Dead Short
March 24, 2007
Do any of you have any good pointers for troubleshooting a dead short in electronics stuffs?
I tried to power up my Atari 1050 earlier today and found that the power LED wasn’t illuminating. Opening it up showed that AC power is getting into it and being rectified, but the output legs of the LM7805 and LM7812 shows a dead short to ground.
Unfortunately I’m having a hard time finding a schematic for it. :(
What you need – if I’ve thought this through properly – is a multimeter that not only emits a tone upon a short, but varies the tone with the resistance of the input. That way, you can put one probe on the gnd line, and trace +5 until you find the but with least resistance. I think.
Both legs are shorted to ground, though? Maybe the issue is in a plug containing both power pins? Or an IC or something.
Was just about to say this, so I’ll second it.
I’m thinking it might be an IC. I’m just going to try and borrow another drive instead… I don’t have a meter which will do that. :\
The drives themselves only cost about $10 anyway.