I just upgraded my ancient controller (v2.3) to the latest revision. Now I can finally upgrade / add a few things I couldn’t with the old one.
After I was done I took a close look at the old controller and noticed something of interest, to me anyway as I also do some PCB design work…
I thought it was interesting that dust had settled on a few traces. This happens to be the Y2 driver. The “Bridge x Power Supply” pins (one out of the frame) and “Charge pump flying capacitor” lines to be exact.
If you google for the effects of dust on PCB’s it can be an interesting read. Mostly for higher powered devices, but still some does apply here.
Looking around the board a bit more I saw this, a view of the driver IC and you will notice the dust on the pins, some even bridged with dust.
So whats the point to this…
Most of the dust I produce is from MDF and I doubt there is much to worry about here, but this did start me to wonder about dust accumulation from other types of material, especially if there is a metal element to it.
A common topic here is disconnects from static build up, or even seemingly random disconnects. If this has anything to do with that, maybe, maybe not, but I will make it a maintenance task to blow the controller out from time to time with some compressed air.
Can’t hurt and it if helps anything then fantastic.