Scott, You need better skills than the local fire department. You need someone who can read a power supply schematic and recognize design errors. The process starts with analyzing the propagation of the fire and if possible the origin. The focus of the fire is not necessarily the origin. Next comes an analysis of what components have failed, which first and how. Sometimes this is simple, other times it requires quite an arsenal of lab instruments and chemical analysis. If you wish to persue the investigation in detail, I suggest the International Association of Arson <http://www.firearson.com> Investigations or their journal "Fire & Arson Investigator" where you can find companies specifically working in forensic analysis of electronic products. Even among this group, power supply experts are rare. You may be better off going to a power supply design firm or expert rather than a fire forensic investigator for the best details. A lot can also be gleaned from testing similar samples under stresses like mains transients, high ambients (e.g. covered by papers or pillows), overloads, physical forces, etc. If you can simulate the event, you solved 90% of the problem. Once you know what happened then you can evaluate risk and choose corrective action. Everyone needs to be reminded that in the US you need to consider if a report to the Consumer Product <http://www.cpsc.gov/talk.html> Safety Commission is needed.
Bob Johnson ITE Safety <http://www.itesafety.com> Robert A. Macy wrote: Try your local fire department. They have an 'arson investigation' unit, skilled at finding the sources of fires. Else, try to find the hottest point and surmise WHY it started there. On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:44:24 +0800 Scott Xe <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]> wrote: I have heard such failure in catching fire during stand-by mode for long but never seen a real case. Recently, we have a returned multi-functional audio video product having such symptom: part of cabinet melted and the pcb around the power rectifiers area burned out. I tried to locate the possible causes of catching fire. However, under such circumstances, I have no idea how to start the investigation. Can someone point me out somewhere to have such investigation reports for reference/information or any guidance to such study can be shared. Thanks, Scott - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________ - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
