Strangest electronics repairs

[Terry McGee]

Way back in the 1980's, I got a call from my mum - the TV sound had died. It took a few days before I could get around there, but they were still watching it. Knowing nothing about TV, and having no circuit or TV tools, there wasn't much I thought I could do. But, ever the dutiful son, I pulled the back off the set and thought I could touch a finger to the rotor of the volume control and see if it was a simple audio fault that I might be able to fix. When I looked at the back of the control, there seemed to be a short wire extending a few inches from the control. I gently tugged on the "wire" and found myself holding a dead, dessicated mouse by the tail. I turned the set back on and the sound was fine. I assume the mouse had run up the cable loom to the back of the volume control, which also incorporated the power switch, got its cute little paws across the pot while at the same time electrocuting itself on the switch terminals.

Terry

[diarav]

I built a six channel amp board with LM3886 and they all had the 2A fuse rails. I had 12 fuses for the 6 amps (2 per amp). During the construction and testing I blew two fuses and I continued the build with the remaining 10 on hand often swapping between amps and finally they were all working fine. One amp module hence did not have the fuses and I thought I would purchase them later. I continued with the other parts of the construction and many months later I was testing all six channels and one amp module did not work. I spent almost three hours, disconnecting the wires and checking the pcb for any loose contacts and then - it flashed to me that the fuses were missing! I ensured that the next day the new fuses were in place!