I witnessed a triac going bad last night

[plasmadrive]

A couple of days ago I replaced a CTB16PC board because  a worm crawled in and snuggled up to a triac and became a slow long time arc path that destroyed the PCB.  I pulled out that G3 and put a G2 in it's place. Last night I was playing with my new surveillance camera and saw a light that shouldn't have been there. (It should have been dark)  It was the replaced controller with a stuck channel.. Well, I was playing around and watched as the lights dimmed, went out and came back on slowly... then kind of like jumping up and down in intensity.  Then on solid for some time.. then off and this repeated for quite awhile.  I finally went out and opened the controller and there were no signs of anything that would cause this issue.. clean, dry and no critters.  I finally just disconnected that output.. but I got to see that it didn't just short on.  It was a process you might say. I am guessing the internal substrate of the triac was migrating south for the winter.

 

Kinda ticks me off that it was the same controller that I just replaced though, but I am guessing this one is just going to be a triac and not a smoked board from a worm.. this I can handle....

 

[jeffl]

I replace a triac somewhere in my display almost every year.  But when you have 600+ I guess this isn't all that bad.  I just keep some on hand and plan for it.

[Dcroc]

Where do you get spares, and what is involved in replacing them?

Edited November 8, 2015 by Dcroc

[plasmadrive]

Where do you get spares, and what is involved in replacing them?

I hate to say it, but if you are asking these questions there is a very good chance you might ruin your PCB if you try to replace them yourself.... It is something that you will need the right tools for and some experience.  I may have it wrong for you.. but if I am not wrong, you might want to have someone that is geared to do this... do this for you...