HOT or Output Transistor on Fire!!

by Bob Roberts

Here's something that popped up back in 2006 first & I noted it on one of my Pages. The second time it came up was 2007 & I was not able to find where I had posted the problem onsite, so I tagged it onto another Page. As it has come up over the years I remembered it & relayed the problem through email. Rolling around to 2013 I missed what very well may be another case of this problem in an email request for help :-(

Well... however small the chance is of repeat problems, I believe it is time it had it's own Page that is easier to find... short as it may be, here goes:

The problem: Changing the HOT or an output transistor & upon powering up flames shoot out & fuses blow.

The problem as described by quite a few of y'all via email reports:

1 "It turns out that the "high end" thermal compound I have started trying to use on G07s has some capacitive properties (Arctic Silver), and today when I got the HOT mounted, I essentially got fire from around the pins (even though they were not shorted)."

2 "My flaming problem on my K7000 turned out to be some junk silver compound I bought from RS. It carries electricity better than my wiring!"

3 "Found my xy arcing problem. Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound was bad."

4 "The adhesive I used was grey(Radioshack--thermal) small 1oz tube 12 bucks! rip off..."... Used it on XY HV Diode!

5 "No more firepit! It seems Radio Shack sells some compound that is known to carry current!"

6 "Heat compound I bought from Fry's was the problem & I need new cables to the frame mounted transistors now as it is all caked in the holders. Can you help?"

Well... there you go... short & sweet, or bittersweet, as it were. My advice.. stay away from any compound with the word "Silver" in it!

Happy Gaming...