I connected a 9.6v power supply to my LV-168,a little smoke appeared, whoops I guess that was a mistake. So I went back to the 4.5v pack. At first the LV-168 would come on and run the program, but the backside, around the power connection gets very hot and now it comes on and shuts off immediately. What are my options? Can it be fixed?
Generally speaking, standard electronics aren’t designed to emit smoke, so when you see that it usually means that some component has gone poof. It sounds like the board now has a short between power and ground. Do you know where the smoke came from? Can you see any signs of damage on the board?
The smoke was at the power connections. There is no appearent damage to the board. Right at the connection is where it gets super hot. Is the thermal sensor shutting it down?
The thermal sensor is just a sensor, not a fuse. The device isn’t functioning properly because something melted and there’s now a short between power and ground. In general, several components on the board could be damaged now, including the microcontroller, which saw perhaps nearly 11 V (depending on how charged your 9.6V pack was) on a line that has an absolute maximum rating of 6 V. I don’t think it’s practical to try to fix the device, but we can offer you a discount on a new one. Please contact me directly at ben at pololu dot com if you’re interested.