I pride myself on being a practical type, so when I'm out and about visiting relatives or friends, it's inevitable they will ask me to look at something (electronic or otherwise). I've been asked to debug soy milk makers, washing machines, treadmills, computers, radios, telephones, ADSL modems/routers, light switches, power points, LCD TVs, monitors, etc. Half the time, if it's not urgent and it's small enough, I'd shove it into my bag and take it home so I can use the stack of tools and test equipment I have at home to diagnose and repair the issue. But that's not exactly practical when you have a 55" LCD TV that needs a fix!

It's also not practical when your work involves a lot of travelling and demonstrating prototype devices on site. A local news film crew was invited to see a prototype device we had built in a live demo situation. Everyone knows that live demos always go to plan and this one was no exception. Ten minutes before the crew arrived, the equipment began to malfunction causing erratic data values to be recorded. We suspected something may have gone wrong with the battery - but replacing this did us no good. Then we suspected it may have been radio interference, but taking it off site didn't fix the issue. I felt a rising lump in my throat - this could have been a disaster for me and could have cost me my job, as we thought that perhaps there is a firmware bug and we'd have to resort to a less impressive Plan B (i.e. a pre-recorded demo, which I had also prepared).

With some quick thinking, I grabbed the only tool I had - a screwdriver I bought from home. I opened the device and gave the PCB a bit of a push while powering up - the unit came on normally and was working again. Hastily reassembling the unit prior to the crew's arrival, I told my superior (who would be on-screen) not to turn off the unit or it may fail. The filming proceeded relatively smoothly, until half-way during the shoot, the unit was powered off. Not wanting to cause a scene, I jumped in and toggled the power switch a few times to no avail. I eventually placed it on a chair and sat on it, while powering up, and it was back to life. Filming was completed uneventfully.

Afterwards, the unit was taken up to our labs where an investigation revealed that some unrouted traces that had been "green wired" using kynar wire had some cold solder joints which led to the ADC not initialising with the correct parameters. If only we had something on site to work out the bug - we wouldn't have spent so much time changing batteries, taking the unit off site and may have just taken it up to my office where I could have touched up the joints! At least I still have a job ...

- Gough

I pride myself on being a practical type, so when I'm out and about visiting relatives or friends, it's inevitable they will ask me to look at something (electronic or otherwise). I've been asked to debug soy milk makers, washing machines, treadmills, computers, radios, telephones, ADSL modems/routers, light switches, power points, LCD TVs, monitors, etc. Half the time, if it's not urgent and it's small enough, I'd shove it into my bag and take it home so I can use the stack of tools and test equipment I have at home to diagnose and repair the issue. But that's not exactly practical when you have a 55" LCD TV that needs a fix!

It's also not practical when your work involves a lot of travelling and demonstrating prototype devices on site. A local news film crew was invited to see a prototype device we had built in a live demo situation. Everyone knows that live demos always go to plan and this one was no exception. Ten minutes before the crew arrived, the equipment began to malfunction causing erratic data values to be recorded. We suspected something may have gone wrong with the battery - but replacing this did us no good. Then we suspected it may have been radio interference, but taking it off site didn't fix the issue. I felt a rising lump in my throat - this could have been a disaster for me and could have cost me my job, as we thought that perhaps there is a firmware bug and we'd have to resort to a less impressive Plan B (i.e. a pre-recorded demo, which I had also prepared).

With some quick thinking, I grabbed the only tool I had - a screwdriver I bought from home. I opened the device and gave the PCB a bit of a push while powering up - the unit came on normally and was working again. Hastily reassembling the unit prior to the crew's arrival, I told my superior (who would be on-screen) not to turn off the unit or it may fail. The filming proceeded relatively smoothly, until half-way during the shoot, the unit was powered off. Not wanting to cause a scene, I jumped in and toggled the power switch a few times to no avail. I eventually placed it on a chair and sat on it, while powering up, and it was back to life. Filming was completed uneventfully.

Afterwards, the unit was taken up to our labs where an investigation revealed that some unrouted traces that had been "green wired" using kynar wire had some cold solder joints which led to the ADC not initialising with the correct parameters. If only we had something on site to work out the bug - we wouldn't have spent so much time changing batteries, taking the unit off site and may have just taken it up to my office where I could have touched up the joints! At least I still have a job ...

- Gough