Serious question, is anyone else seeing more of these tiny surface mount fuses lately?

I had a flat screen TV on the bench last week, a common brand, with a dead power supply. I was sure it was the main switching IC, my usual suspect. I pulled the board and started checking. After about twenty minutes of poking around, I found it. A tiny, clear SMD fuse, no bigger than a grain of rice, had blown. I almost missed it because I was looking for the bigger, through-hole parts. I swapped it with a new one from a donor board I keep, and the set fired right up. It made me realize I've been skipping the basic fuse check on these newer boards, going straight for the complex stuff. That little part cost me an extra half hour of work. Has anyone found a good, fast way to test these on the board without pulling them?

2 comments

2 Comments

derek6563h agoMost Upvoted

Okay, "serious question"? It's a fuse. It's the FIRST thing you check, not some deep mystery. That extra half hour is on you for skipping the basics. My guy, you start with the power, you check the fuse. It doesn't matter if it's the size of a crumb or a brick. The job is to find what's broken, not guess at the fancy part. A simple continuity check takes two seconds. If it's good, you move on. If it's bad, you found your problem.

aaron8842h ago

Right? I always check fuses first too.