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August 29, 2015

Fixing A Track Light -Most Repairs Are Easy

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 2:56 pm

This is an instance of a seemingly intractable repair that turned out to be very easy. One light on my neighbour Klari’s kitchen tracklight system had failed, and the problem wasn’t the bulb. Having experienced Klari’s fine cooking, this was an important repair for me to do, to help her kitchen be in the best state possible for more!
This is a 120VAC to 12V conversion tracklight system. In this case, external visible inspection revealed nothing out of the ordinary. However, resistance check on the AC side showed an open circuit. I was able to get the back cover off the supporting electronics for the problem light, but the electronics themselves were potted in plastic, definitely not amenable to repair. However, after some prying with a wide flat blade, I was able to get the PC board for the unit out. (my friend Paul C. remarked on that technique before and has more skill at similar dis-assembly than I do; that helped inspire this attempt by me)

On visual inspection of the soldering on the circuit board, I noticed one solder joint off the AC input that looked suspect or broken. You can see it circled beside the orange arrow in the PC board photo. After resoldering that joint and some neighbour ones to be sure, I tested the light. Presto – the light works again. Luckily, this one fits within “most repairs are easy”.

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