technical...

[AES Wind]

   oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh!